Sunday 29^th July 2018

Cathy posting,

We are just bobbing around at a bit at the moment and loving every minute of it, this morning Pogo is parked at Cayeux Sur Mer (GPS N50.21500, E001.55325), we are still in Somme region, we moved just 22kms south a bit from Le Crotoy, it was raining a little and nice and cool which is good as the air con is not working, we’ve not switched it on since our flat battery and when we have a longer drive we’ll test it out, it’s a free Aire behind the sand dunes, we’ve come here as we’ve heard that if we are lucky we might see basking seals at low tide.

Dave spotted a parking spot in a largish bay of hedges with 3 other motorhomes, I said there’s room for 2 don’t you think? but he said no I’ll park in the middle in case we want to get our chairs out, well one thing we have learnt on this trip is if you haven’t already used the space with chairs or something then someone will park extremely close and guess what, yep, 10 minutes later a French guy literally launches his motorhome with a very fast reversing manoeuvre into the space between us and the next van, I was sitting typing and I thought he was going to hit us! our step is down and when we get out later there is only just room for our bodies between the step and his van, it’s our own fault for leaving a space with literally van only width on both sides, we have not done that before and lesson learned park moderately and do what others do and get your chairs out immediately, unless of course it says no camping behaviour which this Aire did not.

Once the rain had subsided we went to see what was on the other side of the hedge, we found a few trails to walk along and a path over the dunes, we saw immediately that there must be seals on the sandy flats as there were little groups of people stood around with cameras, we managed to see them with our binoculars even they were not too close, later we saw a couple of them bobbing their heads up and down in the water, we took a long walk along the beach as it was a lovely cool evening until a huge dark cloud decided to lighten its load on top of us!

Used the zoom on the camera from a distance

The whole area is being regenerated with walking and biking trails and dedicated Aires, another is in the process of being built, there were bill boards explaining the plans and €639,000 is being spent, however it still feels au-naturale, it’s great now but it will be even better, we will be back here again that’s for sure.

We walked back at a bit of a pace and dried off and after tea watched a DVD “The Field” it was a good film starring Richard Harris about an Irish land owner whose life changes dramatically when he tries to save his patch of Emerald field to the jeopardy of all else, it reminded me again of the reason we are renting our house out, it’s bricks and mortar and it’s been a great family home but we don’t need it more than we need to have fun and adventures.

Cathy x