Tues 23 May - leave Moissac, 5 hours to La Rochelle, rugby, Old Port, dinner

We spent the morning preparing the van for the trip north, and were ready to leave around noon. As we headed down the path to the van, the two cats took up their positions to say goodbye to us. I then went around to the Rue Gambetta front door and dropped the keys through the mail slot in the door, just under our interesting door-knocker.

We headed towards Bordeaux, but didn't stop there, because we were aiming to head further north to reach La Rochelle for the night. Five hours later, we arrived in La Rochelle and we lucky to get one of the last available spots at the Municipal Le Soleil Campsite. After we connected the power and set up our site, I went for a walk to explore the local area. Right next to the campsite was the La Rochelle Rugby Clubrooms and training grounds, with several mens and womens teams out there training enthusiastically.

When I checked the news on my phone when I got home, I realised that we might have arrived in La Rochelle a couple of days late, since their team had won the European Rugby Championship on the weekend, and the reception for the team at the Old Port after the match was quite amazing, as shown in the picture below. Now I realised why all the teams were practicing so enthusiastically on the nearby fields!

We wondered how long the Rugby celebrations would continue, but nevertheless we jumped on our eBikes and headed into town in the early evening to have a look at the Old Port and grab some dinner. The ride from the campsite to the Old Port was all on cycle paths, and was a delight. We cycled and walk around the port and then selected a restaurant (from the many available) for dinner. There were still many rugby colours on display, but just a few less people than were there on the weekend. I continued in my quest for the best Cafe Gourmand in France (7/10).

After a very enjoyable evening, we were back on our bikes and heading home, and got some good shots of the buildings around the Old Port; the twin towers guarding the entrance to the Old Port, and the combined castle tower and church spire.

Wed 24 May - Ile de Re bridge, kitesurfers, Fort, La Flotte, Ste Martin, Carib Cafe

After yesterday's long drive and late night, we had a bit of a late rising today. But we eventually got up and got the bikes ready for a trip to Ile de Re, an island just off the coast of La Rochelle.

The island is connected to the mainland by a long, high, curved toll-road bridge. But since we were travelling by bicycle, we didn't have to pay the toll. Also, we were glad that we were using eBikes, which made the climb up the hill manageable.

As we got to the island side of the bridge, we noticed that many kite-surfers were taking advantage of the strong winds.

We cycled along the northern coastline, and noticed many boats marooned by the low tide. However, when we were leaving the island much later that day, we noticed that they were anything but marooned, and were being tossed around by the wind and the waves.

After a quick break in a windswept outdoor cafe, we continued riding with the intention of visiting Fort la Prée. However, when we got there it didn't look all that enticing, especially for the admission price they were charging. So, instead, I took a picture of our bikes standing in a vineyard - much more French!

We continued riding along the north coastline, and sighted the old 12th century Abbaye des Châteliers standing in a field in the distance, which immediately made us curious for a closer look.

We then headed on to the nearby town of La Flotte, where we stopped for a late lunch in a cafe near the old port. When we arrived (around 1400h) the port was empty of water. But as we sat there it began to fill, and by the time we left La Flotte the boats were afloat. However, since high tide today was scheduled for around 8am and 8pm, it still had a way to go before it was full.

After lunch, we continued on to another port town named Ste Martin. This port is unusual in that in the middle of the port is an island, on which are located many hotels and restaurants. So we took advantage of that to stop for an afternoon drink, before riding south to the other side of the island where we were aiming for the town of Ste Marie. But when we got there, we got a bit lost, and then found that all the cafes were closed for the day. So we headed back towards the bridge back to La Rochelle. Luckily on the last road to the bridge we found a little Caribbean Cafe still open, and even though it was now getting a bit late in the day, the owner agreed to do a dinner for us.

And it was just as well that we had something to eat and drink, because the ride back over the bridge was a bit strenuous, since we were now riding straight into the wind and this, combined with the steep, long climb, meant that we were quickly draining the batteries in our eBikes. But we had just enough to get to the top, where we at least got a good view of the sunset over the Atlantic.

After that, it was all downhill from there, until we reached the campsite and a well deserved rest and beer, before turning in early for the night.

Thurs 25 May - noon departure, L'Orangerie, Chris and Barb, worktasks, dinner

Today was promising to be a good day for us, as we planned to catch up with good friends Chris and Barb, who lived in Marysville during the 2009 bushfires and were early members of the Pans on Fire Steelband. Since leaving Australia, they have bought an old Chateau in France, which they are now running as a Gite. But, after our long bike ride yesterday, we were a bit late rising, and hence were only starting to get on the road around noon. Indeed, we left our run a little bit late, because by noon many new campervans were starting to enter the campsite and I got locked in for about 15 minutes by a few vans who were manoeuvring their way into sites around us, and taking their time with it. But eventually we got underway and headed inland to Chateau l'Orangerie, just to the north of the town of Parthenay.

