Wednesday 19 March - Vittoria to Contis Plage

Dry and cold overnight, the screens, which despite being wet had been deployed last night, had just about dried out so breakfast and a quick look at the Wednesday market before getting away. We could not use the service point as it was closed off during the market hours but we're good as there will be other points along the way. So with Bordeaux programmed into TomTom we got back on the autopiste, watching the weather deteriorate quite quickly although it never did actually rain, just low clouds in and around the mountain range we were passing through. But it eventually became sunny and warm as we approached San Sebastian then, as TomTom was set to avoid tolls, we missed the Bordeaux turn and found ourselves going around San Sebastian and to Irun. Because of this we've found it's not worth avoiding the tolls but it was too late, although there is always a silver lining and we topped up with (cheap) Spanish fuel just before the border.

At Irun we got back onto the, now, French autoroute once again accepting the tolls as worth the time saved and a few kilometres later pulled into a rest area for lunch. We now had a decision to make as we have a full week to reach Calais. Do we keep heading on up to Bordeaux and kill some time later or maybe find somewhere nice for a couple of days? Once again the weather forecast was consulted and seemed to favour hanging around south of Bordeaux so once back on the road we left the autoroute and headed for the coast. Bren picked out a commercial aire, which turned out to be a Camping Car Park site, for which we had a card and app, near St Julien de Borne at Contis Plage. On arrival the barrier was raised so we just drove in and found a nice spot on this quite busy place. However this may well have been a mistake as the barrier came down shortly after so we don't know yet how we're going to get out, not having registered as coming in!

The site has all the usual servicing facilities as well as electric, although all the points had been "claimed" but we can manage well enough, the solar panels absorbing the warm sunshine - we recorded a temperature of 22C, the highest we've seen since southern Spain! At this stage we're not sure if we should stay here a day or two or push on and find somewhere for over the weekend, but we'll think about that later. For now Jamie is happy to be able to sit outside in the sun, checking out all the other dogs!