26th May - No wind, heading for Vandee

Had agreed to meet son Howard and family somewhere around St. Jean-de-Monts and needed to get setup on Saturday for their arrival on Sunday. They were getting the train from London to Nantes. I remember St. Jean-de-Monts from 20 years ago and a family holiday, possibly in a previous van. What a change, St Jean-de-Monts was a small place albeit with some large campsites. It is now more like Les Sables d'Olonne or the Australian Gold Coast, I left searching for a campsite more as I remembered. Well I found plenty but the story was their season didn't start until mid Jun

e, only static vans were available and not many folks around anyway. The photo is the bridge at St. Nazaire, I remember taking the same photo 20 years ago.

Pornic was all closed to traffic but I still managed to find Camping Golf Course despite my SatNav failing to determine where I was and sending me round and round in circles, Arrived just as staff were leaving, but one returned and booked me a space.

27th May

Just up the road from the last campsite I tried was Plage Du Jonc, a free site with no facilities, I set up camp.

I love these sort of setups, no rules, no facilities, just camp. OK, you have to do what bears do, but that's really no hassle, anyone can dig a hole in a dune.

My only gripe is that not everyone understands the need for the woods, clearly someone had been urinating where I had just set up my tent - really what sort of bear is that?