Back On The Road…Yet Again

It’s all about positive thinking

Monday 2^nd May 2022

Setting off from Julia and Kevin’s house we encountered a little light rain.  “That’s not on” we said. We only want dry weather, thankyou.  Ah well it’s mainly a driving day.  It had stopped by the time we reached Luçon where we walked into the biggest supermarket we think we have ever seen.  This E-Leclerc seemed to sell everything you could possibly want; you could even rent a car, or a van.  We only needed to stock up on some fresh food (yes Wendy, that included more cheese), a big bottle of drinking water and a new pillow. But we spent a lot of time wandering in there fascinated by this supermarket city.

Beside the road from Rochefort (not the cheese place) to Marennes was a long row of massive metal electricity pylons. On top of each one, a square metal basket had been constructed and in each basket a pair of storks had created their enormous nests. It was quite a sight to see, but too hard to photograph clearly whilst on the move.

The long bridge over the channel took us from the mainland on to the Île d’Oléron and we drove about 2/3^rd the length of the island.  At 3pm we stopped at Camping Le Suroit and chose a pitch as close as possible to the beach; lovely.  The awning was rolled out and the groundsheet spread out for the first time and we settled in for 3 nights.  Julia and Kevin managed to check into a cabin just 50 metres from us. We all ate duck for dinner in the Restaurant Le Coq, and then plotted a plan for tomorrow ….. which changed to something completely different the next day.

Tuesday 3rd May 2022

Both of us overslept, so knowing we had guests for breakfast at 8:30am, it was a mad dash to the bathroom, put the bed back up and lay the table for brekky. After breakfast, we left Reggie parked up on site, hopped into the Charltons’ car and set off north to the top of the island.  Our first port of call was at Plage de Chaucre for a beach amble.  Next stop was on the most northerly point of the island where we wandered around the base of the Phare de Chassiron, which was a jaunty black and white stripe affair, but not as impressively tall as our two previous lighthouses.  As lunchtime is strictly between 12 and 1pm in France, we didn’t want to chance driving to Saint-Denis d’ Oléron and fail to find somewhere in time, so we ate well at the Crêperie Côté Phare and then drove over to the east coast of the island.

We had little strolls around Saint-Denis d’ Oléron, drove through La Bree-les-Bains, had another short stroll at Saint Georges d’ Oléron and then headed back to the campsite to relax pre-dinner. It’s been very easy for us having the Charlton Chauffer Service available.  It has saved us having to put down the awning whenever we want to drive somewhere, which is what we did this evening.  A seafood dinner in the Restaurant La Gaietté further down the coast in La Cotinière was a good spot to choose because we got seats up on the terrace of the first floor which commanded a good view over the busy fishing harbour.