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Brent & Rae

Welcome to the world

Saturday 23rd May

A BIG WELCOME TO KIELAN!!

Awoke this morning to a call from Brooke saying that Kielan Alex has arrived, a very healthy 9 pound 2 and all well – we are feeling a long way from home today but what a great place we are in.

We are in Canet Plage just south of Perpignan 30kms from the Spanish border – we are parked up right on the beach with the Mediterranean Sea at our doorstep – we dipped our toes in the water, it was very fresh and the weather whilst pleasant hasn’t tempted us enough to go any further.

Wow what a trip we had getting from the west coast to the east coast of France – we drove through the coastal surfie town Biarritz where the weather was pretty cool so we headed inland and ended up at a place called O’loron-St- Marie. It was 32 degrees when we arrived and then we had the biggest thunder and lighting storm we have ever encountered, hail marble size also – thank goodness that Brent’s Mum and Tash weren’t with us. After drying out the next morning we headed towards Lourdes. Lourdes is a heavily religious town where it was said that a 14 year old girl saw the vision of the Virgin Mary, it has since become a mecca for those who are wanting ailments cured/relieved. The latest success of this was said to be in 2005 when a woman was cured of arthritis. The day we were there was an annual holiday for the French ‘Ascension Day’ (40th day after Easter) so a very very busy town with lots of nuns, priests and people praying. We said one for everyone!!!
We then drove onto a town called St Girons – Rae thought her French was getting better however she ended up with an orange juice instead of a wine and two pizzas instead of one!! Brent did talk to a drunk Frenchman at the next table, they couldn’t understand each other but somehow Brent was interpreting everything he said for Rae, I’m glad no one else spoke English (hopefully) as I doubt most of Brent’s interpretation was even close!!
St Girons was an interesting town, it was very beautiful due to the big river running through the middle of it – however it is very populated by gypsies and the not so wealthy – we were cheaply entertained by the locals! Dogs get preferential treatment here – they sit on the chairs at the cafes, travel in pushchairs, get taken into the bakeries, butchers and toilets – believe it or not! The locals come into town to get their daily bread, let their dogs out of the cars to their “business”, then just drive away again. No wonder we are continually doing the sidewalk shuffle, absolutely incredible.
We drove around the lower part of the Pyrenees to get to Canet Plage on the east coast of France – we reached 2000 meters above sea level at the highest point and we were on the lower part!! It was a scenic tour that took us hours longer than we expected and meeting lots of traffic and not to mention the big trucks in the very very narrow village streets/alleys. We don’t have any additional paint work on the camper this time!
We have today purchased a couple of bikes which we have been looking at for a while - Brent’s is a fast red one with sporty pink tyre rims and Rae’s is a stylish black one with a basket on the back!

Just as are thinking that we are getting the hang of the French ways we are going to head into Spain in the next couple of days so our next blog will be from there.

We are heading out tonight to wet Kielan’s head.

