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squiz Member Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 2882 |
6th September 2016 Mt. Biking: Seigneville to La Houndel lighthouse Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: Max Speed: 23.24 kts (knots - unless stated otherwise) Distance Covered: 22.60 mile (Nautical Miles - unless stated otherwise) Monday 5th September – travel and rest Mag woke up with a banging migraine and looked like death!! After a slow start, tablets and breakfast we left our parking place with no view over the channel because there is thick cloud and heavy drizzle!! Very disappointing for our first morning. We drove to Boulogne along our usual route but were sad not to get our usual walk because it is chucking it down! Went on the Motorway to the La Crotoy turn off and were disgusted when they charged us 17.70 euros Toll when the most expensive it has ever been is 12!! Sometimes it’s 8. So god knows whether it has gone up or they treated us as a lorry – who knows, there is no come back so we will just have to put up with it :( This is the only Toll we ever pay for on our trips so might have to rethink that now!! Drove to a very wet sea front where lots of road works are going on then on to the sluice for a look at the birds and watched the tide start to come in really fast. Went back to the bit of the sea front where I have sailed in the past but there wasn’t enough wind to sail. I would have liked there to be enough as I missed out on a good 5 star session at West Mersea yesterday with lots of the Felixstowe windsurfers and old faces out having fun. Chris Phillips rescued by the life boat this time! I wanted to have a sail before we left the coast as it will be several weeks before we get to any coastline again. My back isn’t too bad so was hopeful but it was too light and the weather horrible, still drizzly and dull. Instead we went and got some bread and a chicken at the Carrefour and left La Crotoy because the parking there is relentlessly payant and we didn’t want to go to our usual spot near the sandy mussel bed beach so headed for the Canal at Seigneville where we stayed last year to cycle on Mag’s birthday. This time we just wanted to have the chicken we bought for lunch, sleep the afternoon away and read our books. Mag’s migraine has at last gone thank goodness. Tuesday 6th September – bike **** Seigneville to La Houndel lighthouse – 22.6 miles, 4 hours 40 minutes out, top speed 23.24 kts Mag is feeling lots better today :) After a lie in reading she walked the 3 mile trip along the canal to Petit Port, where we have parked in the past. I had a longer lie in, read, put the bed up and made breakfast. After that we decided that although the day was dull, it wasn’t raining, so we would bike along the tow path towards St. Valery Sur Somme, take the lunch in case we got carried away, and see how far we got. We only just got going when it started to drizzle but it didn’t last long and we enjoyed the great bike ride into the town, along the river front and past the station where the steam train departs and arrives. We cycled through the town thinking we would find a boulangerie but the only one we saw had closed down :( We carried on towards the walled medieval city and found a Vival supermarket with one squashed loaf left which was actually very tasty! We found a path down to the river which took us to the path we had taken last year and we followed that again across the marshes, past sheep grazing and many duck decoy ponds. Have to say the standard of fake duck was very poor and some looked more like sausage dogs!! We continued along the path to La Houndel lighthouse which was very soggy in places and our freshly washed bikes went back to their usual mud splattered affect! The tide was only just beginning to come in and the sand banks were out complete with many seals laying out enjoying a rest. We sat on the pebbled beach and ate our lunch watching the ‘Securitie’ man with his claxon ready to sound it at anyone who ventured across the sandbanks as the tide got higher. We saw lots of birds today including a marsh harrier, a flock of white storks and 2 spoonbills :) Things we certainly don’t see every day! When we had finished our lunch and had a rest we carried on to the end of the shingle bar and were treated to two seals swimming with the incoming tide and we weren’t sure whether we were watching them or they had come to watch us!! Great fun. Cycled back along the bike track which is very smooth and you can go pretty fast (well for us anyway!). Back onto the marsh path just before St. Vallery and then returned along the river front through the town and the tow path along the canal to the van. We cycled 22 ½ miles and were out over 4 hours. A great day even if the sun didn’t come out. It did try at lunchtime but failed dismally! We read and I did my exercises. We were visited by some lovely mallard ducks – two young females were particularly sweet and made funny little snuffling noises whereas the older females were very raucous. We walked to the small stream which runs the other side of our car park and counted 15 ducks in all and had a good laugh at them sliding down the slide they had made into the stream from the steep bank – hilarious. We love it here :) Wednesday 7th September Relax and travel + walk **** sunny and hot :) It was foggy when we woke up but this soon burnt off and we had a really lovely morning at the Canal at Seigneville. Very relaxed, did exercises and read books by the canal and had our breakfast watching our duck friends waddling between the two rivers. When we finally left we went back to the outskirts of St. Vallery for a Lidl stock up in case we don’t get the chance over the next few days. Then out onto the free motorway from Abbeville to Rouen but instead of our usual route around the outskirts and to the Pont de l’Arche we decided to leave the motorway at junction 12 and make our way down what looked like a straight route to a part of the river Seine we haven’t been to before. It was a bit windy but went through the most beautiful countryside and we hardly saw another car on most of it. As we neared the Seine there were two panorama view points from the same junction. We took the one on the left first and had to park in an agricultural machinery graveyard in order to walk along the footpath. This took us through a chestnut forest and then onto the white cliffs overlooking the huge meander the Seine river makes at this point. Back to the van and on to the next panorama which came with a parking place, so we stopped here for lunch and watched the river and saw our first hotel boat of the day. We carried on down to Les Andelys which has a quaint old town fronting the Seine with a quay for the visiting hotel boats and many old buildings. On the cliff top is the Chateau Gaillard which is steeped in Norman history. We drove around trying to find the best place to park up for the night and to access the old town and chateau. It took a while but we eventually found the car park for the Chateau which would have been a great place to stop except that there was a large bank around it which meant you couldn’t see the great view which would have been a shame. We went down to the lower car park which was surrounded by trees, so again no view and we followed a big camper out of the entrance where he got stuck and ended up taking some of his bumper off!! That’s usually us! Back down to the river and a parking place in front of the old and beautiful Hospital. Right on the river bank, perfect. We had a good rest and a cheeky kingfisher apparently flew right over my head – I didn’t even see it!! We saw several barges and hotel boats go past. It is really really hot so we didn’t attempt a wander around until gone 6 o clock. We walked along the quay and saw two hotel boats moored up next to each other which seemed a bit strange when there was several more moorings? There appears to be a fair in town but it isn’t set up yet, just looks like a gypsy camp at the moment! We climbed up the cliff road to the Chateau and had a good look around and read the information boards at the view point. When we returned to the viewpoint both the moored hotel boats had left with one heading for Paris and one for Rouen. We walked back down the hill and through the narrow streets of the old town then headed back to the van for tea. Turkey steaks, mushrooms, sliced potatoes and chives sautéed in butter! I went down the river bank to take photos of the lovely sunset, slipped on a rock and cut his ankle :( He went back to the town when it got dark to take photos Photo Gallery here |
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