More detailed comments on the campsites we stayed at will appear in the relevant section and the mpg we achieved will also eventually appear in the appropriate place when I’ve found all the diesel receipts (carefully filed in different pockets, nooks and crannies whilst en route) but I think it was a considerable improvement on my domestic mpg.
The photos on here are clickable for a short slideshow in each case (took 322 photos in total and you really don’t want to see them all, I’m sure so I've just put a few up each time!!). There’s not much stunning scenery I’m afraid, just people, the Bongo and campsites!!
If you can’t be bothered to read the rest of this, there’s a closing summary at the bottom.
We (that’s self, hubby and Satan’s Little Helper) had agreed back in February to meet up with brother in law, his partner, her daughter (4) and his son (12) at their chosen holiday destination at Le Sylvamar camping village at Labenne-Ocean near Biarritz. As they travelled from Dover to Calais and took a different route through France, we elected to make two stops (1 x 1 night and 1 x 2 nights) on the way down and meet up with them on their second day there. We travelled on the overnight ferry from Plymouth to Roscoff (Brittany Ferries). We decided on this option because SLH would be running up and down the stairs all crossing if we had a daytime one!!
Arrived in Roscoff to drizzle and set off for our first campsite which was selected purely on distance from Roscoff and then by sticking a metaphorical pin in the map (said map being on the computer, being part of my fancy new mapping software for the GPS (see http://www.igmaynard.co.uk/bongo/forum/ ... 48&t=33639 at the bottom of the page). When planning the trip I’d worked out where we would be mid-afternoon as if SLH remains stationary beyond about 3pm he is buzzing around like a mad person long after we want to go to bed, so no full day hihg-mileage thrashes for us EVER! We have learned the hard way – get to where we are going early, and spend four hours wearing him out. Each of the stops I chose had a play area and swimming pool which was made much use of in each case.
First day – 227 miles. After a breakfast stop at Le Relais de Bellevue in Guingamp (and to change drivers – as I had had a better night’s sleep than beloved), another stop somewhere before Rennes because I’d just gone past what seemed like 15 miles of traffic cones and needed to give my eyes a rest, and a third stop at a McDonald’s near Heric, we arrived at the Le Domaine de l’Eden campsite at La Boissiere de Montaigue (south east ish of Nantes) at around 3pm still in drizzle but with rain mixed in. We had a bit of a job finding it as there was a diversion in place and stupidly the GPS was still set to “pedestrian” (which would explain why it also took us through the middle of Nantes instead of around it)
. Anyway, it was easy to get out of the following morning – a few miles from Junction 4 of the A83.
On the second day (258 miles) we cheated a lot and made use of the autoroute for a good part of the journey. Apart from the Bordeaux peripherique (which was, coincidentally where the sun came out) we encountered few traffic problems although funnily enough, there was traffic queuing in the opposite direction when we were travelling both south and north again. Our destination this time was the Camping du Lac, a municipal site, on the shores of the Biscarrosse lake at Ste Eulalie en Born for two nights. It was fabulous. It’s the area I would have chosen for the main part of our holiday had I been choosing, so we had to check it out and we will definitely go back. Very taken with the endless scenery of pine trees (even if it did get boring – you just don’t see it on that scale in the UK and most definitely not in Cornwall).
The weather was definitely hotting up as we headed off the 116 miles to our main “base” Le Sylvamar. We probably didn’t need to drive quite so far but instead of going “backwards” to a motorway junction, we started off southwards and then had to take a substantial diversion to get fuel after the low fuel warning light went on (don’t look at me like that – I suggested we fill up on the previous day (a Saturday) but HWMBO insisted we were fine “for a bit”)
. Anyway, we think we know that based on what I put in the tank, there are least two gallons left in there when the light is on to help you find a French petrol station where you can get fuel on a Sunday!!!!!!). Le Sylvamar isn’t so much a campsite but a “camping village” owned by a French company called Yelloh! but which also has mobile home/chalet thingies belonging to Thomsons and Happy Camp and no doubt others, as well as, I think being used by Keycamp and Eurocamp. We met up with the rest of the tribe and their new acquisition a 1992 LH drive Fiat Ducato based Hymer Camp 56 which they have christened “Gaylord” (hence our Bongo being referred to by the name we chose when we bought it, but have never used until now). And they only went out to buy a bigger tent 
!!! First time I’ve seen inside a “proper” camper (or is it a motor home) and whilst I liked the living space, what did we all use for supermarket forays and a day in Biarritz. Yep!! We all piled into the Bongo (but still had trouble finding somewhere to park due to a lot of 1.8 metre restricted underground car parks in Biarritz. Parked in an on street metered place though – once we found an empty one). Seymour 1 – Gaylord nilSo we didn’t do much sightseeing (mostly on account of our three year old and their four year old) but we did manage Biarritz!! Really rather nice it was too and at just €4 for four hours parking and €2 for a wonderful ice cream it was cheaper than a day out in Falmouth!!!! We had sunshine that day but for the week we were there we had two totally blue sky days at 32 degrees C, two overcast days at about 25 degrees C, two “sunny spells” days at about somewhere between the two degrees C, and our final day which started sunny but which turned to a massive thunderstorm followed by a fourteen hour deluge from 3pm to 5am. We developed a puddle whilst we were out for our last-night meal through failing to tuck the tent bottom under the groundsheet by the door and overnight the tent leaked a bit (on account, I was told by the Happy Camp rep, of the likelihood of all the pine needles which had dropped on it during the week making a few holes which would “heal” as the tent dried) but the Bongo did not leak (i.e. the roof tent – I actually took my rain cover for the roof but never had time to put it up so quick was the storm’s arrival – we saw it coming but were in the swimming pool at the time). I had all but packed up everything inside so we really only had to pack up a wet(tish) tent and a wet groundsheet.
