J'taime the weather

Morning broke in La Rochelle and we decided to leave Kevin in the car park and look at the town in the daylight.  We followed GJs GPS thingy and made our way down to the harbour.

 

Sun took a while to come out but when it did - phew!

That's how the French serve a Café Latte - and boy it was good

Our next question was which restaurant would we choose for lunch - there seemed to be miles of cafes but most of them serve tourist food like burgers and pizza's albeit quality ones.  We chose one in the end and I had a caeser salad (very Italian) and GJ had a home-made steak burger with French cheese (more American I would say).  Both very good though.

The salad was in there somewhere underneath the chicken and pancetta

Crumbly burger

It would be nice to have a bit more French food though but as we cross France, you never know.  We called into a massive hyper market called Leclerc and bought lots of French cheese, meats, bread and flatbreads too - oh and lots of lovely cheap but quality French wine. We have been so fortunate with the weather that I have even broken out the shorts - no pictures of that though!  However, luck is not all on our side.  We had a problem with Kevin but of our own making. After leaving La Rochelle and heading to Puyravault again, this time with knowledge of how to open the gates and wait for Romeo the builder, our next challenge was to somehow get Kevin in through a narrow gate on the left hand side of a very narrow street

View from Elspeth's house to the end of the road shows how narrow this is.

 

I advised (because women have all the best most logical ideas) that GJ backed into the neighbour opposite's driveway and then drive Kevin straight across the road and into the gate.  The problem we had is when GJ had backed into the neighbours spot he then asked me to go to the front of the vehicle to guide him in.  Thing is that in making sure he would go through the gate we forgot about what was going on at the back and as Kevin went down a curb stone he wedged himself against a wall by his towing bracket.  Sacré bleu! The air was blue at this point and I didn't think it prudent to take photos.  So there we were, couldn't move backwards or forwards straddled across the road which thankfully is not busy.  The only thing for it was for GJ to get underneath Kevin and take the bolts out of the towing bracket (which is slightly wider than the van),  which when released, also took a chunk out of the neighbours wall but we managed to cover up with foliage. 

Worse things happen at sea! - but we've supposed to have passed that bit

And relax

This evenings meal with the spoils from our shopping trip.

Bonjour mes amis (I think)

Well we made it to French soil after a rolling crossing.  Because we hadn't had time for breakfast we decided to fuel up with a full English (French style - never order scrambled egg on Brittany Ferries)!  We docked at about 1.45pm local time and we decided to motor for only 60 miles to our first stop.  I used our "Motorhome Guide Camperstop Europe" book to find Guilberville.  A quaint little town built around the church but being expanded with modern housing (as seen behind the G).

 

The parking area had no hook up for the electric but there was a chemical dump so our batteries came in useful for running the TV - still catching up on loads of films that were recorded in UK.

There was only one other customer which meant it was nice & quiet (we're the one in the background).

We found a pâtisserie/boulangerie in the village so we made our first purchases, a baguette, pain au chocolate and a type of custard tart - Yum Yum.

Our aim the next day was to go to...

which is where GJ's cousin lives, about 17km from La Rochelle.  When we got to Elspeth's house, we took Kevin apart to find the keys which she had previously sent us.  As we couldn't find them, by a process of illumination, we contacted our friend Paul who is looking after GJs Range Rover until we come back over for it and he found them in the glove-box back in the UK. Sacré bleu!

We then had to contact Elspeth who happened to be in Australia and 10hrs ahead of us. So in order to kill time until we could realistically wake her, we motored down to the town of La Rochelle.  We were fortunate that there were a couple of designated free spaces left in the car park.

That's us, fifth one down.

As we were in the centre of the town, it made sense to go out and find some food so we left Bracken in the van and made it to a small square in the centre with a typical "Paris Bar" on it.  We couldn't resist the lights and ventured in.

I thought I was in a movie.  I had Blanquette de Veau (sorry for those who don't agree with Veal) and GJ had a blue rib eye.

Our first proper French meals - very nice too.

On reflection, we couldn't have planned things any better.  We managed to speak to Elspeth who arranged with her builder to let us have a key the next day, which is why we ended up staying in La Rochelle.  If we had managed to go straight to the house, we probably would never have actually taken Kevin in to the town and would therefore have missed out on the pictures that will be on the next blog.

Milage this time 292 miles

GJ H & Bracken

 

 

 

The rest of our British journey...

It's been a long time since we had decent access to Wifi so my blogs will come thick and fast when I do.
We left Padstow for Falmouth.  After settling in to our resting site on a little farm (only 5 pitches but all with electric hook up and chemical disposal - no showers or loo block) we decided to attempt a walk into Falmouth. 

Kevin up on his chocks again

Needless to say most of the sites are a walk (long walk) away from the nearest town but as Bracken needs walking, we don't mind really.  We found a pub en-route which we thought might give us the incentive to go further.  The pub dog was a chocolate lab who kept looking at Bracken but wouldn't come over to see him until we actually left and he went straight to where he had been sitting to check things out!  We followed GJs GPS thingy on his phone and found our way in after quite a long walk but as we strolled around the harbour, it was quite apparent that the majority of eating places were restaurants and wouldn't accommodate a dog.