Sunday 24th Au Revoir France
Well woke up to a warm morning and much cloud. We think after updating our blog at the local café we might cross over into Spain.
A little recap of our thoughts of France from this leg of our journey
One-liners ? Possibly heaps of them but we couldn’t understand them.
People? We heard before we left NZ that the French were quite arrogant to tourists. Well we haven’t seen that, the language barrier tends to ensure that are not overly welcoming or friendly but not arrogant. We have tried to speak as much French as we can and they appreciate this. The French people seem to be very stylish in their appearance, very animated and loud in their conversations. They seem to like to talk, it doesn’t matter if there is a queue behind they will chatter for ages..and ages…and ages… and of course Brent is really so patient….yeah right.
Dogs? Dogs everywhere, we swear every French person has at least 1 dog. Dogs in handbags, bike carriers, apartments, shops, dogs everywhere. And with that the famous “sidewalk s#*t shuffle”, it is everywhere. The owners just don’t care where, middle of footpaths seem to be a favorite place, shoot the inconsiderate dog owners I say.
Outlook? The French seem to enjoy their life and make an effort to spend time with their family & friends. Family time extends to most businesses as the majority close 12.00pm – 2.30pm, try and get a supermarket open in that time. It’s hiliarious, everything literally shuts down. We bet you’ve all heard the rumours of French men being great lovers, don’t know about great but definitely have the time for quantity.
Food? The bread, the pastries, the cheese, the wine…. Did we mention the cheese and bread? It’s a laugh a minute when traveling through villages, cities and lanes, everyone has a baguette, literally everyone, “it is ze French way, voila”. Staying in a Aire (a carparking area) where there may be 50 campers and all quiet at 9am until the bread van comes in tooting its horn, the place awakens with people in their PJ’s lining up for their baguettes and croissants. Restaurants and cafes everywhere, food is a major part of their lives
Pubs? Moreso cafes and restaurants and lots of them.
Scenery? Fantastic, awesome, from country villages to the cities to the Pyrenees Mountains to the Mediterranean.
Useless information? We’ve heard dogs have their own passports if bringing into France from England, guess the French don’t care about the people but don’t want foreign dogs unaccounted for.
Roads? Most main roads excellent condition, really weird traveling along on the open road then straight into narrow roads flanked with very old houses in a small village. Tend to drive only a few k’s and another village, then another village, there are thousands of them. French drivers while reasonably courteous are speed freaks and can park anywhere, if there is a gap on the footpath right on the corner it is fair game. “bump” parking we think is a national sport.
Services etc ? Extremely well structured for visitors, rubbish bins everywhere, places to fill up our water tanks, excellent Tourist offices with very helpful staff (EXCEPT at St Cyprien Plage). Rae missing a toilet seat as most don’t have them (or paper).
Other French traits!!! Kissing, men kissing men..hmmmm, so many plastic tablecloths usually with their lunch outside of wine, cheese etc. Smoking, smoking, smoking, so many smokers here, thankfully they have had the sense to ban it from restaurants etc. but everywhere, absolutely everywhere so many French people smoking. More smokers than dogs, yes believe it.
All in all France another great place to visit and look forward to another leg of our journey here in a couple of months. Now to start thinking about another language, road signs, food, culture etc

A bientot

Grandad Brent and Nana Rae

Wine, wine and more wine

Wednesday 20th May
Right the other story.... St Emilion.....
St Emilion is a medieval village set up on a hill and was home to Emilion in 700AD, we went on an underground tour of where he had hermitted himself for many years in a cave, we also went through the Monolithic Church, Trinity Chaple, climbed 'The Keep' or the Kings Castle and the Bell Tower for absolutely stunning views of St Emilion. Amazing to think that this has all been there for 1300 years, the streets were very steep, narrow and cobbled. We spent about 5 hours wandering around this beautiful town. After meeting a couple of Aussies we decided to stay the night in the camping ground with them - that is only after Rae heard about a great wine shop selling Bordeaux wines cheap - Rae thought her French was getting pretty good but there was some confusion in the shop when tasting - the guy's English was as good/bad as Rae's French - first Rae asked for a petite taste and when he started pouring she said wee glass - of course yes in French is oui pronounced wee so he thought I was saying yes yes more! I ended up tasting three very large glasses of wine - when I walked out the shop we were carrying two 2.25 litres of wine in plastic containers - what a way to go!! thanks to Gary & Maria for letting us know about that shop, we met them at the winery we stayed in the night before, run into them in St Emilion the next day also.
Ended up having a great night with the AussiesRick and Jane and decided to travel with them the next day to Dune de Pilat which is the largest sand dune in Europe - of course Oz has bigger ones! After a gut busting trek to the top for the kiwis - the Aussies took the stairs - the view from the top was great and the trek down was pleasant. We also ran into Gary & Maria there, it is a small world.
On the way to Dune de Pilat we drove through Bordeaux which reminder us a little of London - the only other memorabila we have from Bordeaux is a black stripe down the back of the camper - there is a black car in Bordeaux that has a white stripe down the side - the worst thing was we didn't even know unitl Rick and Jane following told us.
The four of us then went to Arcachon where Jane taught us to drink Guiness at a local seaside bar, after 3 each ended up back at camping ground for a reasonably early night.
Monday we headed to Mimizan, minus Rick and Jane who headed north, where we spent the night with 49 other campervans in an aires which is a park over type place on asphalt sometimes with power - basically just a supermarket carpark by the sea but much cheaper than the camping grounds.
Yesterday we went to Hossegor, also stopping at small villages on the way - stayed at another aire in Capbreton nearby and today are heading south towards Bayonne and Biarritz on the SW of France. We will probably stay there tonight as the weather is better so an afternoon on the beach may be for us today. Tomorrow will start going east the French side of the Pyreenees before crossing over to Spain on the east coast.
We will keep dodging the dog poo for another few days!


