Spain

We waited in Port Bacares for another night for the wind but it never showed so decided to give up and move onwards to Spain. A spot near to the Ebro Delta sounded particularly promising as it was billed in the book as “one of the windiest places on the Spanish med”. There wasn’t much time to get to Ibiza so we decided to skip to the whole of the Costa Brava and drive on down to Tarragona.

We spent a good seven hours on the road including a 2 mile tailback for the border caused by over enthusiastic border guards?? no, just some guys handing out leaflets.. and arrived that evening in St Carlos de la Rapita. The Spanish seemed to be putting a lot of money into building decent roads and the driving was a lot quicker than on the French side. Another bonus was that even if they were re-surfacing the road they didn’t close it off, we’d met with many “route barre” in France which had resulted in a number of detours adding costly mileage. St Carlos looked to be a pleasant Spanish town and it was much sunnier and warmer than France. After a couple of beers (and a good time on the PSP) we decided to walk into town to see if we could find somewhere for tapas. Before setting-off the 3 mile walk into town hadn’t sounded that much, however, once we started along the busy road that smelt of shit we soon realised the error of our ways. We tried to walk along the sea front but the path was equally treacherous. After 40 minutes or so with no sign of any bars a good 20 minutes still to get into town and with the darkness approaching Ste decided to call the abort and suggested we had back before it got too late. There were a number of cross words spoken given the long drive, hazardous walk and now a 40 minute walk back to the van which had little food in it, however, the journey back was fine and Ste managed to put together a meal before we crashed out.

The next day we cycled into town to get a feel for the place, try and find some wifi and check the conditions. The forecast looked light for that day but afterwards it was predicted to build to a good 40 knots for the next few days. Ste decided we should cycle out to the spot and have a good look at the ebro delta along the way. We set off in the sunshine with only water and two bananas for sustenance. Ste assured me it would be more than adequate for the 10 miles out and 14 back to the campsite. The road was flat and predominately straight but with little shade. We saw a large amount of bird life; egrets, herons and many other sticky legged birds including flamingos. We also saw snakes, frogs, crayfish, and hundreds of shrimp. When we finally made it to the beach at Trabucador we agreed it had been worth the cycle. There was a lovely undeveloped white sand beach on one side and on the other side of the sandbar a decked area and pier with perfect flat water conditions. We sat and enjoyed our bananas and then began the long cycle home.

Needless to say it wasn’t the nicest ride in the hottest part of the day with no food nor shade, some cross words were had when we got back to the town at gone 3pm and all the restaurants were closing after lunch (SD - 20 miles @ around 15mph would have been fine as the terrain was flat... Sarah's moochy pace unfortunately brought the average down to about 10 so it did take longer than planned in the heat of the day). However, we found a nice supermarket and got some food went back and crashed out at the van. Later on we headed back to Trabucador after we had spotted kites up in the distance. Once we got there the wind was too light to get going but we enjoyed a beer on the deck. The next day we checked out of the campsite and headed straight to the spot. It was fairly windy so we tried to get going early on but there just wasn’t quite enough. We chilled out in the sun for a bit and as the afternoon drew on the wind increased to a decent amount. We both headed out on the water and had a great session on the flat water. The highlight of the session definitely had to be when we were both some way out and spotted Flamingos flying overhead.

Across France to the Med

The forecast for the following week for the whole of the south-west corner of France looked particularly shite so onwards we went to the med. The route up the Garonne valley above Bordeaux was really nice...green fields, vineyards and chateaus. We stopped for the night near Agen at a nice campsite by a watermill. After a bit of chilling out we wandered around to try and find something to occupy ourselves until the evening. The road from the campsite wasn’t very inviting for a run or cycling but luckily there was a small play area out front which had a fairly large trampoline. We spent a good hour or so messing around relearning back flicks and front somersaults and watching the selection of animals the campsite had in a small pen. Six or seven chickens, four goats, two pigs and three giant rabbits seemed to be a particularly good mix to go for and you don’t need that much space.

