As it turns out the parking spot turned out to be level, quiet and very dark, subsequently I had an exceptional night's sleep (which may have been something do with the wine with the Dutchies) I woke refreshed an eager to get under-way, I said my goodbyes and fired up the van, we were soon winging our way along some pretty A roads surrounded by open plan corn fields, it would appear that French farmers don't care too much for hedges....or traffic delays for that matter. I was about to find out the difficulties of overtaking even an old rusty Case tractor when driving on the right in a right hand drive vehicle, luckily the roads were quiet. About two and a half hours later I arrived at the Aire, already busy it appeared to be a glorified beach car park with a drinking water tap, a toilet block and a drain, what more could you possibly need ! There were several motorhomes already here but there was plenty of room for me and the T25 that followed in behind me and I found a little spot where I could park with the front wheels ever so slightly uphill, this meant that the bed would be level, due in part to a very minor design flaw when converting the rear bench to a z bed, I won't elaborate, I'll want to sell it one day !
The Aire was actually located at the Pont Dr Chemoulin and was literally the other side of the road from the beach on the very outskirts of St Nazaire, the main road has dedicated cycleways in to town and the 4 or so miles back to Le Pouligen which was a nice little village but both places are far more commercial than what I'd seen so far, I wasn't surprised, good weather and nice beaches mean that the masses must be catered for and they were catered for well.
For the first time in a long while I actually spent some time sunbathing on the beach, to counteract this idleness I started to read a fascinating book on Nickola Tesla, it turns out that pretty much anything worth inventing was down to him and his favourite pastime was pissing off Edison.
I returned to the van to cook, as I did I saw a man with the bonnet of his car up looking puzzled, it was the car he tows behind his motorhome and he was trying to change one of the front indicator bulbs. The car in question was series one, Peugeot 205 rallye, complete with the original horrific yellow paint and a mere 70k on the clock and don't forget, that's kilometres ! I offered to help (anybody who has owned a 205 will know about the indicator lens removal) and whilst doing so I tried to explain how rare a machine this was back home even through the language barrier the man was surprised....he offered to swap it for my van, unfortunately I had to say no ! He supplied me with beer and introduced me to his wife when the task was complete, she spoke less English than boules man but seemed nice, the sun was still hot and the beer was cold and that really was nice.
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