So, after an early night, we woke up well rested and looked out to see a slightly damp Loire Valley… not heavy rain, just a bit of light drizzle.  It soon brightened up, and Stew put his PE kit on to go out for a run and I set about making a coffee.

What happened next was disastrous for both of us, in a first world problems sort of a way! So… I remembered that I had thrown the kettle out at the end of last years holiday, and this rendered the adamsons kettle less…. I improvised and boiled a pan of water and hung my head in shame at the terrible planning… meanwhile Stews run took a sinister turn when the muck spreader started…. it was a race to the end of the field! He arrived back sweaty with spots of pooh all over him traumatised by the whole situation.

We recovered, and met our neighbours… who have the most awesome camp kitchen! I’ve included the pictures as I do think that the Lealans need to see it!

We had decided to try out my back on a long bike ride… and loaded up the bikes, smothered us in suncream and headed off down the huge hill to find the town.  Directly out the site is a huge hill down to the river, and along the river is a cycle path, and it links into the Loire cycle network, though further investigation would have been good as we ended up a bit lost!  We had a pit stop at Decathlon to buy the children drink bottles and new cycle hats as their heads have grown!

We cycled on through the city and followed a sign to the castle, which was up particularly brutal hill… but we were rewarded with a spectacular view and a well positioned restaurant for lunch.  Hargreaves…. Stew wants you to know that he had a croque monsieur and is pleased to report that he enjoyed it!  Whilst we were sitting eating our lunch the couple beside us started chatting to us and it turned out that they are the Hargraves neighbours in West end… and that they had been looking after their chickens the week before! 

After lunch we headed off back down the hill, and had a look through the town centre… another classic french town with beautiful maintained buildings…. back past the military part of town, past the dancing horses and then on to our next stop, the wine caves of Saumur… sadly we were half an hour too late for the tour, but the building itself was beautiful, and I would love to return.

Back for swimming and a lovely evening with our neighbours…. who are going to a campsite we are at later in the hols too! 

Loving French France and all it offers!

What a short night sleep! We woke up in our little cabin to the melodic Brittany ferries musical alarm…. anyone who has ever been on a Brittany ferry (except Stew who loves it, and has tried to download it for his home alarm more than once) will have detected the slight hint of sarcasm! 5:30am!!!! Do they not know we are on holiday?

For our first stop we are headed to Saumur…. I'm a little anxious because, firstly it's away from the sea and I like to hug the coast in France, and secondly literally all of the campsites in the area were booked except this one, and it has dubious reviews! Still how bad can it be?! We have our own beds, and we will have a good explore!

We have borrowed a gizmo… I'm going to call if the beep beep gizmo which means that the tolls are going to be very simple… just beep beep and then mum and dad pay the tolls!! Highly recommended (though I'm not sure my mum and dad have realised that it's so much fun we will be zooming through France exclusively on toll roads now, slowing down all the cars who thought they could zoom about on the fast roads). Thought it was worth a mention as it makes it simpler if anyone's planning a long journey! https://www.saneftolling.co.uk/

Friends off to France…. don't forget a French adaptor plug for your cabin if you want to charge devices too!

We arrived in Saumur around lunch time and headed to the shops for cheese, meat, bread and wine… that's the menu for the next few weeks.

We decided to give the mushroom museum a swerve en route. We got everything set up whilst the kids went for an explore, then headed to the pool.

Meanwhile I read an unwelcome email from one of the campsite we booked threatened to overshadow the afternoon…. one of the sites we booked for 5 nights had over booked and cancelled… it was the second time we had experienced this and this left us with a weeks hole in the middle of our plans.
My pigeon French and some desperate phone calls have resolved our issues and I can't recommend "camping huttopia" highly enough. We now have ended up with the perfect itinerary and we are all sorted!

We are all exhausted! A busy couple of weeks and a long drive has accumulated in an early night, after a lovely BBQ and a game of crazy gold down the side of the beautiful Loire Valley.

The campsite is spot on…. chilled, simple and clean, with a stunning panoramic view of the the Loire valley…. tomorrow we will cycle the 9km into town for a good look and maybe a wine tasting! There are some dancing horses here so who knows what the day will bring!

I woke up early… I think I was excited!  I went to the loo and then walked along the beach to make sure that the sea was still there.  The girls went and brought the bread and we all sat down for a proper french breakfast, and lots of coffee.

