Heading West - To Brest
As I mentioned in the previous post, its our anniversary on the 12th June and its become a bit of a tradition to have a day together on the beach replicating our first date... West we headed!
Before we started the 342km drive to Le Conquet, Brest we had to go and see Le Mont Saint-Michel - a tidal island and mainland commune in Normandy. There is nothing getting away from the fact that its a huge tourist attraction now but that doesn't mean something should be avoided just because it is going to be massively crowded.
There is a free bus service that takes you up to the entrance of Le Mont Saint Michel, well they say free you have to pay 20 Euros for parking to get the bus. so we opted for the free parking in the near by village, Beauvoir, and whilst it was a beautiful day, we walked the 3.5km path to the island.
Its actually free to enter the walls of the Mont. Once you are in there are tourist shops, a post office and restaurants to get you to spend your money, after all, it is a tourist attraction.
We roamed the walls, got a coffee and sent some postcards to family members. It was a lovely day out.
At the top is the Gothic-Romanesque Abbaye du Mont-Saint-Michel. At 11 Euros each we didn't go into the Abbey, but we enjoyed looking around the narrow winding streets and watching a naughty seagull unsuspecting peoples food!
Time to head west
The day after was our anniversary and it was time to head to Le Conquet. 300km but I wanted to get there as I had surprise planned.
Le Conquet is the most westerly point of France and due to the nature of the sea it is scattered with lighthouses right down the coastline. Again we used Park4night to find the ideal spot. As it was the weekend we also selected some back-up spots as we expected it to be busy!
We struck lucky, and there was one spot left in the place we originally found.
It was windy that evening, but in true British style we got our coats on and sat outside and watched the sun go down enjoying our special 2 euro French wine. We had a wonderfully peaceful sleep that night with the wind hitting the van and listening to the waves crash into the rocks.
The next morning we took a short walk via the well placed coastal path to one of the light houses, positioned right next to a roman church called 'Phare Saint-Mathieu'
Like most places we have visited it was an amazing piece of architecture in a beautiful location, it seems that the French have got this recipe nailed!
It was starting to warm up a bit and we wanted to get to the beach, we headed back to the van for our swim wear and some lunch and walked north via the same coastal path to the beach. Although it was windy walking along the cliffs, dropping down in to the bay gave some wind protection and it felt glorious, if we had this weather in England we would all be on the beach and in the sea.
We threw our towels down, T- shirts off and ran into the sea. We are still in disagreement about this, but the sea was bloody freezing, Ellie said it was delightful (it was cold! bloody cold)
Either way, Ellie was happy and so was I, as I had found a small problem to give my climbing fix a feed! I hadn't climbed in a couple weeks and was really starting to miss it.
I love the problem solving and total focus you need to have when climbing, my mind is constantly racing, I am serial planner and I am constantly thinking about what to do next! I was actually hoping that this trip would teach me, you don't have to plan everything and going with the flow can make experiences better.
The night of our Anniversary and Ellie made us our favourite tea, Risotto. The sun was going down and we drank a few gin's. I suggested we taken a photo on a near by cliff edge to put in our album to celebrate our 2 years together. I had been nervous about this for a couple of days, but the gin had given me that extra courage that I needed. We stepped up to take the photo on the tripod that Ellie broke a few days before, and I asked my best friend, my soul mate and my beautiful girlfriend if she would marry me...
I think Ellie was a bit in shock, I was also ridiculously nervous. Before I could even get my knee on the floor I belted out 'WILL YA MARRY ME!' in the highest pitch voice possible!
Despite the speedy proposal I was over the moon that Ellie had responded with a high pitch 'YES' ... and there we have it I have a Fiancée.
I had managed to convince Ellie in the super market the days leading up to our anniversary that we should get a bottle of champagne, we settled on a bottle of the cheap stuff for 7.50, however after the proposal Ellie did say 'if I knew this was for our engagement I would of let you get a proper bottle'!
We had a lovely and emotional evening together and I think we was both a little bit in shock I had months planning this, having an engagement ring gifted by mum, hiding the ring in the van at the bottom of my winter mountaineering boot and also how I was going to do it!
Following the day after our exciting news we had a sore head from all the cheap bubbles and gin, so we decided on a relaxing day and we went on a big food shop, a sit down lunch in McDonalds, and went to a local crag called 'Le cube' to see how Ellie gets on with Belaying outdoors
The Topo I found for the crag wasn't great but we still managed a little bit of a training day. You can buy the local climbers guides in the tourists shops for 10 euro which would of been great!
Mostly Sport climbing 8 routes in sector
Our trip west was complete and we had a wonderful time, We left Brest engaged and loving our journey across France. We were starting to feel more comfortable here and the weather was slowly getting better.
Now we start the journey to La Rochelle...