Saint-Georges-de-Didonne

After saying fairwell to our friends at Montalivet, we head along for a short drive to Hourtin Plage where Matt & Molly are staying. They have got us a 2hr pass to their site which has a great pool complex with pirate ship.

The kids are eager to see their pool and play with Layla and Chloe so we head straight to the pool, Matt warned us to put the children in wetsuits as it was a little chilly. They had a big pool area with the biggest pirate ship ever with slides coming from all directions; however it didn’t take Amelia long to see the huge bucket of water that poured down every few minutes from the very top, and even with the little warning bell that gives you time to get out of the way, she could not be convinced to go back on it (she’s still scarred from last year in Brean!). Coen had a great time on the slides with Nic and also went on some great rainbow slides that shot him down into the deep pools. Amelia and Laila had a whale of a time splashing, diving, and swimming through all of the pools, and also loved shooting down the rainbow slides!

After a lovely but chilly swim, and a park play, we head back to their pitch and the kids enjoy playing in their huge tent while we have some lunch. We take the short walk along the town to the beach and watch some surfers in envy.

We stop for ice cream with a choice of about 30 flavours which obviously causes conflict in the heads of the children who want ALL of them - Amelia adamant about mango and raspberry, but one lick in decides she wants to change, one lick of my chocolate and she’s back on the first choice. We grab a quick pizza, baguette and little ice cream for Coen who had now woken up, and said a final fairwell to the Byhams, then hit the road to see if we could make the last ferry.

Luckily we pull up to Verdon just as the penultimate ferry was boarding, so we jump straight on. Coen was super excited to see the boat, and that we were actually getting on it. By the time we found a seat by the window, he could barely contain his excitement. Amelia now a seasoned traveller of this route, was a little more blasé and after a quick look at the sea, wanted to play hide and seek - the 30 minute crossing was over in a flash.

We planned to stop at the aire just the other side of the ferry in Royan, as it was getting close to bedtime by now. Unfortunately the first aire we try is totally full; we even tried to get into the extra car park at the back where we’d noticed a few motorhomes parked up, but the entrance has a 2metre height barrier, and for the life of us we couldn’t figure out how they’d managed to get in.

We drive another 10 minutes to the next one, and luckily find the last space (although not technically a space) and we wake up early to avoid the parking man, after a night of thinking every engine we hear is the parking man coming to tell us off).

A quick food and fuel shop, breakfast on the road, and we head to Nantes. We had been recommended Les Machines by a couple of people so thought we better check it out.Read more