Brent and Rae

Au Revoir Paree

Au Revoir Paree,

Friday 15th May
We are writing this on the laptop (the keyboards are different in France – too hard) sitting overlooking vineyards at Chateau Gerbaud at Saint Emilion’s about 30km from Bordeaux in the Southwest of France before we can find an internet café to download this.

We had a fantastic last day in Paris visiting the Louvre, one of the world’s largest museums and made more famous after the best seller ‘Da Vinci Code’. The Louvre itself is of the most magnificent construction, the ceilings are hard to describe, the murals and plasterwork were just breathtaking. Inside the Louvre the arts and artifacts were very old and to touch a piece of Egyptian carved stone work that was over 5000 years old was an opportunity not to be missed – see Brent in the photo. (You can’t see the sign that says ‘don’t touch’).
Of course you can’t go to the Louvre without getting the compulsory photo of the famous “Mona Lisa” as Rae did among the throngs of tourists doing the same.
That night we went on the Paris by Night tour and as we got to the Eiffel Tower about 10.00pm the lights came on and there was a light show – just fabulous and very romantic!! We then went to the Moulin Rouge show and enjoyed the costumes – just stunning! The show itself was a montage of different historical eras which at times was difficult to follow – Brent did really enjoy the lack of costumes on the girls though!

We left Paris on the Sunday morning, the drive leaving there was much easier than the one getting in, and drove towards the southwest with the first stop being Le Mans where Brent got a glimpse of the famous car racing track. However the museum was closed.
Stayed not far from Le Mans and then moved out west next day looking for some sun and sand – got as far as La Rochelle, one night there where it is has one of the biggest marinas in France, it was just oozing with money and then we went to Port Barques on the coast. We arrived there about 4.00pm and Brent had to have a beer and nibbles before we headed off for a walk over to an island fort, you walked along which looked like a sand track between two estuaries – we hadn’t been walking for long when we were stopped by two official looking guys, like DOC we think, in a car asking us if we realised that where we were walking would be under water in about 10mins??? Of course there were signs everywhere but they were all in French – I am sure they drove away saying ‘tourists’. We spent the night overlooking the estuaries and watching some people and a camper van trying to get through the tides at about 9.00pm that night – cheap entertainment and we were pleased that we weren’t the entertainment!!! See picture of bus going over at 5pm then of a car at 5.15pm, scary stuff.

We then decided to continue looking for the sun and headed to Ile d’Oleron, an island to the southwest of La Rochelle – on the way there we found a small village called Brouage which is totally surrounded by a fortress wall – the streets inside were all cobbled and you could imagine people, horses and carts going up the streets hundreds of years ago – it was very unique and quaint.
We stayed in Ile d’Oleron for two nights – the first day we explored the island and really liked an old fishing village called La Cotinere, had a good wander around the village and enjoyed looking in a couple of nautical shops. The second day we just spent catching up with ourselves, after three weeks basically on the go it was great to sit in the sun for a couple of hours with our books.
We are really pleased with the camper, very comfortable and economical – Rae’s only complaint is that it doesn’t have a shelf by the bed for her early morning cuppa and Brent’s only complaint is when Rae leaves the top cupboard door open – I am sure you will see why in a photo later!
The roads that we are mainly travelling on are not the main highways but are the older national roads - it is incredible that we are on a four lane small highway one minute and then crawling through the most narrow village road the next – we love going through the villages and seeing the cream coloured houses with blue shutters on the windows right on the street – I mean right on the street. Rae is often saying to Brent ‘watch the mirrors’, that really is how narrow these streets are. The houses just about all have geraniums in planter boxes and if there is a wrought iron balcony there will be wisteria growing – all very pretty.
We are looking forward to exploring Saint Emilion tomorrow…….but that will be another story.

Disparu vous tout (missing you all)

Brent and Rae

Ah.......Paris

Bonsoir everyone

Ah!! Paris

The city of ……. everything – quite often we say “I thought we had seen it all now” but that sentence continues to repeat itself numerous times over! As the Mastercard TV ad would say…

Two ice-creams in Paris - $37.00

One lunch in Paris $90.00

Two small beers in Paris $17.00

The look on Brent’s face when Rae said she had just paid $5 to use the cleanest toilets in Paris….priceless!!!

