27/09/09

Day 19 – September 27
After writing yesterday’s blog we were treated to the most wonderful sunset promising another lovely day today. The vines looked amazing this morning, their dead straight lines drenched in bright sunshine, so we were not disappointed.
We took our leave of Ile d’Oleron, past the oyster and mussel beds that provide the majority of employment here, and decided to take a short cut by catching the ferry from Royan across to Pointe de Grave, cutting out driving through Bordeaux. This was quite expensive, but probably saved us a couple of hours driving and numerous kilometres, so on balance it was well worth it.
We are now in Gironde. This area has been reclaimed from marshland and now consists of hundreds of square kilometres of planted pine forests, resulting in a range of forest walks and a National Park. The roads have been cut through in virtually straight lines, allowing fast progress, only occasionally interrupted by sleepy villages enjoying a peaceful sunny Sunday. Flowers are still in profusion in even the smallest village, and this makes everywhere so much brighter and pretty. The houses in this area are also markedly different to the single storey farm type dwellings we have recently passed by, being far more upmarket and in large well kept gardens.
Tonight we have stopped on a campsite as this area appears to be devoid of aires and France Passion locations, the latter probably due to the lack of agriculture here.
We are close to the Dune du Pyla, which is a natural formation of windblown sand resulting in an enormous sand dune of 100 metres in height. We walked down it tonight, and it was like ski-ing a black run, with the sand slipping away from beneath our feet! Walking back up from the beach was somewhat less exciting….. The Atlantic here seems quite calm, which is hopefully a good sign for weather to come – maybe another day on the beach before we turn inland – but not down that dune!
On the way back to the site, which is situated in a pine forest, we spotted a red squirrel high up in the trees – another first for me, to add to the La Tranche otters!
Another fabulous sunset tonight, so fingers crossed for another good day tomorrow!