When we got there, we were very surprised. We had expected a fairly modest "chateau", but it had a touch of grandeur about it, from both the front and the back.

We had only intended to have a relatively short visit, but Chris and Barb were very quick to suggest that we stay the night, and so we pulled Vanumbra into a flat area in front of the Chateau and connected to power from a rental apartment that they also have there.

They had an event coming up at the Chateau next weekend, and when we arrived they were busy making preparations in the garden and some of the buildings. So to repay them for their hospitality, Rita and I pitched in to help them; Rita doing some gardening with Barb, while I helped Chris by sanding back a wooden bench in preparation for varnishing.

Later in the day, we joined Barb in the garden while Chris was preparing dinner. As you may be aware, I am a big fan of sunset photos, and normally it's the golden colours that provide the highlights. But this time, it was the multiple shades of green that brought life to the garden in which we sat at sunset.

The dinner was fantastic, and brought back memories of when we used to dine at the Terracotta Cafe in Marysville, run by Chris and Barb before the 2009 bushfires. Chris has lost none of his culinary skills, which he is now putting to good use at Chateau l'Orangerie.

Fri 26 May - brekky, work, swarm, Redon, Murat visit, ginguette, river walk, sunset

After a restful night's sleep in the van, we were up for breakfast with Chris and Barb, and then out in the garden to finish up the work we started yesterday. After this was finished, we bid goodbye around 1100h, and headed north west to Redon, where we planned to visit Nadine and Dominic, the parents of Nico (our builder). Along the way, near Nantes, we ran into heavy traffic, but it was not too bad. We also encountered a swarm of bees (or wasps) which obscured our vision through the windscreen, but most of them seemed to bounce off, rather than splatter on, the windscreen (we were glad we were not on a motorbike or in a convertible car). When we reached Redon, we found a lovely treed riverside campground (on the River Oust) and settled in there.

Like many of the campsites we have seen so far, this one catered for a mixture of campervans, caravans, tents and glamping. The glamping sites here were interesting elevated tents on wooden structures.

In the afternoon, we hopped on our bikes and headed south a few kilometres to visit the Murats. Having visited Nico and Miyu just last week near Moissac, it was appropriate that we closed the circle today by visiting Nico's parents. It was a pleasant afternoon with lots of chat and a couple of cool drinks. In the late afternoon, we headed back to the campsite for a quiet dinner in the shade next to the van. The nearby Ginguette was starting to liven up for the evening, but it was not too noisy, and anyway it was happy noise. We brought the day to a gradual close with a walk along the river and a very soft sunset.

Sat 27 May - Hawks, Rochefort en Terre, Malestroit, canal, horns, gallette, sunset

Having subscribed to the WatchAFL website which allows AFL games to be watched overseas, I got up early this morning to watch the Hawks play the Saints, and they rewarded me by coming from 20 points down in the final quarter, to kick the last 5 goals of the game and win by 10 points. The young Hawks team can play some good footy, but as yet they still need to learn about consistency.

Since the Redon campsite was so nice, we had thought about staying another day, but in the end we decided to move on. So after a quick stop at Redon Intermarche to stock up on provisions, we headed north, with a first stop at Rochefort en Terre. There are many "Rochefort" towns in France, so each has to have a descriptor added to the name, and this one is "en Terre". This was an interesting town, with two very different personalities. On the one hand, it had a substantial chateau with associated features, but on the other hand the main street was very commercialised with lots of touristy shops.

The front of the chateau was very impressive...

...with a cute stone chapel in the side yard.

But in between the chateau and the chapel, the grounds were overgrown and unkempt.

The rear of the chateau was even more of a contrast, with the topiary trees well cared for, but the rest of the gardens left to themselves.

From the elevated position of the chateau, I was able to capture a view of one of my favourite aspects of French architecture; the varying shapes and sizes of the rooflines along a French street.

While we enjoyed walking around the chateau grounds, the touristy features of the main street got a bit too much for us, so we left early and headed to our destination for the night, Malestroit, where we booked into Domaine les River de l'Oust, a nice campground right on the river/canal that flows through Malestroit.

It didn't take Rita long to settle into a relaxed mood, despite the honking of the car horns that signified that it was a Saturday in France, and that a wedding was taking place somewhere in town.

After we got tired of relaxing, we decided to go for a walk into town along the river to explore Malestroit a little. Along the way, we saw a house overhanging the path with wooden beams cantilevered out, and featuring carved gargoyle-like faces adorning the ends of the beams.

