Our boat was cancelled yesterday, which gave us the chance to leave a day earlier than expected, but with only a few hours notice. We rushed around and made it, and so far I don’t think we’ve forgotten anything essential.

We arrived in Saint Malo at around 6pm and with zero pre-planning we headed straight for a pleasant aire next to the canal at Messac. An old faithful of ours for when we arrive in France in the evening and want to put about an hour and a half‘s driving under our belts.

I should also mention that it is next to a fairly busy rail line, but they stop at around 11pm, and then kick-off again at about 7am. We’re noise sensitive motorhomers, but the trains were not a problem for us at all.

In our usual style, we didn’t rush to get up in the morning, and after a drive to Super-U for those much pined-after essentials of ring doughnuts, flan nature, Brillat Savarin cheese, French bread, and crinkle cut crisps, plus some tomatoes and a cucumber, we hit the road.

The crisps and doughnuts kept us going until about 2:30, when an impromptu cheese and bread lunch at the side of the road could wait no longer.

I was aiming for the North bank of the Gironde estuary, and noticed that the route was unexpectedly taking us via La Rochelle, another of our firm favourites. So we headed for our preferred parking area overlooking the marina, only to find that a large fair with rides had taken over the area.

For this trip I have loaded most of our successful night stops from the last couple of years (188) into the SatNav. The idea being that we have a lousy memory when it comes to recalling exactly where we’ve stopped previously. We could describe them, but would struggle to place them on a map. Now they are in the SatNav, I can just search for any that are vaguely along our route, and it is great knowing that they are all tried and tested by us.

Today it has worked a treat. First one was at La Rochelle, and after finding that one unavailable, a quick check showed a great spot we’d stayed at last year at Yves, just 20km down the coast. So tonight we find ourselves right next to the beach, alongside the region’s typical fishing huts, with their pontoons, and with the sun setting over the sea. Very nice indeed. Sophie has even done an impromptu painting of the view.

Let’s see where we end up tomorrow.

*** To see our full travel blog history plus all our photos, rather than the edited selection on our FB Page, please see our blog website at mlarb.com ***