26th September (Day 17)
A restful(ish) day
Woke up this morning to see the moon setting and the sun rising – the photographs don’t do it justice. The reason my uploads have been few and far between has been the lack of t’internet. I did manage to load some more £’s onto the SIM card as it had run out – but straight after doing that and getting on line Microsoft decided it would be a good idea to update my computer – goodness only knows how many GigaBytes that took and so within 48hrs I was back to square one, having to wait until I got some WiFi access to put more data allowance onto the SIM card. Microsoft – YOU DARE!
These are our last couple of days before the ferry back to the UK and we are taking it easy. We deserve it – so far, in less than 3 weeks, we have covered 1,904 kms (1,190 miles). It does not feel like it was a strain, although I am glad for these last couple of days. Janette is happy to drive Hilma but I have to admit to being a nervous passenger (especially on the continent) so I have done the driving. We have been sensible though, roughly the maximum we have done in any one day is about 150 miles if we wanted to push on, mostly less (usually between 40 – 60 miles) and with our planning each morning on the route to take, then feeding key villages or towns into Mrs Garmin, meant for (in the most part) stress free motoring.

Off come the bikes this morning and we cycle along a track into Cayeux sur Mer, along the seafront and on into a small bird reserve where strangely they are proud of the fact that it is a nature reserve yet it is also clear there is shooting alongside. Back into town, find the obligatory boulangerie, Pain et Patisserie and back to Hilma for coffee. I decided to put my Boy Scout whittling badge to good use and hacked away at the cork to eventually bung up Hilma’s water inlet orifice (as for the ferry crossing I will use the lockable water cap for Hilma’s Gazole orifice). I was impressed – it worked and seals the said hole very tightly.

The cycling here is wonderful – we continued in the afternoon in the opposite direction and ended up at a pretty inlet called Le Hourdal before turning around.
A walk in the evening down to the pebble beach and we saw the most wonderful sunset, captured on the phone which struggled to get good definition.