by Liz

Miles : 41 (of which 3.5 by ferry). Ascent : 489’.

Last night the moonlight cast a wide beam across the water, causing the sea to shimmer. We watched from the porthole beside our bed as it moved slowly, lighting up a small white boat which gradually disappeared into the darkness as the moon rose higher and its beam shifted. On our evening walk earlier, plover were cooing from the wet sand below, and at the end of the cobb a bat flitted here and there feeding. This is the first place we’ve stayed on this trip where I could easily imagine returning for a week’s restful holiday, or if not for Brexit, to live out some distant retirement. 

The day started at 6.15am to make sure we were in place for the mid-morning ferry across the mouth of the Gironde to Le Verdon. In the queue we struck up a conversation with a retired couple from La Vendée, out for the day on their bikes. They were delightful, and when Ghislaine’s bike went over we were charmed to see the only things in her basket were a spare inner tube, a spanner and a big bag of sweets. 

Much of the day’s riding was through mixed pine and deciduous forest. It took 40 minutes to mend our first puncture of the trip, from noticing it to getting back on the road. Not bad! We ate lunch on the coast at Montalivet, the sea dark blue at the horizon, turquoise mid-way and pale green near the beach, where big waves crashed on the shore. A few hardy souls were on the sand, braving the heat and glare of the midday sun, but we were happy to sit on the concrete under the welcome shade of the lifeguard’s hut. 

We saw a lot of pink flowering heather and yellow tansy, but more interesting were a) the cork oaks, from the bark of which cork is harvested, and b) the unfamiliar mushrooms that grew along the forest edge with signs everywhere not to pick them on pain of punishment under article R163-5 of the forest code. They are surely prized because many had been lifted anyway. 

It was hot and sunny this afternoon and we were grateful for the intermittent stretches of shade as we rode south into the sun. Also for the little road that took five miles off the day’s anticipated total by cutting off a big dog leg right at the end. We’re staying in an old stone farmhouse with high ceilings and no low beams, not even a flight of stairs. It’s in Naujac-sur-Mer, another town that, despite its name, is actually several miles from the coast. But it is near a beautiful lake (pictured in the main photo for this post) so I’m sure the mozzies will be along later for munchies. 

My brother Steve has just identified the mushrooms from a photo I sent. They go by the exotic name of dead man’s foot or horse dung fungus. They’re apt names. I think we’ll stick to the chestnut variety with red peppers in tonight’s frittata.