Well you would have realised by now we are the making the most of being here and enjoying it all and have stopped converting prices!

Yesterday we caught the Metro (Underground train) into the city where our first stop was the Arc de Triomphe which is a huge monument that Napoleon had wanted built for his soldiers to march through after victory, we walked up the 284 stairs to a magnificent view of Paris. The Arc has 12 avenues that run out from it and the traffic has no real sense of rules for giving way – see photo.

We then hopped on a bus tour that took us around Paris showing us the sights including the Eiffel Tower, The Louvre, River Seine and some of the beautiful bridges, we then walked up the Champs Elysees and window shopped, Brent liked the Lamborghini. The weather was a perfect spring day in Paris, 27 degrees!

We have been up the Eiffel Tower today – wow, wow,wow a real pinch ourselves it is a real moment!! We went up to the third level which is basically at the top just over 300 meters up, views totally unobstructed and we could see how huge Paris and the surrounding areas are. We then went to the Notre Dame Cathedral, a stunning piece of construction, the huge stain glass windows that were all around the cathedral were spectacular – there was a church service being conducted as we walked around so felt quite privileged to have been there. From there we had some lunch and just wandered around Paris – tomorrow we are planning on going to the Louvre and have a Paris by night tour and a Moulin Rouge show booked for the night time.

We had heard that Paris is a really dirty city with lots of beggars – the city has obviously tried to clean it up as the streets have been very clean with only a few beggars. We have also commented that the architecture here is all unpainted bleached stone, a complete contrast to the UK where everything there was red brick.

Hope this finds everyone well!

We off to bed to replenish our energy for a big day tomorrow.

Bonne nuit

Madame and Monsieur Fisher

Bonjour

Bonjour Amis

We left you last time in Hastings where we stayed the night after finding out it was the annual Morris Dancing event – they are all so serious jumping around and the place just buzzing with people! After Hastings we decided to catch up with Rachel Cassidy again and get our insurance papers for the camper which we did in Brighton (no we aren’t back in Christchurch), the GPS told us it would take us one hour to get there however because of the traffic it took us two and half – Brighton was an even bigger seaside spectacle than Hastings – incredible – we sat on the beach with Rach and her friends then got a beautiful paella from a stall and headed to Dover where we had booked a ferry crossing for 1.15am - we know very early however the crossing was cheap at that time and we are unemployed!! Had a nice meal out and then slept on the side of the road for a couple of hours before heading to the ferry.

Now that we have exited the England, but going back later, we thought we might share a few of our thoughts.

One-liners ? The best we’ve heard is “that’s not my department” when trying to buy some deck chairs at a hardware store. Don’t laugh, the second guy came along and said the same thing.

Dogs? Dogs everywhere, seen them in a bank, a shop, even have their own “pub dogs”, everyone has a dog, more dogs than people and that’s saying something.

Outlook? Glass always half empty, “might be nice day now but you wait until the weather turns”.

Banking? Trying to do a transfer of money to buy camper cost us $60 and wasn’t a simple process of course, seems like we are back in ‘80s for banking.

Food? Chips with everything, fish & chip outlets prolific.

Pubs? On every corner, great country pubs with even the city ones having real character.

Scenery? Fantastic, country towns wonderful, London spectacular.

Useless information? Yes the water does go down the plug anti-clockwise, the sun still rises in the East and sets in the West but goes round the South direction.

Roads? Crap, going along the M25 is like riding over judder bars at 130kph. A couple of locals called the Motorways England’s biggest carparks. Traffic horrendous, it is unfathomable the amount of vehicles on the road, even the country lanes in the SE are busy, absolutely amazing. Might be clogged but generally more courteous than back home, a real plus for the English.

Ferried across the channel from Dover to Calais without any problems, didn’t even get asked for Passports or get checked by anyone, amazing.

WOW we are in France, it is 3.30am, we are driving on the wrong side of the road, Rae facing oncoming traffic, GPS not working again (different country) and two very tired people – what to do? Find a quiet country lane and pull over as far as we can and go to sleep for a couple of hours before being woken by the roosters.

We then drove to Dunkirk and had a look around the ANZAC war memorials before parking up at Dunkirk Beach for the night with about 14 other campers, it was a very cold wind blowing so didn’t move far.

Next day we went to Dunkirk markets and managed to buy fruit, veges, cheese and bread – our French needs to improve!