Driving down through Toulouse and Narbonne the scenery isn’t as nice as the other side, more barren and industrial, Carcassonne looked pretty impressive. I asked Ste if he wanted to stop and take a look but he expressed disinterest unless it was a spot particularly renowned for hotties. Arriving in Leucate the first thing that struck us was the lack of decent wind. Ok so there was a slight breeze but nothing beyond 8 or so mph. A couple of buggiers and landboarders were practicing rolling backwards and forwards at a slow speed but apart from the old guys fishing there was bugger all else going on. We pulled into the camping municipal behind the beach and went for a quick light wind land session, the dry salt beds go on for a good couple of miles and the rock hard surface meant it was easy to get going although a bit slippy at times. After an hour or so of rolling we got bored and went back for food and to watch the bats catching flies as the sun set.

The next day the pattern of windless days continued so we went in search of some wireless internet to check out the forecast. It wasn’t looking good and the signs of no wind frustration started show even more when we saw the forecast for the UK was much better with practically a whole week of perfect wind at the Ho! Ste started to get particularly stroppy and bemoan the lack of hotties, wind, sun and anything to do. We did a little bit of landboarding to pass the time but with barely 6mph of wind it really didn’t hit the spot. Onward to a different campsite for the night in Port Bacares and things started looking grim, we had hoped that there may have been at least one bar showing the France-Ireland rugby, it was Friday after all and we felt we had a earned a night in a bar drinking after all the hard work driving we had done, however it was a desolate ghost town. Very few bars, none of them busy and none of them showing the rugby despite the fact they were hosting the bloody cup. Ste played incessantly on the PSP and we both took to drink to blot out the lack of wind and anything to do.

France - West coast

After a brief stop in Port Manech we headed out of Brittany and onwards down the west coast of France. Our next two stops; Noirmoutier and Chateillon plage both proved to be windless although pleasant enough. We spent our time sunbathing, swimming and biking, and learnt one important thing, that is don’t order “Bulots” in a French restaurant unless you’re particularly keen on eating cold sea snails.

This part of the coast felt more touristy and developed than Brittany and although the kiting spots we saw looked alright without the wind we didn’t see much point in hanging around. After a few too many u-turns in stupid places we learnt to ignore the sat nav when it told us to go straight through the narrow streets of small French towns instead of following the “toutes directions” sign.

Further on down the coast we stopped near Royan which has a good lagoon at high tide. Unfortunately there was still no wind so we did some more biking to Royan to look at a kite shop and then La Palmyre. On the cycle route we had to laugh at the signs that informed cyclists of the impending “route difficile” which basically meant there were a couple of slight hills instead of the route being totally flat. We wandered around the lagoon at La Palmyre, which would be amazing if the wind played ball, and sunbathed a bit watching the birds and sailors but eventually got bored and made our way back trying to avoid the hazardous pelaton of French geriatrics on bikes for the first time since they were eleven years old.

Across to France 1st stop - Brittany

Next day was again beautiful sunshine and we headed straight for the port. The crossing was great, extremely calm seas, comfortable boat, good food, couple of dolphins and a short kip later and we arrived in France. Complete disorganisation over directions, poor French signage and the incredibly slow sat nav ensured that we got lost straight away in Roscoff and by the time we made it to the campsite in Sainte Marguerite the office was closed. However, there were instructions to find a pitch if they had closed and we did that and managed to catch the sunset over the dunes before supper.

The first day in Brittany we wandered down to the beach to check out the wind and conditions; the tide was out and the wind was offshore but Steve managed to spot kites on a far off beach (Lampaul-Ploudalmezeau) where the wind would be onshore. We jumped in the van and headed round the coast to find a kite school and some locals setting-up on the beach. As the tide was still out we decided to try a bit of landboarding first. We set-up our kites and messed around on the beach for a bit before deciding the wet sand wasn’t that much fun and sea definitely looked more inviting. A quick change of clothes and we grabbed our kitesurf boards and took to the water. Conditions were really good, clear water, sunshine and only a few learners to contend with. We both had a good session which was only slightly marred by the fact Ste managed to take out one of the locals who looked very unhappy about it despite his profuse apologies. As the tide came in we decided to call it a day and head back to the campsite. The forecast for the next few days didn’t look good so we headed onward the next morning.

