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Also available on Thomson's Travels __________________________________ 18th November 2014 After a few days around Civray, in the garden of Julia's brothers house in the Poitou-Charentes, we found ourselves, in light drizzle, headed south down the N10 towards Bordeaux, arriving at the campsite at about 15:30hrs. A nondescript drive only made notable by the cruise control deciding that it wasn't going to be a cruise control, just a switch on the steering wheel pretending to be the cruise control! Cured by a stop in an Aire, turn the engine off, then back on again to teach it who's boss! The approach to the campsite at Camping Bordeaux Lac (Now Closed!) is somewhat peculiar: Drive West along the A630, hang a left at junction 5 turn left, turn right under the bridge, head East, back down the A630 to junction 4a drive to a roundabout take the first exit go back under the A630 and the rest is easy. The trouble is that the Mr Tomtom doesn't recognise junction 5 as a way through and wants you to go to junction 7. . . We're getting good at ignoring Sat-Nav's in general! The campsite, was beautiful, large pitches, lakes, fountains and fresh bread in the mornings, if you order it and a heated shower block. At 17:00hrs, forgetting that people have to go home then, we thought that we'd go and find the supermarket to get food for the next few days. . . What a mistake! The Sat-Nav took us to a building site, admittedly one where we could see the shop, but in the end, it took us 45 minutes of hell, driving up and down a clogged motorway until we found ourselves in the carpark. We dumped the car, bikes still on top, in the outside carpark,there were no height signs, so didn't want to risk going under cover. The shop, well if I said a nightmare, some, the shoppers amongst you might complain, but come on! There seemed to be a row for everything! One row for Camembert, one row for Emmental and so on, ad-infinitum! The place was bigger than a big thing on stilts It took a age to navigate around the wine aisles, the cheese aisles, the fish aisles, the meat aisles (The new shoe aisles, the spare brain aisles!). Finally we made the tills, the car and we set off home. The only way out was through the covered car park! With heart in mouth, we negotiated the speed humps (that would have made a good climb on the Tour de France), under the concrete beams strewn with hanging signs, worrying that the bikes would take a like to one of them and get attached! We made it out and a mere 25 minutes later we were back at the campsite! It was dark and only just over a mile away from the shop!! NEVER AGAIN! Until next time! _________________________________ 19th November 2014 A day in the sand is planned, except firstly we'll visit, yes you've guessed it, the shops again. I think I've found a quick way there. . . We set off to check out my 'quick way there', and in a matter of 10 minutes we were driving through the Auchan car park, this time without the bikes on top, looking for the Decathlon, to look at cycling attire. The trip to the coast of 50 miles was well worth the effort. We parked near the Dune de Pilat, €1 for 4 hours parking, first 30 minutes free (Take note Poole Council!!!), walked the 200 yards to the dune, clambered to the top to be met by a sand-scape to die for. miniature canyons, river valleys and even a crashed (toy) plane which had created its own mini dune. On the drive home, we decided to stop off at a camping shop we had noticed on the way out, just off junction 11a. If we'd realised how far off, we may not have bothered! we found it in the end after passing through a Romany encampment which had taken over a number of factories. Not just factory units, whole factories! There was room for caravans, cars, motor homes and tents, all under cover! To top it all, the whole area was covered in clothes from cloths banks hanging out to dry, getting ready to be sold in the local market no doubt. Once at the camping shop, we bought some toilet chemicals and headed back to our corner of the travellers world.