Where's Bertie? He's in a stuffed-to-the-gunwales Aire at Capbreton at a cost of €10 (exact location: 43.63660, -1.44709).
Weather: Glorious sunshine and mid-twenties by mid-afternoon.
Our decision to get on the road earlier than originally intended today coincided with a whole bunch of other people also deciding to make a move. We didn't join the queue of five vans waiting to use the service point, but packed away slowly such that by the time we rolled off our pitch we only had a five second wait for the last van to vacate the service area.
Mimizan Plage, half an hour down the road, was our first stopping point and, being an out-and-back detour from our route, the only reason we went there is because I know that I went there as a child ("Mimizan: the pub next door", as my family always said. I have no idea why).
I didn't recognise anything there, but I suppose that the only thing that interested me at the time was the beach and one beach looks very like another. It is possible that it's the locaton I remember standing between my parents, holding on to both of them, and jumping huge waves. It could be the place I remember seeing an unconcious man (dead, even?) pulled out of the sea (something I'd completely forgotten about until I saw a surfer go under a wave whilst standing on the beach today). Or maybe those things occurred somewhere else entirely.
Our stay wasn't particularly long, as we didn't much like the motorhome parking area (only because it was isolated and almost deserted, which didn't look like the most secure location to leave Bertie whilst we explored). We parked up nearer the beach for a while, with the intention of taking a walk along the sand and we did make it to the water's edge, but then spent the next half an hour watching the surfers ride the huge waves, rather than walking.
After lunch back at Bertie, we considered going back to the motorhome parking area after all, but decided instead to head down to our next intended stop at Capbreton. The Aire here has a capacity of 133 and not for a moment did we expect it to be even half full.
We arrived to find it heaving, and clearly a surfer's spot. There were a handful of spaces dotted around, so we took one of them, deployed the levelling ramps and the electric cable, and went for a walk to the adjacent beach.
Surfers agogo! Mimizan Plage may have had better waves, but this is clearly the more popular location.
Big concrete bunkers, presumably from WWII, have subsided into the sea where they are gradually being broken up
We had been back at Bertie for an hour or so, when music started up in the now-brimming Aire and it occurred to us that we may have parked ourselves in our idea of motorhome parking hell. I quickly started looking to find somewhere else we could go, but we were too late. A few seconds later there was a knock at the door and it was the gardienne collecting the fee. With ramps and electric in use we weren't in a position to say we were just leaving.
It's now 8.30pm, so not late, but the worst culprit with the music is the van in front of us. We could be in for an awful night, spent wishing that we had stayed in the deserted (and free!) parking area at Mimizan Plage.
Motorhome parking hell? This is just one row of four, officially housing a total of 133 vans.
Weather: Glorious sunshine and mid-twenties by mid-afternoon.
Our decision to get on the road earlier than originally intended today coincided with a whole bunch of other people also deciding to make a move. We didn't join the queue of five vans waiting to use the service point, but packed away slowly such that by the time we rolled off our pitch we only had a five second wait for the last van to vacate the service area.
Mimizan Plage, half an hour down the road, was our first stopping point and, being an out-and-back detour from our route, the only reason we went there is because I know that I went there as a child ("Mimizan: the pub next door", as my family always said. I have no idea why).
I didn't recognise anything there, but I suppose that the only thing that interested me at the time was the beach and one beach looks very like another. It is possible that it's the locaton I remember standing between my parents, holding on to both of them, and jumping huge waves. It could be the place I remember seeing an unconcious man (dead, even?) pulled out of the sea (something I'd completely forgotten about until I saw a surfer go under a wave whilst standing on the beach today). Or maybe those things occurred somewhere else entirely.
Our stay wasn't particularly long, as we didn't much like the motorhome parking area (only because it was isolated and almost deserted, which didn't look like the most secure location to leave Bertie whilst we explored). We parked up nearer the beach for a while, with the intention of taking a walk along the sand and we did make it to the water's edge, but then spent the next half an hour watching the surfers ride the huge waves, rather than walking.
After lunch back at Bertie, we considered going back to the motorhome parking area after all, but decided instead to head down to our next intended stop at Capbreton. The Aire here has a capacity of 133 and not for a moment did we expect it to be even half full.
We arrived to find it heaving, and clearly a surfer's spot. There were a handful of spaces dotted around, so we took one of them, deployed the levelling ramps and the electric cable, and went for a walk to the adjacent beach.
Surfers agogo! Mimizan Plage may have had better waves, but this is clearly the more popular location.
Big concrete bunkers, presumably from WWII, have subsided into the sea where they are gradually being broken up
We had been back at Bertie for an hour or so, when music started up in the now-brimming Aire and it occurred to us that we may have parked ourselves in our idea of motorhome parking hell. I quickly started looking to find somewhere else we could go, but we were too late. A few seconds later there was a knock at the door and it was the gardienne collecting the fee. With ramps and electric in use we weren't in a position to say we were just leaving.
It's now 8.30pm, so not late, but the worst culprit with the music is the van in front of us. We could be in for an awful night, spent wishing that we had stayed in the deserted (and free!) parking area at Mimizan Plage.
Motorhome parking hell? This is just one row of four, officially housing a total of 133 vans.
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