Four Years Full Circle – Capbreton
Zagan the motorhome is once again besides the Atlantic, in the still-busy motorhome aire at Capbreton (N43.63693 W1.44708). The ocean’s flinging itself against the sands behind us, a most re-assuring and welcome noise. It’s €8 a night, which includes services, electricity and WiFi (you have to put up with a single advert page every half hour for the WiFi).
I’ll cut to the chase folks. I feel alive! Yeah man! We’ve bust one of our few ‘rules’ to come back to stay in Capbreton, in the same place we’ve previously slept in, and I’m very glad we did. Not so much because it’s such a wonderful place (although it has a cool charm to it, for a car park!), but because coming here ties together two ends of a string we’ve been trailing behind us for four years. Four of the most intense, wild, varied and stretching years of our lives. Yep, this feels rather bloody splendid.
And quickly back to the sandy Earth before I get carried away… The rest of today’s been spent sorting stuff out. From that four year-old jaunt, we knew there was a lavarie in Dax, so crawled through the city traffic to get there. Reminded of Palermo I was, with the sheer volume of cars strung out in lines, piled up against the kerbs and stacked up in car parks. Ju firmly flung the washing between various machines while I used the lavarie’s free WiFi to update this year’s travel map, and add a guest post to the site. A bit of research went on too, as I tried to figure out whether the curving wall of the bullring (one with bulls in it,not the shopping centre) next to the Dax aire meant we were in the French Basque region yet. Answer: nope, not until we get down around Biarritz.
Dax aire, now sporting a fine drive-through KFC. The bullring is through trees to the left.
We washed everything. Ju was particularly determined to wash the tea towels, as they honked, real bad.
An unremarkable drive cruised us along to here. Unremarkable but for the bare-faced adultery that went on. Yes, dear readers, Team Zagan has taken a lover. Since discovering that Lidl dog pate is 65c, and E. Leclerc dog pate is 42c, while both sell lager for less than €1 a litre, we have spurned the Lidl. The name of ‘Lidl’ will no longer be mentioned in Zagan. It is forgotten. Until we’re in Spain that is, then she’ll be re-embraced with the fickle arms of the language-challenged (everything’s in English on Lidl packaging).
Tree-lined French roads, which we can just about make out through the bug-splattered screen.
There must be 60 other vans in here. Trying to work out how to pay, we asked one of the two other English-registered vans. Hugh’s head popped out, smiling, and told us a lady calls round about 6. A few minutes later Esther appeared. Retired, they’d half-imagined themselves as the couple in that old ‘We wanna enjoy the garden’ advert, but instead they let the house out, bought a van (in that order) and have since been on the wander, very much enjoying this magical turn of events. Hugh’s description of swimming in a warm Norweigen fjord this summer, with one side of it a sliding mass of glacier, had the hairs on my arms stood up and shouting ‘me, me, I wanna be in Norway’. Patience, dear hairs, patience.
I’m pretty sure these are the foothills of the Pyrenees we can see from he dune behind us. More hair verticalness.
Right, that’s it, I’m not leaving here until next June, then I’m off to Norway!
Cheers, Jay
Hi there you three,
It is such fun to read you nearly daily posts, all in all fantastic and yes an inspiration. Jason get my apology in early if you look at out blog you will notice we are using the same theme. Not on purpose I promise, can only assume that us IT people recognise quality.
We head off on the 8th Jan to Spain and will be around Cadiz from the 11th as we have Spanish lessons to do. Maybe if you are heading to Spain anytime let us know, it would be great to meet up with you both.
Do have one question did you guys take out medical insurance?
Best regards
David and Karen
Happy days guys, fun times await! We’re planning on limited Spanish penetration this time around – we’ll stay up around the mountains up here I think, but we might get further down next year – no route at all sorted out for then. Yep, we have medical insurance, not massively expensive and helps one kip at night. Ju mentioned the Spanish lessons – what a fabulous idea – giving us some food for thought you are guys. Cheers, Jay
Capbreton is some beach eh? We were there a few weeks ago and were impressed but a couple of weeks later ended up on the Portuguese coast – beaches like we’d never seen before and we had them all to ourselves.
Pat &Phil.
Capbreton Aire….one of our favourites…Enjoy! But Dog pate? Is that Chihuahua or Boxer? Hope it’s not border terrier.
We stopped at Capbreton briefly on the current tour…just long enough for the Kray twins to go swimming…then on to S Spain. We are moving on to Lorca, Granada, Ronda, Cordoba shortly.
We have had some Spanish lessons here (not sure when I will be able to use the phrase ‘Quiero un gran elefante’…I want a great elephant….). Any suggestions?
I have enjoyed following your job dumping strategy…brilliant!
Charlie looks like he expects to be chucked in the washer as well :-(
Hi Guys, we were there 3 weeks ago & those waves came bashing into the sand with real force. There’s loads of lovely countryside around there to wander in. Now your old odd bits of string are tied together, you’ll need to start a new ball!…Could we have address for David & Karen’s blog please?
The waves are still bashing, but the sun has now made an appearance :)
You can find David and Karen at – http://thegreygappers.co.uk/
Looking at that weather forecast on your blog has turned me “green”, bonfire night was a washout here and it’s rain and wind for the foreseeable. You can understand why we Brits are obsessed with the weather. Are you venturing into the Pyrenees? In September we headed for Oloron Sainte-Marie (small aire by the river 7 spaces officially) and the headed through valley d’Aspe stopping off at Bedous and Lescun. Bedous has some interesting artisan shops,a visit to the butchers is worth it, also a couple of cheese makers. A very agreeable small town.The are is absolutely stunning, loads of fantastic walking and paragliding opportunities here. We stayed in the municipal CS at Bedous as it was VFM at just less than 10e with hook up next to rugby pitch. It’s all down to personal opinion and it may have a very different feel at this time of year. By the way your posts have changed as the time lengthens from when you left work, more relaxed, so clearly you both made the right call. Best wishes Megan
Sounds great as I look at the grey skies from the office window here in Cheshire! I know you guys are keen bargain hunters, particularly when it comes to the price of diesel and LPG. I came across this fuel price comparison site today for France: http://www.zagaz.com/index.php They also have apps to download. Hope it helps keep the budget in the green!
Paul
Top man, thanks Paul. Cheers, Jay
Hi Guys, really enjoying following your blog, my wife put me on to it (Wendy from Kimberley Library). You’ve definitely inspired us to do a bit of a tour round Europe in a motorhome in the near future. I see you removed the bike rack from Zagan, are you not using bikes while you’re away this time? Having no experience of motorhomes I wonder how easy it is to do the local trips to places you want to see? Doesn’t seem to be many people towing cars and the like in the pics you have filed from the aires you are staying in. Also is there storage available near us and what sort of cost is it? Cheers Rob.
Hi Rob
Great to hear from you and please say hello to Wendy for me. Funny you should get in touch about this as we were just discussing it earlier. We took bikes with us last time but hardly used them as Charlie wasn’t a fan of his chariot and to be honest I didn’t really like my bike (it was a mountain bike and my hands would go numb after a while because I was leaning on them all the time). My bike and Charlie’s chariot go traded in Morocco for a coat and a silk throw, Jay’s was used from time to time to suss places out when we arrived, but it rusted up quite a bit and died by the time we got home.
This time we took the bike rack off, but we have kept it. Once pampered pooch is not around we figure we’re more likely to use bikes. The discussion today was around how much he likes to sleep these days, so we could walk him in them morning then bike off in the afternoon to explore. Nearly every motorhome has bikes on it. There are a few towing cars too, and the odd one with a scooter on the back – but they are in the minority. Generally you’ll find somewhere to park within a bike ride (especially now electric bikes are becoming more common) around most places, or on a public transport route.
We store Zagan at Swingate farm – if you google COSSA Swingate you’ll find it. It’s a caravan storage place, but was full when we got back from our first trip. When we knew we be getting a van again we rented a space a couple of months before we needed to make sure we had somewhere. It’s £30 a month and we can walk there from our house so it’s perfect for us.
Cheers
Julie
Hi, I’m glad you relaxed your no-going-back rule. Seems to me you should take advantage of all the knowledge you gathered last time around – as all of us will be doing! And it will ease your way into your major lifestyle change. We are looking forward to revisiting places we have holidayed over the years – but at leisure, without a two week deadline:-)
Best,
Robina
Hi you 3. Chuffed to bits that you’re back on the road. Your exploits last time kept me going as I closed in on the end of my career.
We retired in July this year and after a few weeks, travelled through France and Spain, before returning home in late October. (We have 4 grandchildren who we want to keep in touch with!!!) We plan another trip in late January 2016, heading down to south west Spain (Gibraltar area) before moving north. We may well leave the van there and fly home for Grandchild fix before flying back out to continue.
We have no pets, but as you mentioned above, we do have electric bikes which we absolutely love – you get to see so much more.
Please keep up the good work, you have inspired so many people, and I have given details of your site to lots of people. You never know, our paths may cross in the future….I hope so!
All the very best to you.
Glyn and Lesley