The Epic Ride Part VII: France (again)

The next morning we left Freiburg and headed for Colmar, across the border in France. We decided to take the advice of the brochure from the tourist office, and instead of going the quick, obvious way we used a lot of nice windy secondary roads with fantastic views. The result of course was that it took us forever to get to France, even though we hadn’t covered much distance; it was worth it though to really appreciate the beautiful corner of the world in which we’d found ourselves. I remember very heavy traffic again and spending a fair bit of time stuck on a road outside an outdoor furniture shop; we started looking at all the nice tables and chairs and marquees and thinking soon we would be home with our house and able to have outdoor furniture again. Quite an odd thought after spending so much time standing up for all our meals. We spent the night in a lovely village called Ribeauville in the Alsace wine region, which of course we hadn’t known existed thanks to our awesome map. It was a large campsite where we managed to find a decent spot, even if we were overlooked by a building site. The most unusual thing about the site was the storks wandering around, I guess hoping for food from the exceedingly organised Dutch and German campervanners. The owners were lovely people who spoke perfect English; they had two kids who would run into the office at random intervals for hugs and little whispers in French. After we were set up, we walked into town in search of dinner, but unfortunately being a small town the supermarket and other shops were shut. We couldn’t really afford a restaurant; luckily there was a van in a carpark selling pizza! It looked like they were in a different town every night of the week – fantastic business idea in this part of the world. So we joined the queue and had pizzas for dinner sitting by our tent. Just lovely. The town was lovely too, with all the old French buildings and courtyards, but strangely enough it did have a rather unfriendly vibe. Strange characters hanging out in the public parks, hoons screaming around the little streets in their cars, and so on. Such a shame.

We were now on the home stretch towards our ferry in Dieppe, so the next day we left Ribeauville and headed towards the north coast, via some really lovely countryside through Alsace, only slightly wishing we had time for a winery tour. Neither of us can really remember where we got to; only that it was a long ride and the campsite at the end was remarkably lovely. We were almost the only ones there (except for an older German couple who played a sweet game of badminton outside their campervan before heading off for dinner) and enjoyed having the space to ourselves. It wasn’t as manicured as other sites; we actually had to move the tent to get it away from the bush and all the bugs. There was a big open space up the hill where we could chuck a Frisbee around (the same Frisbee we’d found on the Isle of Skye) and generally enjoy ourselves. There was an Aldi not far away so we could buy some dinner and other things; we ate sitting on the wall by the bush. It was a really nice place to spend the night (except for all the bugs).

The next day was the longest ride we’d had as we tried to get as close to Dieppe as we could. We got to Amiens and tried to find a non-existent tourist office; after that we tried to follow signs to a camping site which seemed to be taking us round and round in circles. We drove to nearby villages in search of camping sites that might be easier to find, to no avail. It was all getting very stressful and frustrating, well past 7pm at this point and we were certain we’d end up in an overpriced hotel. Somehow though we managed to find the campsite which was on the complete opposite side of town to where we’d started; I can’t remember if we ended up using the GPS or what. The campsite was very crowded (I think there was a big car race on at the time, as well as a ‘caravan club’ that had taken up lots of room) but there was an on-site takeaway AND a washing machine, so all was well. The office was closed and the manager was running the takeaway and the bar, so he was a little rushed and cranky with us for wanting to check in AND order dinner at such a late hour but we managed okay and even got some clean clothes. So the not-very-fun day ended on a reasonable note.

The next morning it was time to head for the coast, where we were hoping to spend our final few days in France enjoying some warm weather and relaxing rather than riding too far. We made it to St Valery which was a very picturesque seaside village overtaken by other riders and what looked to be a massive number of English tourists. The tourist office was closed for lunch so we spent some time walking along the waterfront and through the cobbled streets before joining the throngs in the office. Unfortunately there was no accommodation information to be had, but there was a tiny internet port where we sent off a couple of quick emails and lots of brochures about the area we were in, which is how we’d discovered we had spent the past few days travelling through the battlefields of the Somme without realising it. There was even a special brochure about Australians in the Somme and all the memorials and villages you could visit that had special significance for Australians. We were kicking ourselves at that point, having spent the past couple of days just roaring through the flat countryside when we could have taken our time and done some interesting exploring. This is why it pays to do your research beforehand. For future reference, if we were to do this ride again I believe we would have headed east from the ferry to St Valery, spent the night on the coast, picked up some information on the Somme, and then headed south. I think this would be a better use of time. But that is the joy of hindsight.
Since it didn’t look like there was much camping around St Valery we got back on the road and headed along the coast to le Treport, a larger town where we found a campsite almost immediately. Unfortunately it wasn’t a very nice campsite; our tent overlooked a carpark and apartment building. A far cry from the night we’d spent in the bush with only bugs and the Danish badminton players for company. The bathrooms were also strange; there was a door for men and a door for women but they both seemed to end up in the same area, with showers for women and none for men, and shared toilets. There was another door for men which led into a games room. We decided to only stay one night, and push further along the coast towards Dieppe the next day so we would be closer to the ferry.

Once we had the tent set up we wandered into town where there appeared to be a Sunday market set up along the esplanade. This was a great way to kill a few hours, eat some crepes, and generally enjoy the sea air. The beach wasn’t very pleasant; stereotypically Normandie with the rough white pebbles and grey-green water. The best thing we saw was a really cute family of ducks; on our way up to the market we saw them swimming in the harbour, with a small group of onlookers oohing and aahing at them. On the way home we saw them again, with the fluffy ducklings nestled into the reeds on the shore and the mum and dad ducks keeping an eye out for them. There were lots of places we could have had some dinner outside looking at the water, and there was a band starting up too but in the end we bought some groceries at a little supermarket on the way back up and ate our picnic dinner back at the tent.

The next day we drove along the coast to Dieppe and this time we went right into the town centre and parked in the shadow of a gigantic church. It was a prettier town than we had realised, coming into it as we did from the ferry port four weeks earlier. We went to the tourist office where we managed to catch them five minutes before their lunch break; the lady at the desk gave me a brochure of local accommodation and circled the nearby campsites for me. Hmmm, what a useful service. Perhaps they could offer this on the ferry on the way over, for those of us who haven’t managed to do any research? In any case we decided to head towards a campsite called Vitamin, because it sounded funny, and was pretty close to Dieppe without being too much in town. It was a quick drive from the town centre into the next village and was just off the highway. It was a nice campsite, with a friendly lady in the office, a pool, a playground, and an Aldi just down the road.

We got the tent set up and some groceries from Aldi, and then spent the afternoon lazing around the campsite. We had one full day left before we needed to get the ferry, so we did the same thing the next day as well. We swam in the pool, threw the Frisbee, and generally enjoyed the sunny weather while we could. And then it was time to leave, so we left our final French campsite and headed to the boat about lunchtime on the second day. This time we were more prepared and took food and ginger tablets for sea sickness; I also remembered to buy a paper in the shop before we boarded. We were old hands by this point. It was mid afternoon when we rode off the boat into Newhaven, only slightly worried about having to go back to riding on the left. We stopped at passport control where I had to remove my helmet even though Toby didn’t, and the lady annoyed me by asking lots of questions about my plans. I guess I was just tired and cranky. But our next stop was Brighton, home of Fatboy Slim and the famous pier, so the crankiness didn’t last much longer.