We got ready and cycled into town.  We had a good look around the beautiful shops and bought some stuff to braid the girls hair. some ice cream.  There was a tragic accident, where we thought Euan might need hospitalisation, but then we realised it was just a graze!

We headed along the cycle path to the salt flats and had a look at how they make salt, and then cycled on to the next town l’epine for a picnic lunch.

Back to camp and the inflation of the flotilla was started…. we headed to the beach with 2 dinghys, a body board, 3 lay bags and a load of oars and loads of life jackets.  There was one slight drama with fraser floating away and stew having to swim out to rescue him.

We got back and showered, read some books and chilled whist the children played in the park then we went out for dinner.

Moules all round for the adults and pizza for the children, whilst they played table football and pinball. 

With full tummies, we headed back, put the children to bed and then lasted about 10 minutes before we hit the sack too!

We got up and packed away first thing.  The pack up seemed to take longer, though, but for once Stew and I left our shower stuff out and actually remembered to have one before we left!  We left on our journey north and said goodbye to the Hargraves who were headed further south.

It wasn’t a long journey up to noirmoutier so we went for a look in some shops on the way!  I had the highlight of my holiday, and found a wicker basket for the front of my bike!  We also got 4 lilows for all the children!

We stopped and bought some good seafood for an afternoon treat and then headed on to the campsite.  We started setting up on the most complicated tiny pitch, and waited for the arrival of the Lealans.  I received a text to say they were 10 minutes away…. so we waited and waited, and then the phone rang.  They were lost…. so i set off on my bike… and 6 miles later I found them looking sorrowful on the side of the road.

Once we found our way through, whealan was up in super quick time, and the Champaign and Oysters were open, the lilows inflated, and then we headed to the beach.

The children had a super time, and we headed back for a quick bbq , and put the tired children into bed.  The adults had a bbq in the dark, drank some wine and put the world to rights.

I’m a few days behind on the blog… my sincerest apologies for the interruption in service.  I shall try and remember what happened!

We got up and had breakfast, made a picnic and then loaded up the bikes with just about everything from the camper van and headed for the beach.  We got there and all took it in turns to blow up the boat.  Gemma and I decided that we had the ingredients for the next fitness craze… camp fit! We had watched some people playing in the waves the previous day with inflatable boats… and they looked great!.  We loaded the kids in and they all hung on for dear life!  Rapidly Amy decided it wasn’t for her before the boat capsized on a big wave and Sophie and Penny whimped out…leaving Fraser riding the waves.  Both Gemma and I took a turn each too with Stew steering the boat into as many waves as possible!

We had lunch and the children turned the boat into a paddling pool, and once again our camp fit class was effective trying to move a boat full of water up the beach… the tide was whipping in and we were against the clock.

The final challenge was the deflation and packing of the boat.. a real work out!

We headed back to camp and realised that there had been a few suncream malfunctions… In particular with me! 

The children went for a swim, and then we had a bbq for dinner. After a bit of sitting in the sun with  a gin and tonic for the girls!  I had to go to bed without dinner as I had had too much sun!

We woke up early…. somewhere between the excitement of my new coffee maker and the bottom noises from the toilets. I headed over to the on site shop for bread and pastries, and had my coffee…. mmmmm.

After breakfast I put the new bells on the bikes we had bought yesterday, (I “improved” mine with some nail varnish, unfortunately it took the tinkle sound out of it and made it sound like a frog!), and the children went for a swim with Stew.

We headed out on our bikes headed for Bretagnolles sur mare, a small town about 8km away.  It was along a really cool bike track, through woods and along behind beaches.  It was a bit like being on an off road track.  The beach was really different along the coast, more rocket, penny was sure it was where the mermaids would come to sing.

We stopped for an ice cream, and an Orangina, before deciding it wasn’t where we wanted to have our lunch, and we headed back in the direction of the campsite, stopped in for a few bottom issues with the children.

We made it eventually to the town (after penny getting stuck in the “water closet”) and had the most delicious lunch of seafood and deserts.

Back at camp we waited for the arrival of the hargraves…. we put their tent up and had a good chat….. and then security came and told us off at about midnight, and then again about 12:30.

After the disaster of our quiet evening last night, we woke up to Fraser having had a full 13 hours and being super chirpy!  Penny was slightly less excited it was morning.

We packed up and sorted out all the clothes I washed yesterday, and the children went to the pool.  One of the benefits of being right beside the pool was that we could watch the children whilst we packed up…. with the added benefit that the Scamps thought they were super grown up and independent.  It was hilarious to watch actually!

