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| The sun hit the hills before we left camp, but the sky was not looking good. |
This morning
we left the camp and headed into St Jean de Luz and then onto the Atlantic
Coast to the North. During the night, there had been some gusts of wind, but
little did we realise what a storm had been going on as we were so sheltered.
It soon became apparent by the number of trees that had limbs blown off and
branches all over the roads. And the wind was really buffeting Ruakiwi. As we
drove along the coast to Biarritz we caught a glimpse of the Atlantic,
absolutely boiling with huge surf. Checked the forecast and the prediction that
the wind would continue for a few more days.
Decision was
made to go to “Plan B” and headed East towards the Armagnac Region, and back to
some French Passion sites. Initially through Biarritz and Bayonne it was really
busy, so much traffic and endless round a bouts, but soon we were back out into
the country and took the D824 towards Mont De Marsan. Passed huge amounts of
damage from the storm with trees down everywhere, and Ruakiwi rocked about a
fair bit. Before long we were back into rural land with field after field of
maize and sunflowers. Surprisingly they hadn’t got damaged by the wind, but
were bending around.
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| Rain on the windscreen |
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| A very stormy Atlantic |
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| Broken trees everywhere. |
France has
more round-a-bouts than anywhere I know, and the centre is built up so you can’t
see across. It seems that every town wants to use these to show off about their
town. Today we couldn’t believe our eyes when we came around one with kiwifruit
in the middle. We had noticed a number of vines being grown, and obviously this
town was celebrating it.
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| Celebrating this towns link with kiwifruit. |
It was quite a
cross country route to the French Passion site we had chosen but just set Jilly
to take us there, and she did a fine job. We were soon back into the vineyards
and arrived at this winery at 5 o’clock, and no one around. We parked in the
yard and waited. About 6.30 the very jovial vintner arrived home, he couldn’t
speak a word of English but we soon understood that he had been to the dentist
when he showed us where his tooth had been extracted! We joined him for a wine
tasting which really was hilarious as we managed to just understand each other.
Used google translate which helped a little. Probably not our favourite wines
but a few nice wines including a late harvest ice wine. He showed us a place
where we could park which was more level and tonight the wind has dropped a lot
and we have a view across the rolling hills of vines. Such a change to where we
have been, and so nice to be able to go for a wander out along the rows of
neatly trimmed vines looking across at the vine covered hills.
And on a brighter note, we woke to the good news that surgery had gone well for Cody, now that is stage is behind him and just recovery ahead.
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| This evening the sun came out with some wonderful clouds. |
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| Ruakiwi in a very pleasant overnight spot. |
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