A campervan quest for shadier parts of France, missing number plates, and sparkling wine
Words & pictures ❚ Jonathan Hauxwell
Trepidation. That’s the word for how we felt. A mixture of anxiety and excitement, as we rolled into the innards of the Caen/Ouistreham ferry at Portsmouth. Our first trip abroad for two and a half years I’d had all the anxiety dreams that involved border trauma, fresh food being removed from our vehicle by people in biohazard suits through a plastic tunnel like in the film, ET. Covid interrogation at gunpoint, all that stuff. But in the end, they weren’t really bothered about any of that, just about searching for people hidden in the campervan.
The Breton coast was a delight and the tourist favourites were quite busy for mid-September. We wondered whether increased staycationing had become a French thing, too, especially as the majority of the trippers were in the “senior” category, the group that might normally head south to chase warmer weather. Not this year – our four-week trip to France had only two rainy days. The rest of the time temperatures hovered around 20°C as, happily, a high-pressure system seemed to be jammed over France and some lovely subtropical air warmed us.
Sadly, sunshine proved to be a problem this trip. Our newly fitted replacement solar panel started to misbehave. It continued to pump power into the system which didn’t like this and shut down. Hence, nothing functioned when we were off-grid and the fridge only worked when we were hooked-up. This issue happened only when the sun shone, so we looked for shady plots on campsites or at aires. In the mornings and evenings (no sun of course) we could operate as normal. A new regulator has since been put in, and all is fine.
Driving in the sun from the ferry, our first stop was at La Bidonnière, near Mont St-Michel, a privately run aire, popular and crammed and suffering from a regional drought that had closed the toilets and showers. Late in the afternoon, we cycled to the Mont; there were lots of people about, but strangely not many inside the walls. It was only when we came out that we realised they were all lined up along the causeway with the mainland to photograph the sunset.
We then had two nights at Trestel (Camping le Mat), with a coastal walk towards Perros Guirec. From there we moved on west to Trégastel, to a busy but comfortable aire (Aire de Camping-Car de Trégastel), with a full service point over the road from a big Super U. We walked west and east along the pink granite coast on Grand Randonnée number
