So where to start... I have trouble to write in English, because I just spent the last week in the country of the OUI OUI and QUOI? (say it putting a strange face and for sure you will look very French!).
We left London last last Tuesday, no this one, but the one the week before.
After 2 days of Van preparation, we took the road at 21h30 for our little adventure: 2 gypsies, a goat, a dog and a cat.
For the ones that don't know, Mayday and Jack spent the winter in the UK (now they like Tea and snow... terrible). It was very expensive and traumatic to put them in a cargo plane to the UK (I hate laws and shit, ridiculous).
Phil (THE GOAT) needed sunshine (is getting very tired of Tea and snow) so we decided to do a road trip and head south until reaching 20 degrees at least!
So here we went, direction:
Phil has this amazing van, super hippy, with a massive bed, a kitchen and heater (very important when Europe is under rain and coldness).
We put our shit in the van, our animal in the van, a SUP board and a surf board on the roof and a bicycle in the back... proper GYPSIES!
Preparation, preparation....
So here we were... direction the Eurotunnel!
To take the Eurotunnel was a strange experience (that I spent most of the time sleeping by the way).
You take a train, inside your car, stay in your car, and when you want to realise, you are driving in the right side of the road and eating pain au chocolat! lovely!
As well, they don't even give you life jackets... really: I don't get it!! in a plane they give you one instead of a parachutte and you spend 40 minutes under the sea (you even have to equilize your ears) and they don't give you ANYTHING!
Eurotunnel, where is my life jacket??
So we drove and drove and drove a really long time.
I passed out on the back seat around 6 in the morning, I was in a coma... when a woke up, it was light (NO sun light, because it was grey, cold and rainny), but we were in a little village where we stopped for 5 minutes to do what everyone has to do has soon as they arrive to France: go to a Boulangerie!!
Oui, Oui, bienvenue en France!
In the early afternoon we arrived to a little village very close to TOURS and that was our first camp-stop.
We went into a little camp side, next to a river.
It was lovely... but shit, it was cold, and rainny, very rainny, so rainny than the next day the river next to our tent was so hight that the woman from the camp was very stressed that we got washed away... (again, without life jacket!?).
No, No, don't jump!!
Camp one
I look happy because I haven't seen the bathroom yet
The first day I realised that clean clothes was not aways an option, shower was not always available (vive les lingettes demaquillantes!), to try to broach my crazy hair, was definitively out of the menu and of course... to read a magazine when you go to the bathroom... was just non sens (I have been squatting for a week and now my legs are pure iron!!).
So that was the first night!
It was interesting as well that Mayday was jumping all the time in the river, and the smell of wet dog in a tent... is really intense!
The next day we left Tours, direction LA ROCHELLE, and the hope of sun...
No comment
The next morning was a little sad (a lot actually) because my dad called me to give me the very bad news that my dog NITROX was dead... after 13 years... it was a shock... but he was very old and suffering... so that was that... for me it was a quiet one until we arrived to La Rochelle and we reached the SEA!
Man the Atlantic is crazy! I love it!
We set up our camp number 2, and took a walk to the beach.
It was amazing.
Lots of people Kite surfing, beautiful.
And guess what? we got just a few minutes of sun... but not to much... enough to feel good, but no as good as the warm shower and the amazing washing machine that took the mud out of all our clothes!! Thank you technology!!
Mermaid purse
Bernard ca c'est pour toi, mais Mayday n'a rien compris!!
More to come...
Or, TO BE CONTINUED...