We did manage a very mediocre meal here though.

We decided to get a taxi back and would you believe there was a firm called Abacus which was the name of the company that GJ worked for in Windermere.  Next day we walked down to the beech part of Falmouth

Walking further along, we came across a big square which housed various restaurants/bars and it also had the navel museum and part of the harbour that we hadn't yet seen - more for pleasure cruisers than working vessels

We decided to stop for lunch at an Italian restaurant called Zizzi and felt really swarve and sophisticated because we had a bottle of wine - at LUNCHTIME!  GJ had a pizza and I had a mixed seafood kebab which came out looking spectacular and was very tasty.

 I was pleased with it honestly - I just looked grumpy when he clicked the shutter

GJ did one of those wide shots.  It was quiet, it being October but look at the weather!

On our way back from the town, we stopped for yet another coffee...

This picture is for Axe if he is watching the blog!

We had purchased some proper Cornish Pasties in Falmouth so I made some onion gravy and we ate them with gusto.

 

We had tried to book a ferry from Porstmouth to Le Harve because they had pet friendly cabins and it was an overnight cruise. However because we are in a motor home it meant that we parked on the deck with the lorries and you can't get a dog up a ladder type stairway.  Plan B was to book from Poole to Cherboug which is only a 5 hr crossing and Bracken had to stay in Kevin.  Don't know why I was worried, he was fine and it was even a bit choppy. This meant an overnight near Poole but we were able to shower which was fab considering the previous two nights.  Up at 6am the next morning to get the 8.15 to Cherboug. There was a dodgy moment or perhaps I should say doggy moment when Bracken's chip wouldn't scan at check in but it all came good in the end.

Our ship

Will check in with the mileage on the next blog which should follow tomorrow.  See I told you they would be thick and fast!

H, GJ & Bracken

Rick Stein Land!

If anybody who looks at this is aware of who Rick Stein is, then you will have heard that Padstow is dominated by him. 
We arrived at our latest campsite near to Padstow.  The walk in was through a ploughed field (two nice tracks made by the farmer and because we have had glorious weather, was nice and dry)

 and then a walk through a cornfield which was eerie because the corn was so high but had a nice track through.

 Then we reached a straw field with huge round bales drying out in it, over various tricky styles with a dog!

 

 I'm so proud of Bracken - he approached those unusual styles with intelligence - weighing up the situation first before a mammoth jump.

 And finally a walk through some connibation to the harbour.

Down at the harbour, the first thing we came across was Rick Stein's Fish and Chip take-away with some outside seating, followed by Fish & Chip diner, followed by a deli followed by a fish mongers shop.  Walk a bit further and you come across his first restaurant "The Seafront", then a bit further into the village and you have a bistro/hotel, further still is the Stein's Café, B & B, Patissarie and a gift shop.  Only twelve businesses then within half a mile. No wonder they call it "Padstein" or "Rickstow".
On the first of our two nights here we decided to call in to Padstow and had a drink at The Ship where the boy I was with was much admired - no not GJ

then we decided to go next door to eat at an Italian restaurant called Rojano's

The food was good and the best thing about it was the patio heaters which are definitley required at the end of September when you are sitting outside with a dog.

Wild mushroom, truffle and spinach spaghetti (me)

The Italian job burger (GJ).  This was after a steaming hot bowl of salt and pepper squid.

The next day we decided to walk back down to the harbour to see it in daylight and get the Ricky experience.  We thought we would take a trip across the estuary by ferry to Rock but the tides were against us so we found a Pasty Presto, bought Portuguese Custard Tarts and coffee and watched the passers by.  Seems everybody who owns a dog comes to Padstow but no growling from our team - well not Bracken anyway.  We found Stein's café and decided we would like to have lunch there

but the Maitre'D asked us to wait another hour so we wandered off.  as I was coming out, who should be going in but Ricky Stein - how funny - still carrying his man bag!

We finally decided to go back to the large building at the start of the harbour that housed a few of the RS empire to have fish and chips - let's see if he is all he is cracked up to be?

I had beer battered lemon sole and it was very good and I liked the touch of a wedge of lemon and a sprig of parsley considering it was only a takeaway.

but then it should be at that price £19.00 for two meals without drinks (sorry it's sideways on).
We then visited his fish shop and I purchased a medium tub of large cooked prawns (£5.50) and a small tub of cooked muscles (£3.50) to make up a pasta dish when we got back to Kevin.  So back we trundled..

back through the subway that was also en route from campsite to town

Just a bit of good graffiti, back to Kevin

where I produced this with the seafood and some samphire..

The focaccia was from you know who's deli.  What a busy day -

Bracken proof reading my blog before...

even he couldn't take anymore

Mileage to date = 585 miles
Next stop is Falmouth
GJ,H and Bracken