The drive onwards to
Sérignan Plage and our much discussed, long awaited meet-up with our good
friends Dave and Jan was short and blissfully straightforward – largely as we
pushed the boat out and bought ourselves a 21km stretch of Autoroute that cut
out all the little towns and villages that would have been lovely to look at, but
tortuously slow to navigate. And at €2.50 for the privilege, what’s not to
like!
Based on our recent
experiences of ACSI sites operating at full capacity, or with only last-ditch
pitches available, we were a tad apprehensive as we turned south off the road
that had skirted the Canal du Midi and we entered familiar territory from 2016,
when we had stayed on a full-on pimp-my-pitch site that was on full ACSI
discount – just for the year we found it! Our choice this year was unknown to
us, but was the only site on this gorgeous stretch of beach with the same deal,
and so we found ourselves at the reception of Beauséjour and, with a large Pass’Etapes
aire opposite, we were feeling fairly relaxed that if not here, we’d have
somewhere to stay at least. (The aire was one of the biggest we have seen so
far, big enough to accommodate one of the biggest camper outfits we have seen
on this trip too!)
The receptionist was most
bemused by the look on Mr B’s face as he was told that we had a choice of four
pitches. And his joy was increased as we walked around and saw that the vast
majority of our fellow campers were French – what a treat! Mrs B suggested that
we drove the camper onto the first of the four pitches that took our fancy and
then walked to look at the rest. An excellent call this, as we have found from
experience, that it’s much easier by foot to get straight to the vacant pitches
to assess them, and when (as it was with us) other campers were also hunting down
their ‘ideal’ emplacement, at least we would know that we could claim squatters
rights on one! As it turned out, Mrs B had nailed the best one of the four
straight off – and, after we had taken a good few turns around the site over the
length of our stay, probably one of the best on the site for our needs!
With Dave and Jan on the
site right next door, we had just enough time to pitch up, get straight, and we
were round at theirs for an evening of fun and frivolity – once we had handed
over some ID and been issued with mandatory wrist bands that is – something we
remembered from our stay in 2016! With so many attractions and facilities on
the site, security was super-efficient!
As with many of our
friendships these days, we may not meet up for some time, but the years that
may have passed are held fast by a thread that holds firm over the passage of
time – and its an easy process of relaxing back into where we might have left
off last time.
The next day saw all four of
us heading off on our trusty folding steeds to the nearby town of Sérignan
where we were planning to have lunch. It’s a pleasant 30 minute ride along the
cycle path north (with some fabulous painted agricultural buildings) and then
across the (new to us) bike and pedestrian only bridge, directly letting on to
the tree covered central square, bounded on two sides by a good range of
restaurants and cafés. And it was just as well there were so many eateries, as,
although we had allowed for the fact that the French like to eat early, our
arrival at midday was just in time, as we had completely overlooked that it was
Fathers’ day!
Relaxing under the broad and
protective canopy of the magnificent plane trees that give shade to the square,
we easily whiled away the time over a lovely lunch of local delights, with just
enough wine to be on the right side of a 30 minute cycle back to the vans!
With Dave and Jan coming
round to ours for food that night, we had a laugh at the different levels of
security on our site, where the process of signing us in, a uniformed guard to
claim our ID back from, and those mandatory wrist bands, was replaced by a nod
from a relaxed, and very hench guy lounging on one of the site’s electric golf
carts, exuding a charm that you just knew would be replaced by the tough stuff
if you were to cross him!
Picking up from where we had
left off at lunchtime with our reminiscences and plans for future travel,
another pleasant evening whizzed by before Dave and Jan had to walk back to
their site so we could all observe the 23:00 noise curfew on each site…
With only one day left
before it was time to say goodbye to our chums as they made their way back through
France to Belgium and their ferry home, we took advantage of their final shop by
car at a nearby hyper-market to get some provisions, without having to cycle
for them, as we might subsequently need to if we didn’t want to move the van,
and we organised a farewell BBQ at ours. This was the first site of the trip
where we had been allowed to have an old school charcoal BBQ, so it seemed
crazy not to, with the evening ending without any incendiary incidents and peppered
with promises we hope we can all keep, to meet up again with hopefully less
time elapsing!
With our friends heading
north and us having only just arrived at the coast, we kicked back and decided
we’d just take the days as they came and see how long we wanted to stay down south
and enjoy the sun, sea and the miles of marvellous beach …
S&J
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