Whale of a Van!

Yesterday was made rather interesting by the fact that there was absolutely “no room at the inn” when we arrived at our destination of Soustons. This has become a real problem for us lately as we have been arriving in towns and coastal communities for nearly a week now, some of them with over a dozen or more campsites, only to find that they are all full. This usually necessitates a very annoying extra 10 to 20 miles of cycling inland in the evenings to try and find some random spot to put up our tent. But yesterday we were really tired and desperate, so we accepted the suggestion of the Tourism Office to try a small ‘Camping a L’Aire Naturelle’. Over the last few days we have seen several signs for these campsites, but having been told that they are for the exclusive use of the nudist community, we were in no real hurry to try one out (not on these cool evenings anyway).

However on this occasion, tiredness won out after hours and hours of riding in the sun, with a need to eat and get some rest. So we approached the campsite with some trepidation, on first glance it appeared deserted, lots of parked cars and caravans, but no people. We began putting up our tent and then wanted to have showers as soon as we put the tent up before starting on dinner but we didn’t know what the protocol was on a nudist campsite. Do you go to the showers naked holding your towel, then shower and dry yourself, then take your towel off again to walk back naked to your tent? Or do you wear your stuff to the shower, then come bounding back out in your birthday suit? It was all very confusing.

Then we spotted a young woman wearing a dress walking to the shower block, so I waited for her to reappear naked or otherwise before I chanced going to the shower block in the buff myself. Willing the temperature to increase a couple of degrees before my planned nonchalant stroll over to the showers, the girl then reappeared still clothed as I was psyching myself up for what was sure to be a memorably traumatic experience. We quickly realised when some of the other campers returned from the beach, all clothed, that ‘Camping a L’Aire Naturelle’ actually means something along the lines of ‘Camping in someone’s back garden’.

Today was a lovely run south into Labenne for our one free night of Keycamp accommodation on a 5* campsite in a mobile home. It was a little weird not having to put our little tent up and even weirder having electricity available and a shower and toilet right next to the bedroom. We were very grateful for the temporary luxury though and went to the local supermarket to stock up on supplies. After a pleasant dinner of steaks that Zeina cooked, we retired to our living room (with actual seats to sit on for a change!) The memorable event of today was that we went to the beach to watch the surfers and on the way back we spotted a Volkswagen Vanagon, which Zeina insisted on having her photo taken with for the benefit of a family member who is very much into this particular type of vehicle. The owner of the van turned up as we were taking the photos and this was when things got really surreal because as we chatted to him, he revealed that he has his van booked into a local bodyshop next week to have it pimped out with a white leather interior! You could have knocked us both down with a feather at that point.

Today we arrived in Biarritz, we are very close to Spain now, having completed almost one third of the distance of our challenge and we are looking forward to some righteous paella, roll on Espagna!