Jeff: Welcome to France

So on Wednesday we had a 3.30 alarm to get to Dover and get on the early morning ferry (allowing for delays at the port). Fortunately there were no delays so we were near the front of the queue to get on the ferry. The ride over to France was smooth and the only issue was find the van at the end (I told Rich we should take a note of where we parked but he said it would be fine). Anyway we managed to find Jeff before we needed to drive off the boat so all was well.

We then drove for an hour and a half south of Calais to a small town called St-Pierre Benouville, in Normandy region, which had a nice Aire which was free (Rich's favourite word) and had free electricity and services for the van and showers for us (while we have a lovely shower in the van, sometimes its nice to have a shower in a real shower where there is loads of space). We had both just made it back into the van when the heavens opened and there was another thunder storm, so we had to chill out in the van for awhile. Once the rain cleared up we decided to go for a short walk to stretch our legs. It turned out to be a bit longer than the short walk we planned and we were out for about an hour and a half (we may have got a little bit lost) and once we found the van again we cooked and were in need of an early night after the long day.

As the weather was supposed to be bad the next day we choose to do a long, long drive (between 6-7 hours and longer than we would normally do) to get to the better weather. However we soon realised the weatherman was wrong and the day was lovely and sunny but we continued with the long drive down south in France. We did stop half way for a break and some food before continuing onto a small private Aire in St-Pierre de Maille, in central France. The drive took up most of our day but we did get out for a short walk and planned what we were doing the next day.

The next morning we were up fairly early to cycle into the local town called Angles sur L’Anglin which we had driven through the previous day and thought looked beautiful. The only slight issue with cycling there was we knew that most of the way back was uphill (not an issue for me but Rich was not looking forward to it). Anyway I decided we were cycling there and once we reached the town we explored for a while and saw the impressive fortress and very old Church before walking up into the town and heading to a boulangerie for a French baguette (when in France!) and a walk around the old town.

Once we cycled back to Jeff we got in and continued our drive South to Dordogne region where we have a few fun things planned over the next couple of days which we will include in the next update