We had planned to head off and hit the beach for an hour, but with the sky full of clouds and the road full of traffic we changed the plan and decided to get off up the road.  As we moved along the jammed road my mum reminded me on a text that it was Black Saturday… the busiest day on the road in France.

Heres a french camping tip for you… when you don’t need to move on a Saturday, don’t!  We knew this but due to other factors we needed to move today, however it was super busy.  I used the traffic jam to good effect, spotting an oyster shop on the side of the road and nipping in for a dozen, and running along the traffic queue to catch the van back up… they will be nice later!

We finally made it off the island, and the traffic flow started to move nicely.  I made an attempt at getting an on the go coffee at the petrol station as the signs were all good… proper machine etc, but it still wasn’t the same!!  I’ve not seen a Starbucks in France!

We hit some more traffic as we approached the vendee, but we were in the middle of sunflower crops so it looked pretty!

We arrived around 3.30 and started setting up.and as we got out of the van something didn’t look quite right about the bike rack.  On closer inspection the tow bar mount was coming away from the van chassis.  Now even i realised that this was not a good situation.  How the whole thing didn’t fall off coming along the road is a mystery as it was really hanging off.  That would have been catastrophic for anyone behind us, our bikes and poor freckle. 

I called our international break down who didn’t inspire me with confidence.  They said that they may have someone who could look at it on Monday.  Since the man thought it was May, and then when I confirmed that they would call first thing on Monday, he said possibly, I feared that I couldn’t leave it to chance.  He thought that there was little point in trying to get the van fixed today, as everywhere would be shut and that the closest place they could offer was around 30 miles away.  Without the tow bar being fixed to Freckle, there are no bikes and no bikes would have been a disaster on many fronts.

Luckily we have stayed at this campsite since we first started coming to France with Archie and the lady in the reception is Irish and remembers us and always welcomes us like old friends.  I popped into reception and explained the situation.  She quickly called a local garage who were still open (by this time it was gone 4pm and the french don’t like working late on a Saturday) and they said that if we popped along they would have a look.

We hopped in freckle and hot footed it to the garage less than a mile away.  They were expecting us and said that if we left it with them that they would be able to weld it back together.  We were relieved when they told us to return at 6:30.  Luckily we were by the main shops so headed to Mc Donald’s, and I thought I would call the breakdown people.  They said that as I had found somewhere that could fix it today that they would cover the first £150 of the repair.  They called the garage and did the negotiation on price and at 5pm we received a call to say that the work was all done.  This is only the second time that we have had to use our breakdown cover for in all the time we’ve been coming to France, and yet again we have had some super service and been back on the road in no time.

Once back at the site, the Scamps managed a quick swim before the late night of last night caught up with Penelope and she needed to go to bed.  We quickly got some pizza for the chidrens dinner (a super healthy day food wise!!) and P went on to bed.

Fraser is off to bed now and Stew and I are hoping for a more peaceful evening and some oysters and steak!  We keep reflecting on what could of happened if the bikes had fallen off and once again feeling totally lucky!! Fingers crossed for peaceful evening!

Today started energetically with a run (for pastries!), with the children “coaching” me!  A quick swim followed by picnic preparation and route planning session.  We were still feeling accomplished after our 25km ride last night, and thought that as the routes are so accessible we would try another today. 

After breakfast we set off in the direction of Saint Martin de Re and hoped to avoid the situation we had the day of arriving in the middle of a busy town on our bikes… however Stew and his excellent map reading skills found us right in the middle of the town!  We navigated the busy streets, stopping briefly to watch some acrobats doing a display. 

We made it back out on the the cycle path again, and quickly found ourselves with vine yards on one side and the sea on the other. Probably one of my more favoured locations! It was slightly cooler today, so perfect temperature for our ride.  We started to pass oyster farms and I had a sneaky feeling that my food heaven might be around the corner!  We passed what I can only describe as a court yard with trestle tables with the tops made out of logs with high chars and an oyster bed in the middle.  I had already decided that we would have to pop in on our way back.  We went passed several more of these small oyster producers and their rickety restaurants, which all looked as amazing as each other.  Before long we arrived at the beach we had wanted to head for… but it looked rubbish.  Fraser was in a terrible mood and announced that he was as happy as he could possibly be but that was miserable, due to being asked to leave the pool earlier than he’d liked so we decided that we would go the extra 2km to a decent beach in the hope that his mood would be washed away by the sea.  Sure enough it was!  We had our picnic on the beach and the scamps played in the sea, but it was reportedly cold today.

