Tapp's Travels

We’ve only been in France for eight days and we’ve already had three bank holidays!  And two of those have given us a problem!  The weekend we arrived was a celebration of Victory in Europe Day and the following Thursday was Ascension Day.  And most French people seem to like taking the odd Friday off to make a very long weekend.  We met two of those today!  Going golfing in Lorient for four days!

On the boat, we were given a spot right near the front door.  Too close really.  Getting out of this corner is going to be a tight manoevre with the caravan in tow!

Actually, we were facing the back door.  Apparently, the front door that failed to open for us last year is still waiting to be fixed!  This time though, all vehicles did a U-turn on the boat.  Up on the port side and back down the starboard.  So everyone was ready to roll.  There would be no need to reverse off.  Also, there were only 150 vehicles on board.  Realistically,  everyone would be ashore within 20 minutes.

The first major issue was going to be the much vaunted and anticipated requirement to comply with the recently implemented EES security checks.  The checks which have been causing scores of travellers to Europe to miss their flights home.  (Indeed, at least one flight left ALL its passengers behind and flew home empty.)  These are the same checks that Greece has waived for all travellers (in sensible support of their country’s tourism trade).  The same checks, indeed, that work like clockwork every time we go through Singapore and Hong Kong airports.  These have been in place for years now.  How can the EU stuff things up so badly?

Well, EES was indeed anticipated, but totally NOT in place!  Immigration officers manually checked our passports.  Just like they have done every year since Brexit!

The second issue relates to milk.  And to butter.  And all dairy products and fresh meat and even some fruit.  These commodities are on the black list.  Banned.  Even French cheeses imported legally into the UK cannot return to their country of origin in our possession.  Excellent!  So we need to hit the supermarket before we can have a decent cup of tea.  No one inspected us.  They never have.  I didn’t see anyone manning any inspection point.  To be fair, I didn’t even spot any likely inspection site.

Within 10 minutes of disembarking we we free to wander.  Just as well really, because our pre-booked (because it’s a national holiday) caravan site closes at 9 pm.  Our boat docked at 8 pm.  The trip to the campsite is timed at about 35 minutes.  No stress, then!

After a few minutes on the road, it started to rain.  A few minutes later, the rubber blade of one of our windscreen wipers broke.  Luckily this was on the navigator’s side, not the driver’s!  Luckily also, the caravan site didn’t actually have any barriers to shut us out!  However, access to our chosen pitch was via a narrow twisting path with wild, trifid-like hedges and the occasional protruding rock waiting to cause us chaos.  We will worry about getting back through the maze from hell in a couple of days time.  We will also worry about wipers tomorrow.

The site was delightfully quiet with lovely open rural views across a field with a couple of donkeys and a Shetland pony.

But the site is geared up for younger clientele.  Much younger.  It’s going to be very busy when these diggers and tractors get mobilised!

Little did we know!  A couple of days later we woke to find our view had changed.  The tractors and diggers really had got busy.  I’m sure they were smaller when we arrived!

New drainage is being installed …

Then a new shower and toilet block arrives … on the back of a truck!

… and is put into position.  Just a little late for our “convenience”!

The one obvious advantage to us was that the truck had demolished a lot of the trifid hedge.  While he had sucessfully negotiated the maze on the way in, the driver managed to get stuck on a rock going back out.  He wasn’t a happy bunny and took a load more vegetation with him along with a badly damaged back corner.  The more intrusive of the branches that had survived the truck in the narrowest section seemed to magically disappear later.  Well, one has to make hay when the sun shines!

Wiper blades.  There are two BMW garages near here.  We know.  We visited both of them.  One of them four times!  Although listed as open till 6.30 pm, that’s OK if you want to buy a whole car.  We just needed a couple of small bits.  The parts departments keep MUCH shorter hours and take two hour lunch breaks.  They don’t open at all on public holidays.  In the end we are informed that our wipers are not in stock.  They have to come from Strasbourg!  Three days delivery time – maybe four over a holiday – which will happen.  French wipers are different from their UK counterparts.  They wipe the opposite way.  And that’s because the French drivers sit on the wrong side of their cars!

After several long and involved telephone conversations with BMW garages near our next destination, we elect to sit it out here and get them on Friday, or possibly the following Monday!

So we have time to explore an area of northern Brittany, which we have passed through many times but rarely stopped to admire.  The coast is wild and rocky.  The cliffs and beaches are littered with granite boulders, both massive and even bigger.  Coastal waters around here are home to hundreds of rocky islands  And if we go a little east, the granite takes on a beautiful pink tinge.  Welcome to the Côte de Granit Rose.

Between rocky headlands there are dozens of sandy beaches.  Some short and some many kilometres long.  All of them extend a long way out at “Marée Basse”.  This is because of the substantial tidal range in this area which can be between five and ten metres along the stretch of coast between Roscoff and Mont Saint Michel.  That’s a lot of water moving about.  In and out, twice a day.

Fabulous.  Shame about the temperature which was  recorded as “12.5°C with a real feel of 8° C” one day and actually 8°C another day.  Distinctly chilly.  But at least we get sole use of the beaches!

I think that’s a great place to stop.  Our windscreen wipers (known locally as les essuie-glaces) may arrive tomorrow.  Or maybe not!

Luckily we found a bottle of UHT milk in the back of the car when we arrived – don’t quite know how that happened!  However, we did get a cuppa on arrival!