{"id":514,"date":"2012-05-18T11:50:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-18T10:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=514"},"modified":"2025-11-23T05:28:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T05:28:21","slug":"westward-ho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2012\/05\/18\/westward-ho\/","title":{"rendered":"Westward Ho\u2026…"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the 15th<\/sup> we checked out of, perhaps, the best campsite so far.\u00a0 The \u2018best\u2019 label may only be based on the fact that we could get wi-fi while sitting in Eileen; we didn\u2019t have to go and sit in a tent, or a reception office, or a chilly room, or even the local McDonalds.\u00a0 It was so nice just to pay for 24 hours and be able to check the news and sport and blog whenever we fancied. First task en route was to fill up on gas and diesel; this was the first time since leaving England that we had bought some gas and it turned out we had only used about 2\/3rd<\/sup> of the tank. And this brings me to another aside.<\/p>\n

We have had a request from Mr Johnson for more technical details about our trip. \u201cWe all want to know how the gas system is working, have you been able to refill it OK?\u00a0\u00a0What about MPG of the van? How’s the campsite electric (polarity) and Wi-Fi? How often do you have to empty the toilet tank? …. all that sort of stuff!\u201d\u00a0 Now, I\u2019m really surprised by the need for answers to all these questions, especially as I have no idea, I\u2019m too busy keeping Eileen clean and am always on \u2018stow-it-away\u2019 duty, so I will have to get Rodney to dictate\u2026..<\/p>\n

\u201cThe gas system is working very well and the fill-up wasn\u2019t too difficult\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>(a rather pretty lady did come over to help him\u2026).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re probably doing about 33miles per gallon or 11.5km per litre, maybe better than that\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>(I\u2019m happy with that, more money available for cheese and tarts).<\/p>\n

\u201cSo far, we\u2019ve only had one campsite that seemed to be all<\/span> reversed polarity, so we didn\u2019t bother with power that night\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>(no worries).<\/p>\n

\u201c Wi-fi really has been a bit painful, but we should be ok now\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>(as I said above, we\u2019ve really had to put time, thought and money into obtaining internet access, which is strange after you\u2019re so used to having it at your fingertips all the time at home.\u00a0 We\u2019ve tried Orange stores to get something going, but it took until yesterday to sort something out.\u00a0 Julia and Kevin and their 17 year old French fluent daughter Hannah (thank you so<\/span> much Hannah) took us to their local Orange store in St Gilles-Croix-de-Vie.\u00a0 So now we\u2019ve purchased a dongle and have 30 days, or a maximum of 2Gb, and an extra 100mb for the first 15 days.\u00a0 Hopefully that\u2019s plenty for our needs. We\u2019re not sure how we\u2019ll go with a recharge, especially as everything is in French, but we\u2019ll deal with that in a few week\u2019s time. So our only problem from now on, should be making sure we can find areas with good mobile reception).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re both trying not to use the toilet too much, apart from those middle-of-the-night dashes, so the toilet cassette has probably only been emptied about 5 times.\u00a0 The grey water waste has been more often than that, about every 3 or 4 days\u201d\u00a0<\/em> (he\u2019s doing a lovely job and I\u2019m supporting him all the way and if anyone wants a photo of these happy tasks, I\u2019ll be happy to oblige).<\/p>\n

As for the driving\u2026. we have only had a couple of incidences of being on the wrong side of the road, both times because there was no one around and I had my head down buried in a map.<\/p>\n

So, when we drove out of Ballan-Mire, on the correct side of the road, we headed for Langais which turned out to be another small town with a chateau, but no action.\u00a0 We only spotted about 5 people in town, all of whom were dashing somewhere with one or more baguettes under their arms.\u00a0 We drove further west along the banks of the Loire to Saumur as the clouds began to build again and then turn grey.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Chateau Langeais<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

As we parked Eileen below the huge castle-like chateau the rain came down.\u00a0 So we found the lovely Le Grand Bleu restaurant and tucked in to a 2 course meal du jour.\u00a0 As we finished the meal the sun came out and we spent an hour strolling around the lovely town.\u00a0 For some reason, we were both reminded of Cheltenham in England, it had that sort of feel about it, but with a castle.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Chateau Saumur and the River Loire<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

As it was still only mid afternoon we decided to put a few more miles under our belt and get a bit further west before camping for the night, so we drove to Cholet and checked in to the, very empty, Camping Le Lac de Ribau.\u00a0 This was the first campsite with reversed polarity, so we ate pate and salad, read our books and snuggled down to an early night.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday we drove through St Herbiers, La Roche-sur-Yon, Aizenay, Coex and on to St Gilles-Croix-de-Vie.\u00a0 We found Julia, Kevin and Hannah sitting in the sunshine on the front balcony of their house in the village of La Fenouiller.\u00a0\u00a0 So, true to form, we started Thursday with\u00a0three loads of washing and then we all went shopping and on to our, previously mentioned,\u00a0successful visit to the local Orange telecommunications store. We enjoyed another home cooked meal and good conversation for a second evening.<\/p>\n

Today, Julia Rodney and I went for a very windy walk around the headland from St Gilles to Sion-Sur-L\u2019Ocean for a hot chocolate and then the five of us went down to the Grand Plage for lunch.\u00a0 After lunch we bought\u00a0two huge bags of chi chis, the French version of churros, one with a cone of warm nutella to dip in to.\u00a0 Tres delicious!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Julia Laura Kevin Hannah & the churros<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Julia and Hannah have now flown back to their home in Holland and Rodney\u00a0and Kevin are trying to solve the financial problems of the world from the sofa.\u00a0 We\u2019ve decided to stay on a couple more days and get Eileen cleaned, inside and out, fix Rodney\u2019s bicycle puncture and catch up on some paperwork. So we are now about as far west as we can go and our next move will be to head south.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the 15th we checked out of, perhaps, the best campsite so far.\u00a0 The \u2018best\u2019 label may only be based on the fact that we could get wi-fi while sitting in Eileen; we didn\u2019t have to go and sit in a tent, or a reception office, or a chilly room, or even the local McDonalds.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8138,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions\/8138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}