After lunch we set back off along the path, retracing our movement back to the oyster place… it was much easier with the wind behind us and happy children!  We parked the bikes and found seats right beside the sea… that sounds like a great stroke of luck but there was only one row of tables, and they were all along the sea.  We ordered the dish of the day, the children got ice creams and headed off over the rocks to play on the shoreline, and then we realised they didn’t take card and we could only pay with cash!  Whilst I waited for the food to arrive, stew went as fast as he could back to the bank… he came back just as the children were tucking into his prawns and was rather hot and bothered.  We sat in the sunshine whilst the children pottered on the sea shore, popping back sporadically to pinch our food.  There were oysters, prawns, bulots (sea snails) and langoustine, each prepared slightly differently to any we had had before and all totally delicious and as fresh as you could imagine.  Ive looked up their website and if you are ever in the area its really worth a pop in!

In fact if you are looking for a great place for a holiday in France this is somewhere I would recommend.  Between the long cycle paths, there are interesting small towns, with markets and unique shops, long beaches,short beaches, sandy beaches, sailing, and lovely places to eat and have ice creams.  Im not sure id return to this campsite specifically, its not bad, we have just had better, but the location works well for everything we need.  La rochelle is in easy reach too, so all in all its a fab place to be and I think that I could even spend a whole week here…. maybe 2 if I didn’t have a camper!

The duke of Buckingham attacked Ile de re in 1627, unsuccessfully and the city of Saint Martin built defences shortly after.  We cycled through the gates to the city and managed to skirt around the edges of the centre and headed back past the campsite we had stayed at before.  We passed the file de re donkeys which we had been searching for!  quite a unique looking donkey and nicknamed the scabby donkeys by the scamps! Poitou Donkeys were apparently a status symbol in the 18th century.  They were big and stronger than ordinary donkeys and good to work on the salt flats around here. They also look like they are wearing pyjama trousers, which their owners add to stop the bugs getting them… and some owners even got them straw hats for added protection.

A little further we passed the prison, which had inmates until the 30’s.  It was used mainly as a holding site for prisoners who were off to french guiana for hard labour, few escaped apart from one chap who escaped on a sack of coconuts!

Thats enough history! We got back, having done another 27km and went for a swim, and I turned into widow twanky!  I did a couple of loads of washing but with no where really to hang it i’ve been playing the hokey cokey with it ever since!

The scamps, absolutely exhausted went to bed early… we’ve got used to them being up in the evening, so it feels quiet now, but they really needed to catch up on their sleep and there were no arguments at bed time!

Stew and I are preparing to finish off some wine and have a steak for our dinner, and just relax!

****This is the update… no relaxing… at 9pm, fraser is sound asleep, penny is not and they start blasting out hideous music at a volume their speaker can not cope with. Ive been in quieter nightclubs! Stew currently dancing to the YMCA and blaming the wine! grrrrrr how disappointing!****

This morning we decided that today would be a bike ride day.  Stew headed to the market in La Flotte for pastries and bread, and I took the children for an early swim.  We had breakfast and packed a picnic, and headed out.  It didn’t start that well as we ended up in the busiest street market i had seen with out bikes, needing to get through to the other side.  We picked our way through and managed to get on the right route for the bridge.  There is a large bridge which connects lie de re to the mainland, and I’ve always fancied riding across it.  I do love a bridge!  It was a good ride to the bridge and then up to the half way point with the children cycling really well and looking forward to the way down!  Once back we followed the coast around to find a beach.  We managed to find the perfect beach bar, with deckchairs on the sand, ice creams, a tightrope for the children to play on and right by the sea.  They were in and out of the sea whilst we sat and watched from the shade of the bar and enjoyed a glass of wine… cold wine!!

We left the beach and headed on around the coast, through vineyards and pine forests and eventually to a dead end with access to the beach.  There was literally us, another couple and a random man on a bike buzzing around…. we stopped and had our picnic and the children played, and we decided to head on…. as we arrived back at the bikes, it became clear that my gel sadle cover had been removed.

The rest of the journey along past a couple of beaches and through a few more vine yards was harsh on my tender bottom!

We headed back and hit the pool to cool down… I finished book 5 of the holiday and the children played before we all showered and headed down to La Flotte for dinner by the harbour. 

Back and into bed with Stew falling asleep in the chair after our mammoth 25km bike ride and a full tummy!  I went to bed and go to listen to the “entertainment” in the bar!