We continued into the centre of Malestroit, where we found several cafes, including one which specialised in galettes (the Breton name for crepes). So since it was getting close to dinner time, we decided to treat ourselves to galettes and Brittany cider. We then wandered further down the canal and, even though we are travelling by campervan on this trip, we found some interesting barges, including this classic Dutch Tjalk. Since the Brittany canals are separated from the rest of the canals in France, we wondered how this barge had got to Malestroit - maybe a sea voyage, since it is equipped with sails and side keelboards?

As we ambled back to the campsite, the sun set behind the old town, with the classic golden colour, as opposed to the green sunset we had at l'Orangerie a couple of night's ago.

Sun 28 May - Becherel, libraries, St Suliac, bikeride, peas, beach, palet, sunset

We woke to a sunny morning, so we took  the opportunity to have breakfast in the sun. Then we were on our way north again, for our last evening in France for quite a while. Our first stop for the day was at Becherel. When we got there, we checked the town noticeboard map, and were surprised by the number of libraries and bookshops in the town. So we thought it would be worth exploring. As we entered the old part of the town, we were impressed by old stone buildings and the roofline of the church.

But as we further explored the town, we realised why it was known as the "City of the Book", with eleven bookstores and libraries in this very small town. Around the Town Square, flying the Brittany flag, there were 4 bookstores within 50 metres of each other, with the rest scattered along the adjoining streets.

Unfortunately, most of the bookstores were closed, since we arrived at lunchtime, but nonetheless it was a enjoyable stroll around the town. Soon, however, we were back in the van and headed to our final destination for the day at Saint-Suliac, a town on the estuary south of the coastal town of Saint-Malo. We had thought of going to Saint-Malo itself, but given that it is a popular tourism destination (see photo below) and it was a weekend, we knew that Saint-Malo would be very busy and it might be hard to find a campervan spot. So we opted for the less busy town of Saint-Suliac. As it was, we got one of the last free spaces at the Saint-Suliac campground, so our decision may have been correct.

After we had settled in, we jumped on the eBikes to go explore the region. Our first ride was down to the oyster farms to the north of Saint-Suliac. Again, we were grateful that we had eBikes as the ride from the oyster farms back up the hill to the campground was very steep. Along the way, we found some pea farms, so Rita decided that this would avoid a trip to the shops to get some snow-peas for dinner. Given the large acreage of the pea farms, we figured they wouldn't miss the few that we sampled.

We then decided to ride to the south of the campground, to the actual town of Saint-Suliac, which is nestled on the shore of the estuary. This town seemed like it was out of place to me. Coming from Australia, most waterfront towns in such a location would be much more casual in their architecture, with a mixture of weatherboard and timber buildings. But Saint-Suliac retained the French style of lots of stone buildings and the ubiquitous church spire.

When we got down to the town, it was crawling with people, all out for a Sunday in the sun (we were now doubly glad we didn't go to Saint-Malo). The juxtaposition of sand and stone seemed even more unusual up close. We quickly realised that there was no space along the sandy shore to leave our bikes, so we headed up to the higher part of the town around the church. As we were walking along, we noticed a group of local residents playing a game which we did not recognise, involving throwing metal discs at a wooden board laying on the ground. We watched for a while, trying to work out what the purpose of the game was, until they paused for a break and then Rita went down to talk to them to find out what they were doing. It turned out that the game was called Palet and was similar to petanque, but played with metal discs rather than metal balls. There seemed to be three skills involved: 1. getting the disc to land on the board,   2. stopping the disc from bouncing or rolling off the board, and   3. getting the disc to stop as near as possible to a smaller target disc that had initially been thrown onto the board. After they had explained the game to Rita, they invited her to have a try, and after a few errant throws she got one to stay on the board. She then called me down to have a go, and I reluctantly agreed. One of the locals gave me a bunch of discs, and with my first throw it landed on the board near the target. I don't know who was more surprised; me or them (Rita captured the moment of surprise on camera). I tried to stop while I was ahead, but they insisted I keep playing. After five discs, I had three on the board. I think they thought that perhaps I was an out-of-town hustler!  Once again, this encounter demonstrated the friendliness of French rural people.

We continued our walk through town, had a quick look inside the church (too many people inside for Rita to play her flute!), and then kept walking. As Rita was taking a picture of the church gates, I spied the opportunity for an interesting photo of shadows.

Later that evening, we walked to a lookout we had spotted earlier in the day and got a nice shot of the sun setting over the estuary.