Anyway, last bit – we went back 313 miles to Le Domaine de l’Eden for one night and then 150 miles on to Concarneau in Brittany (via St Nazaire) for our last three nights (and had good old “Cornish” weather for our trouble). Pitched in pouring rain which continued into our second day, but the tent did not leak this time. Cornwall of course has lots in common with Brittany and we rounded off our trip there with a visit to Falmouth’s twin town of Douarnenez and visited the maritime museum there to see the old Falmouth tug “St Denys” which we remember when it worked here before it was sold. Isaac joined in an art & craft activity session at the museum which was great as that’s what he does here too. He thinks the museums should be “matched” (that’s how he understands twinning) as well as the towns.
Had a lovely meal in Roscoff itself (for all the times I’ve travelled to/from the port, I’ve never actually visited the town which is lovely and although we arrived too late, there is an “Johnny Onion” museum there which is on the to-do list for our next trip.
Travelled home on the overnight ferry again, again with a cabin. Can’t complain at all (but I will always use Brittany Ferries because no-one else has ever taken the trouble to open up any routes across the Channel from anywhere west of Portsmouth (or Southampton if you count when you crossed from there).
All in all a wonderful holiday – our first proper expedition in the Bongo, our longest camping trip in the Bongo (in fact the longest holiday we’ve had since we had Isaac) and the furthest south west we’ve been in France (I’ve done most of the rest over the years, and my husband has also visited quite a lot of the South but not the South West). I’d certainly recommend the coastal lakey part of the Landes area and in spite of comments on here and elsewhere, we did not find diesel too expensive. It was certainly cheaper to fill up there than it is here in Cornwall – about 98 cents a litre there against £1.03 a litre here. The most we paid was €1.12 per litre. At the exchange rate we got, €1.15 is 99 pence and 98 cents is about 84 pence. Oh yes, and the air conditioning was fine in spite of my posting my concerns on here before we went – it struggled a bit on the Bordeaux peripherique to beat the sunshine beating in through the windscreen but certainly made a difference the rest of the time (I wonder now whether it didn’t feel very cold before because it actually just wasn’t very warm outside/inside in the first place).
Will be making a “things to do differently” list in due course, but that’s just lessons learned rather than anything which actually went wrong. Things we did right included buying a Bongo in the first place, packing the Easi Canopi as well as the full-blown awning, taking the Remoska cooker with us, buying “Monopoly Deal” and playing it a lot and my choices of campsite. At the top of the things not to do again would be for the male grown ups in the party to watch their language – Isaac has enriched his vocabulary with some shocking expressions although he also picked up one from me when I knelt on a giant acorn hidden under the ground sheet). Also something we definitely did wrong was forgetting to apply any insect repellent in Brittany. For the rest of the holiday we had been using Boots Soltan suncream and aftersun with built in insect repellent which was obviously effective as we didn’t get bitten. As it was raining in Brittany, we didn’t use suncream and completely forgot to take bug precautions. I got worst bitten, on the arm that I leave out of my sleeping bag. A week on and it’s still covered in big 10p sized red lumps. At least they’ve stopped itching but they look like “BBC makeup artist mediaeval peasant boils” – thank goodness they didn’t go for my face!!
Disclaimer - I haven't proof read this so hopefully it makes some sense, and I know there are no accents on the French words where there should be (can't remember how to do the Alt+ whatever for them) - sorry purists - it's annoying me as well
