Touring France in a motorhome days Thirty-one to Thirty-Seven

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September 28^th – October 3^rd – Days Thirty-one to Thirty-seven

We have come to a stop and the days are merging.  Sunny temps around 22C with steady off shore winds around 45kph average.

This area has lots of good cycling trails and we are on one now along the beach front to the city of Sete. The route is a flat concrete path running along the back of extensive sand dunes with regular boardwalk breaks down onto the beach. Oh, and the odd Martello tower type construction as well. Just before you arrive in Sete, you pass three great café bars. Do yourself a favour stop here. Give Sete a miss because we didn’t find it that great to be honest! 

We felt the same about Adge to be honest. Cape Adge was lovely; great marinas with huge yachts, nice boardwalk cafes and restaurants, lots of boutique shops. Some Mediterranean glamour and fizz. A huge big wheel thrown in as well. And great people watching opportunities. All those bankers sat lounging and posing on the back of their yacht cockpits drinking expensive americanos!

We did try to cycle into the nearby nature reserves but there are few tracks across them unlike the Camargue. Herons, egrets, cranes and flamingos; the latter dull grey, not strident pink like their Camargue cousins. A sort of metaphor for the area really;  even the mud dwelling bacteria have lost their shine potential!

 We stroll into town a few times. We cycle places and then, just like that, I come down with an infection of some form. Knocks me flat for three days. Lacklustre, exhausted, aching joints and severe muscle pains. My legs refuse to hold up the weight of my body and I spend most of the three days slumped on one of the side sofa benches. Poor Maggie; bored senseless, she hangs about worrying about me. I struggle to walk into town and back and then spend two days almost permanently asleep again. We run out of paracetamol just as I develop a fever and sore throat.

During this sudden illness (and by the way, I am rarely ill from colds – 35 years of teacher-built immunity that is), I manage one clear night of stargazing, hidden behind our windbreak. Great big clear skies, horrendous light pollution from Montpellier further along the coastal plain.  My subsequent images all have a horrid orange cast about them.  Good to be out but probably not doing anything to help my lurgy.

Over the next few days, we realise it has done us good to stop and relax and it gives us ample opportunity to assess our first trip abroad, thus far! We have made a few mistakes; spending too long in the Loire, the Ardeche and Provence; not turning east and heading to the French Alps early on. We abandoned going into Italy. Hindsight, a wonderful thing and all that, suggests that was a mistake as that was our original touring destination for this trip.  

It has been fascinating watching a resort wind down and pack itself away. Each day more of the little shops close, pulling shutters down with a thorough end of season clean. Wire fencing is put across those bars with extensive outdoor areas fronting the roads. More ‘50% off’ discount posters appear in all the clothing shops still clinging on; fighting the instinct to draw the season to a close. People scrub their shop floors, put plastic covers over seating and display cabinets and wash down tables. Already builders are out repairing plaster work damage after a busy season.

The campsite has emptied in our section.  Twelve vans have gone and we have clear uninterrupted views of the sea and lots of space around us. The huge 8m vans with double rear axles, are permanent liveaboards and like migrating birds, they are heading south to Spain and sunnier climes. The quiet, the amiableness of it all is endearing. As a geographer I have never watched a tourist resort pack up at the end of its season. It is quite something to behold. A sense of release, of relief, another season survived; done and dusted during difficult economic times post covid.

Today, we have decided to treat ourselves to a laundrette wash.  We’ve been actively seeking every euro coin we can find in purses, rucksacks, wallets and handbags for the last few days. This feels like a naughty, guilty self-indulgence. No washing undies in a bucket and hanging them on a rack for all to see. Wonderful, although it did take a little working out about how to use the machines!

Its Sunday and today my dad is 85. We are skyping him later and over the last few weeks we have rationed out our sim card data bundles so that we can have a good long natter with him. The sun is casting ‘rainbows’ on our legs as we lie in bed; the habitation already warming up nicely. Sunrises here are around 7.45 am and they are spectacular. Some of the best we have ever seen. A deep fiery orange ball rises slowly on the horizon above a flat calm Mediterranean Sea which constantly changes its colour palette. With the blinds pulled down slightly, the sun's rays creep around the interior, slowly illuminating everything nook and cranny. All warm and cosy like, it makes getting up a difficult task.