We moved on round the coast and decided to call in at Penhors as we headed south. Penhors is a 15km stretch of pure white sand with crystal clear water and the bonus of hard packed sand, with the sun shining it looked like a tropical island but unfortunately was totally windless. We had some lunch and as the tide came back in a light breeze picked up. We grabbed the frenzy and our boards and went to set-up on the beach. The wind was decent enough and we spent a good hour bombing up and down the beach towing each other. Penhors is possibly the best landboarding spot in the world and we definitely plan to return for longer one day.

Cornwall

So....we finally made it on the road. After a hectic two weeks of packing-up and disorganised moving we said an emotional goodbye to our home of four years. To all those people who had asked when we would actually realise that we were leaving our jobs and house for good the answer was definitely the morning we left, only then did it really register. We did a last circuit of Salisbury on our bikes, dropped off keys and jumped in the van to head to Cornwall.

The drive down to Gwithian took a good five hours and we both had the opportunity to get to appreciate the sheer speed that is possible in a fully loaded (more dinner sets than really was required) Fiat Ducato 1.9 TDI motorhome. After all those years of swearing at the caravans that had slowed us down on frantic weekend trips to the beach we took pleasure in the fact that we were now one of those arseholes who can only reach a max speed of 24 mph on steep hills on the A30. We didn’t care, we weren’t in a hurry; we had the sat nav to guide us and the friendly community of motorhomers to wave at as they passed in the opposite direction. The sat nav was particularly great on this occasion, Steve had usefully loaded it with every single point of interest he could think of so we knew when we were passing banks, supermarkets and of course most importantly gay bars, the fact that this slowed down the system so much that it kept crashing didn’t really matter especially as we’d put in the wrong postcode for the campsite.
After some interesting u-turns we finally got to the campsite and pitched-up. We watched the sun set over the water whilst enjoying a lukewarm beer, had a good meal at the local pub and then crashed out. Next day we met up with the other kiters who had come down for the competition and Nick and Pips arrived to enjoy the weekend. Unfortunately there was a total lack of wind and sun for the majority of the day so we spent most of it mooching around, drinking hot chocolate and sitting. Luckily in the evening the weather cleared and a reasonable breeze picked-up so we were able to get an evening land session in as the sun-set.

The next day the wind was a little more promising and as the tide went out the comp zone and kiters set-up. The freestyle buggy and landboard comp was run. There were few competitors with 8 kiters in total in the top-flight board and only two women competing. The 3 buggiers decided to do only a single best-trick heat and Craig Sparkes took the title. However, Hank was particularly good in the heat and definitely gave the most throughout the heat. The ladies competed with the men, which made for some interesting heats against Lewis, Joe and Diarmuid. The conditions weren’t great and low wind and soft sand made it a bit of a struggle. In the men’s competition it was a close call, however Lewis took the title in the end with Diarmuid second and Joe Hockley in third.

That night we had a bbq (fanned with a kite pump for more heat!) and a few more beers. A couple from across the campsite gave us 2 freshly caught mackerel in exchange for some salt. We stuck in some sliced lemon & taragon (a van full of household items can be useful) and stuck them in the bbq. Best fish supper of the trip so far.

The comp came to a close and many of the riders packed-up and headed home. However we stayed on an extra night and were treated to a clear sunny day with light wind. We made the most of the conditions on the Bluff, kitesurf spot number 1 on the trip, and managed to work on our upwind abilities. After a good session we said our goodbyes to Nick and Pips and made our way to Truro to take care of the final preparations before we sailed to France. We stayed at a campsite near Looe Bay for our final night in the UK; it had a beautiful view but was a bit on the desolate side with characters that wouldn’t have been out of place in Royston Vasey. Steve managed to innocently pick-up a couple of guys only ten minutes or so after stepping out of the van.