Mon 29 May - drive to Cherbourg, cab, slow, Guernsey, Poole Harbour, campsite

We slept in for a while (the campervan is surprisingly comfortable for a good night's sleep), but finally got up to prepare for the final leg of our trip north in France. We had originally intended to visit Mont Saint-Michel on our trip north, but forgot about the weekend tourists over the last two days and now we wouldn't have time to visit and still get to Cherbourg in time for our ferry departure. So we resigned ourselves to doing that on another trip. As we drove along the highway, we did see it in the distance for a few seconds, and I include this photo of what we might have seen if we'd got there at the right time of day (when the tide was not in, and the access road was not flooded).

As we drove to Cherbourg, we kept seeing reminders of the involvement of this part of the world in the first and second World Wars, such as the roadsigns to Utah Beach. As we neared Cherbourg, we kept checking Google Maps to make sure we were headed for the correct ferry terminal, when we were passed by a London Cab. I figured that it was going to England so we stayed on his tail and finally ended up behind him in the queue at the customs gates at the terminal.

The customs processing was very slow because their IT system had broken down, and all the checks were now being done manually. As the scheduled departure time approached, we were starting to get a bit worried. But as the time got shorter, they started working harder (or maybe they took some shortcuts with the processing), and we boarded the ferry (as the last vehicle to board) with 5 minutes to spare. We then walked upstairs to the general seating area and settled down for the trip to England.

Unbeknown to us, however, instead of heading north to Poole, we started heading south to the isle of Guernsey, where we were informed that we would be doing Customs Clearance for our entry into the UK (given that Guernsey is a part of the UK). The trip south was relatively smooth, but I was a bit surprised at the speed of the ferry; once out of the harbour at Cherbourg, it travelled along at quite a pace.

The Customs Clearance at Guernsey was chaotic, to say the least. Everyone had to get off, including those staying in Guernsey and those just transiting on to England. We were advised to make sure we had our passport and boarding pass when going ashore, and to just follow instructions whilst in the terminal. We followed the long line of passengers and the first interaction we had with customs staff was with a young guy who asked for, and kept, our boarding pass. We then had out passports checked and stamped, and were told to proceed to the Departure Lounge. However, when we got to the Departure Lounge, another customs official asked us for our boarding passes! We explained that they had been taken by a previous custom officer (pointing to the young guy standing on the other side of the room), but she said "I'm sorry, you'll just have to go get another boarding pass", but was unable or unwilling to tell us where we could get another one from. By now, there was a group of transit passengers in the same situation as us, milling around and wondering what the hell was going on. Instead of trying to find where to get another boarding pass, we argued/discussed with the customs officer as to how we could get our original passes back from the guy who took them and she simply said "I don't know - it's not my job". Luckily, another officer in a nearby room heard the raised voices and the milling crowd and came out to see what the problem was. She went back into her room, and came back out with the bunch of boarding passes that had been collected. She then went through them with each transit passenger to return their boarding pass to them. It would seem that the young guy was new on the job and didn't know only to take the boarding passes of those not transiting. But the attitude of the second customs officer was indefensible. Thanks heavens for the third customs officer.

Once back on board, we had a chance to look around the port. Initially we couldn't see much because another ferry was moored directly across from us on the other side of the quai.

However, while we were waiting, the other ferry departed, giving us a much better view of the harbour.

But it's hard to judge what Guernsey would be like just looking at the port and the harbour. Unfortunately, my lasting memory of Guernsey will be incompetent and rude customs officials. This is not a great introduction at the gateway to the country, and hopefully not an indication of post-Brexit characteristics that are supposed to "make the UK great again".

The remainder of the trip to Poole was uneventful, the best part of which was getting two bottles of duty-free Johnny Walker to stock up the bar in the campervan. Within a couple of hours we were getting ready to enter Poole Harbour, apparently the largest natural harbour in all of Europe (if the UK were still part of Europe). It was indeed large, and with some good scenery and with many sailing boats out and about.

We were arriving in the early evening, and the sun was starting to set, so I thought I'd get a sunset photo, but in doing so the iPhone camera automatically adjusted the exposure and so it was hard to tell whether it was a setting sun or a rising full moon.

We had expected that being the last vehicle to board, we would be the first vehicle to alight. But this was not to be the case, as some vehicles had also boarded at Guernsey and were parked ahead of us. And then the ferry workers decided to empty all the cars on the upper deck before releasing the larger vehicles on the lower deck.

Our first task on arriving in Poole was finding somewhere to stay for the night. Irene Plunkett had told us about a parking area just inside or outside of the port area, but as we left in a long row of vehicles, we saw no sign of it. So we looked at the campsite apps and, unlike France where there are generally plenty of options, we found only one campsite in the Poole region. When we got there, they were full, but managed to squeeze us into a disabled space, for 44GBP per night! And during the night, the power went off anyway!

So our introduction to the UK has not been great, with incompetent and rude customs officials in Guernsey, and an overpriced campsite in Poole. We just hope it will get better over the coming weeks.