The Pyrenees

So I will attempt to put some pictures in this time, although I don’t have a lot of pictures to put on – that’s isn’t entirely true, but it is harder to arrange photos and copy them from word and then add them into the web blog software – stupid google  design something better.

Last night we stayed at what we thought was the Torquay equivalent of france(mimizan), camping in a strange dutch tent… the tent part hooked to the fly which you put up first.(We also didn’t have a pump to pump up our mattresses for a while as Andrew drove over my backpack and the pump haha) people everywhere – security on the gates to the beach which closed at 11.30.. so arriving late and wanting to go to the beach at 12.00 wasn’t allowed (at least through the gate) so a jumped fence later and we were sitting on the beach in southern france. One thing we noticed yesterday was the cost of the tolls from paris to Bordeaux. Almost 70 euro – Looking on the net it is much easier to (http://about-france.com/travel.htm) go on the A10 which is toll free.. a rookie mistake..  The other thing they don’t have is ICE!!! Europe, get with the program, ice keeps things cold, is easy to produce, and people will buy it to put in their eskys (or car fridge, or cooler box). Now we have meat, cheese and drinks that will not be cold all day, until we get to our next destiniation, which is high in the Pyrenees – highly anticipated anyway. This morning we went to the beach, crazy waves and currents going on, had to be careful not to drift too far. Rips everywhere. The waves weren’t in a line breaking like in Australia, they had like random waves forming and breaking. You would be often (or offen if you are English) hit by a wave from the side – but fun still as we haven’t seen waves at all really. The dutch don’t believe in waves I think. There also was a large amount of Dutch people down on the coast which further reinforced my theory. I can imagine the drawcard of the beach in Australia to Europeans as there is so many beaches with waves – sure we have rips too, but most beaches that we have are wavy (wrong context I know). We ducked into maccas again to see if I had received an email from Julian (our next CS host)  which we had – so we typed into directions to the next town, and off we went. We decided to take the non-toll roads from Mimizan to Aragnouet – supposed to be a slower drive, but we might get to see more countryside then traveling on the expenseways. We plan to see the tour de france – main attraction and tomorrow I want to do a hike somewhere in the Pyrenees.  After a not so long drive nowdays – about 4.30 hours, we and the GPS got us lost a few times by not knowing about the new roads,  we arrived into the town of Aragnouet and met Julian and Blandine.  A strange situation at their place – they left to go on holidays! So they met us and then left us, Ok, I agree with the couchsurfing philosophy – but they take it to a whole new level, we now have their house to stay in for a week in the mountains, sure we have to leave on Friday or Saturday, but wow… that is some trust. We are currently trying to figure out where we are going to go for the tour de france stage on the mountains… Apparently they close the mountain road the day before the race. Guess we will see what happens.