Île de Ré - Days 34 to 37

On the beach at Le Bois-Plage-en-Ré

We left our campsite for Île de Ré, a popular seaside holiday island, still lovely but a lot less popular at this time of year. All the campsites are closed, but there are a number of Aires with electricity so we headed to one in the middle of the island at Le Bois-plage-en-Ré, opposite the main town of the island, St Martin-de-Ré (campsite location: 46°10'36.1"N 1°23'12.5"W).

The cat that wanted to say 'bonjour'

By the time we’d driven, shopped, crossed the long bridge paying our first toll, found the Aire, levelled the van, had lunch and walked to look at the pounding sea we could hear, that was almost it. Except then I realised that the girl and dog next door were English, so had a long chat with her, before tea and shortbread and cycling off to St Martin-de-Ré to find the lie of the land. If we’d had a better idea of the lie of the land we could have visited the tourist information in our local village, but hey, it was a lovely cycle along some of the myriad of cycle paths on the island. 

Jackie cycling over the moat towards the walled city gate

At one point I said hello to two cats sitting on fence posts before stopping to talk to number three who wasn’t that keen, cat number two, a little black and white one however was and came running up saying “he’s miserable, talk to me.” This I obviously did, saying we’d be back. We were back but feeling a little pressured as the sun had set and we had no lights, still time for a little fuss before promising to return tomorrow and pedalling back to arrive well before dark.

The gatehouse and drawbridge of St Martin-de-Ré

The forecast was for a getting worse sort of day, so we got up early to return to St Martin-de-Ré and actually see something. Got to ‘cat spot’ no sign of black and white, so I mewed a bit and she appeared, yawning and stretching from under a bush. I did tell her we’d be early....

Interesting walk around the star shaped fortifications before a trip to the top of the bell tower followed by a quick cycle to the next village, where we stopped at a market and finally bought some mussels. 

Our mussel dinner

We had been trying to find mussels for ages, but they all looked small, and expensive. Someone had finally said they were bouchon mussels, like that was meant to mean something, and there were samples in the supermarket at La Grisse so we were back on the hunt, and these were marginally cheaper than we’d seen for a while so we went for it, the man said 1kg would be enough, and he was right. They were fab, simply cooked, wine, garlic, onion, parsley and crusty bread.... shame Ted had just stopped smelling of crab claws....

French recycling: 1 for paper, 3 for wine bottles! Just saying...!

The weather wasn’t as bad as we’d expected, but the wind really blew up overnight, we had to put the stabilisers down on Ted as he was rocking about. They worked really well and we managed to sleep ok, but decided that our sheltered site was definitely preferable to the one we were planning on moving to at the top end of the island, so after a walk into the village we returned for a good read, it felt a bit wrong as it wasn’t raining or anything, but walking or cycling would have been miserable. We did briefly go onto the beach to watch some surfers and I got earache very quickly so we felt quite vindicated.

View of St Martin-de-Ré from the top of the bell tower

Plan of St Martin-de-Ré. Fortifications designed by Vauban (see this link)

Today, much better wind wise, but had an early morning toilet crisis, mid way through my first visit the red light came on, saying the cassette is full. How full is full? Is there space for himselfs first wee? Not wanting to push it we had a very quick coffee in bed before up to empty the cassette and carry on with the day, and our plan to move to the top of the island. 15 minutes into the 30 minute drive (it is quite a big island, though driving is quite slow) I realised that if we arrived at the new Aire too early, our 24 hours would be up too early and we’d have to up bright and early again! OK we’ll drive to the lighthouse we were going to visit as part of our cycle and use our time that way. Good plan, only the lighthouse didn’t open till 10.30, but by the time we’d had a walk on the beach and found a sheltered bench out of the wind in the sun.... Good view, once we’d climbed the 265 steps. 

The lighthouse (phare) des Baleines at the tip of the island

View straight down the spiral staircase in the lighthouse

Now we can go to the new Aire (campsite location: 46°13'38.0"N 1°32'47.2"W), arriving windswept and cold, hot chocolate was called for, before heating the soup, left from last nights Moroccan lamb, cooked in the thermal cooker. In order for the cooker to work everything has to be covered in stock and brought up to the boil, this can mean there is a lot of gravy, or alternatively, it can mean that there is soup for lunch....! I look on the bright side and am enjoying the soups. I’d strained out the last bit of lamb and shredded it, along with some of the chickpeas before liquidising the rest and returning the lumps. Yummy.

View from the top of the lighthouse, the lower original 17th century lighthouse in front. The line of rocks visible is an old lock used for cultivating oysters. There used to be many of these all round the island but most have fallen into disuse

Cycling through the salt marshes

A cycle through the salt marsh to the furthest tip of the island was fine, until the last bit of the return journey, into the wind, the wind that we thought had dropped, which was very hard work!

I’ve finally opened the box of cat biscuits, bought in Arbroath, as there was a little thing, looking at the bins. I couldn’t find her when I went out, so left some biscuits on the step. They had gone when B went to ditch the washing up water, and he returned saying “I’ve got two little cats, they ran up squeaking” and so he had, very wussy but very keen on some more biscuits, and knew which van they’d come from!

Atmospheric crashing waves near the lighthouse

Tomorrow we are finally leaving the island, after four nights, originally thinking we’d stay two, assuming the wind hasn’t got back up so making driving over the long bridge too scary.....

Evening pussy cat visit (it was dark, photo taken with flash) The biscuits are actually to the right in this picture, you can possibly just see them, but they seemed to be having difficulty until they were pointed out!

We saw these long haired donkeys at St Martin-de-Ré, they are called Poitou donkeys (see this link for more info)