Went to a supermarket and stocked up (we think we got what we needed as everything in French). Drove on the back roads – a lot less stressful than the main highways and we get to see all the villages where if you put out your bread bag the local baker will leave you a freshly baked baguette, the houses are similar to the UK but very clean and tidy with shutters on the windows – we drove as far as Frevent and spent the night in a very average camping ground with no power but no matter as we were on the way to Paris, our next destination!

We arrived in Paris about 3.00pm as we were trying to avoid the traffic – I think we came in on the really dark side of Paris – we were the only camper to be seen, lots and lots of traffic and very narrow streets which if the Parisians decide to stop they just do – not so easy if you are a wide camper trying to go past – however that was nothing until we got to the round-about that our wonderful GPS told us to take the 5^th exit and there were about 6 lanes wide – well off we go – Brent asking who gives way to who – Rae replying just give way to everything and Brent saying well we are bigger than them let’s just go – Bali is nothing on this!!! We are now at the camping ground just 10km from the centre of Paris and looking forward to tomorrow to go sightseeing. Before that a few drinks to settle the road nerves and Rae cooking up a storm in the camping-car (that’s what our camper is called here). Paris central is home to over 2 million people and we are very much in the heart if it. Our Lonely Planet book said you need nerves of steel to drive in Paris, Brent has Platinum is his veins with maneuvering the wide 7m long camper through this, “out of the way sheep shaggers” came to mind several times.

A bientot

On the Road

We had a great night at Grease - amazing show and hard to believe we saw it in London. Brent was in his element before the show as he had fish, chips, peas, bread and butter at the pub.
Up early on Tuesday morning and joined the Hop On Hop Off bus tour of London - great to see the history and icons of London - as we were driving past Westminister Abbey the bells were ringing, went past Big Ben and he tolled, watched the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace with a couple of hundred oops I mean several thousands of other tourists, absolutely incredible. We caught a ferry out to Greenwich Village, you know where GMT comes from - that night caught up with Rachael Cassidy (ex BNZ)and enjoyed a couple of wines with her.
Up extra early on Wednesday morning as we were going to pick up our camper. After several hours of Brent finding out how everything worked and Rae stocking the cupboards we hit the road - oh boy the first turn we took was the wrong one and Brent trying to reverse in a small street without the backing camera on and lots of swearing as he couldn' t find reverse made Rae very nervous!! We then just drove and drove as Brent couldn't get Sat Nav (GPS) working and Rae was navigator and she got us to Clacton-on-Sea by 8.00pm so two very stressed, hungry and thirsty people set up camp for the night in a Hi-de-Hi Camp. Hilarous camp and we waited next morning patiently for the office girl to arrive to give us some change for the washing machines - she had slept in so arrived at work at 9.10am!! We are on English time!
Next night we stayed in great camping ground in Weeley - yes we weeley been there! Great place for the night and we just cruised and got ourselves more familar with the camper - Brent worked out how it all works and Rae worked out oven and lazy susan pantry!
Friday feeling a bit more confident with driving we headed for a place called Beckley which is in East Essex, SE England where Anne Thain (from Motunau) lived and worked, we called into her local and were made to feel very welcome and ended up staying in someones Timberyard for the night after several beers at the Rose and Crown - a true local pub where they don't really get the tourists.
This morning we have been to a place called Rye - a beautiful old town with extra narrow streets lots of bars and antique shops - you even get asked if you would like a cuppa as the jug has just boiled when you are browsing in the shops. Talking about pubs they are just everywhere and good job we are not on a pub crawl as we wouldn't get out of the area for a couple of months.
Surprise surprise we are now in a pub having a beer in a place called Hastings which is on the SE coast and a real British seaside resort. If you think of the song Beside the Seaside, beside the sea and all the pictures that use to be in our story books when reading the song, ferris wheels, merry-go-rounds, penny arcardes, clowns, morris dancers and thousands and thousands of holiday makers - well that is this place!!
We are going to try and book a ferry crossing to France in the next couple of days - just as we are getting use to British narrow roads and their driving, we will start driving on the right hand side of the road - oh dear high stress levels again!!
As we are driving down the lanes it is funny seeing the lambs in the paddocks, spring flowers all in bloom and people feeling like summer is around the corner! We have been really lucky with the weather and only had 1 wet day.
We will down load some more photos again later when we have better access.
Great to see some more people have joined as followers, we like seeing who is following our travels.