The Buddy System

We've made it to Mimizan and the little town south of it called Lit et Mixe. Since the Dune we've camped in a car park on the beach at Mimizan Plage Sud (South Beach) for two days where we endured a big thunder-and-lightning storm, a crazy Austrian old bat in her solo campervan and some fucked up sun stroke brought on by long walks along the huge endless beach in search of surf.

En route to Mimizan we made the typical mistake of missing the shops before 12 and then forgetting it's a Sunday so the shops don't open again at 2.30pm and you're stuffed for groceries so we drove on until 5 when we made the car park at Mimizan and ate a few bites, hit the sunset and then in the evening we cooked up an awesome dish with little ingredients which consisted roughly: Rice (long) in vegetable stock with onions fried with garlic, stem ginger and balsamic vinegar and it tasted like heaven. This lasted all of 5 minutes however as my rice-portion-judging-skills are super-ass-like-lame and I made enough for a small army of fleas but the recipe was repeated next day with added Mushrooms (which soak up all the other flavours) and tomatoes and it rocked our tastebuds into the next morning when we went back to Plage Remember (North beach of Mimizan) which seemed to have the best pick of the small waves and scored some lovely mellow surf for 3 hours.

We're now camped in Lit et Mixe - a small town we stayed at 2 years ago - and camping cheap on a farm where we've done a shed load of washing by hand in the awesome old-skool wash basin they have here which is surely the better way to wash your clothes than damn tricky, fickle washing machines on their 45 minute wash cycle which is just long enough time for you to forget you've put any washing in and then leave your clothes to rot for 2 days. I like doing things the old way like that; it's more social too as it's way more better to do with two sets of hands than one. Ollie could probably even invent a drinking game out of it!

On the way here from Mimizan we stopped at some shops and stocked up on awesome food stuffs including flour and sugar so that we can make and bake cakes all day long if we want because this little campervan has an awesome gas oven installed. So Kitty is making some sort of Apple and Banana pie and it smells awesome in this little space and now it feels less like we're camping - getting used to it - and more living like Kings!; we had Pork Chops in a handmade-by-Kitty garlic, soy and ginger marinade with mushroom and onion garnish for tea last night; onion, sweet pepper and pesto omelette for lunch and now we're about to eat some frickin awesome fruit pie as a snack before dinner oh baby oh baby!

Onward... tomorrow we may head back to Mimizan to check out a small festival there and then we're heading south to Seignosse / Hossegor / Biarritz and then the Pyrenees.... whooop!

howdy from the dune, we have been camping by a 400ft sand dune for the last three nights and its awesome! started this morning at 5.30am and climbed the monster dune (which is tres steep!) and watched the sun rise was sweet!

anyway check out:

if you wanna see some pics of the first part of the trip, the soundtrack is dedicated to the soberton kings! have met some great people here, two from hungary who are hitch hiking around the place and a couple from california, they shipped their awesome old motorbikes from the states and are having a brilliant time

miss you all

we have decided to write our own blog entries to try and cover everything plus it was quite difficult to write it together especially on a french keyboard...tres confusing! we have been on the west coast-cap feret-le truc vert for 5 or 6 days now and its gorgeous, we are staying in a picnic area where we can camp for free, its right by the sea where the waves come through all day, surfable and fun! i havent been surfing since november so im getting used to it again, my first surf left me with shaky legs i was so nervous! im getting more into it now and we had a lovely surf last night, we could see a massive storm moving towards us and this morning we got up early and went before breakfast. the storm last night was epic loads of thunder and lightening! we are living a real simple life, it feels like we are living a pretend life sometimes! there is a lot to get used to but its mainly very fun, we have been trying out the solar powered shower(basically a plastic bag which you hang to a tree and fill with water) its funny as you just have to get butt naked and hope no one turns up! eating ceral out of mugs as we have no space for bowls, creating recipes out of basic foods and slowly getting grubbier by the minute!every day seems to get more relaxing and we are adjusting to life in a van and life on the road!the beaches are filled with french people exposing everything to the sun (do you really need to tan everything!!??). i havent seen any other girl surfers yet, we have seen alot of girlfriends rush to the shore with a towel/cigarette/kiss/adoring look to greet their boyfriends when he finishes his surf, boo thinks this is awesome but im not giving up my surf to come and greet him like a hero after every surf!

we will probably move on tomorrow, just a bit further down the coast to a 400 foot sand dune, we went there a few years ago and its gorgeous. As always we are thinking of everyone and missing you all terribly, we know that every one of you would love this life and anyone is welcome to visit us on our travels just let us know

love to everyone

ps. we visited catherine in london and found this treasure!

We've made it to Cap Ferret which is on the West coast of France, straight West from Bordeaux. The weather has turned scorchio though it's only going to get hotter and we love it. We're free-camping in a Forest picnic / campervan area of which France has heaps and all are free - awesome!

The first thing that has struck us since leaving Objat on Tuesday is how difficult it is to finally slow down and get into the camping life. We spent the first couple of days motoring around the Cap' like crazys, totally missing the point of the whole thing. I suppose 6 months of working like nuts before the trip started; selling old gear, getting as much money in as poss all whilst keeping the legend of Sobertown alive (I miss Captain Morgan like my own mother!) will do that to you... So we spent all of today sitting around on blankets in the Forest reading, eating, whatever-ing and it feels sweet; Tea and Beedies for elevenses and Greek salad with a Rum 'n Coke for lunch.

We're still getting rid of stuff slowly - last night I said goodbye to the rockin' little barbecue which was commanding too much precious floorspace in the van which is needed for big supplies of bottled water in this heat. Can't exactly barbecue in the Forest anyway - the floor's made up of Pine needles and dry wood; yikes!

So now I'm at an Internet Cafe in the Ville de Petit Piquey (opposite another dude on his own laptop smoking Camels and looking fairly unimpressed with whatever's on his screen, while the bar-maid is singing to the French song on the radio and it's quite funny). The Piquey's are a couple of sand dunes and this village is built on a small one and oh do I want to live here when I grow up! Lots of awesome retro motors, boats and plenty surf everywhere. You can surf all day on one side of the Cap Ferret Spit (I think that's what it is) and then drive 5 minutes to the other side for a quiet evening's Rum consumption on the Rivermouth.

So now I have some pesky work to do - projects still to finish but boy can I not wait til the workload is finally put to bed and I can spend my time in Internet Cafe's dissing the Soberton lads on Facebook!

On Monday we plan to head over to Bordeaux, pick up a decent digicam and some other bits and generally peruse the City for thrift junk and other stuff to pack out the bulging little yellow van with!

Me and Monkey on the way to the beach: