6th June 2009

Paul: We are on a really pleasant campsite called Camping Le Nauzan Plage. It rained very heavily in the night and looks like it may continue today as well.  However, it's a pretty site with loads of butterflies flitting around the bushes at each side of our pitch.

Camping Le Nauzan Plage near Royan

We are at the side of a little river and there are tiny baby frogs in the grass everywhere, hundreds of them.  I expect we ran over a few last night as we parked, shame. Tina couldn't resist picking them up and stroking them! There are also some baby ducks and some really ugly moorhen chicks, which Tina thinks are really cute, yuck!  It's a real wildlife haven.
Some ducklings were cheeping for their mother when a bloody dog came and chased them up and down the river.  Dog owners should be shot. Why do they think it's okay for their dogs to run free everywhere, Tina is terrified of them and they terrorise the wildlife Grrr!

Typical pitch at Nauzan Plage 

Hundreds of baby Frogs

Ugly little Moorhen

Butterflies everywhere

I don't know what we'll do today because of the weather; we may get a bus and go into Royan. Just now Tina told me she’d seen a big fish in the river come up after the little ducklings.  We thought it may be a pike or something.  If it was, they won't last long in this river.  A man who had been taking photos of the butterflies in the hedges also came over and agreed that the ducklings will get eaten.  Poor Tina she wanted us to help them, but that's nature I'm afraid. 

We went for a walk, through a large park just next to the site and ended up in the little village of Nauzan.  We hoped to find somewhere to eat but there was one restaurant and the only things they had were either Moules or Viande Rouge.  Neither sounded or looked particularly appetising so we gave that a miss.  Tina thought the red meat was probably horse and it might be, but more likely it was a steak. We walked back to the campsite and noticed a tiny kiosk at the entrance that was selling cooked food.  We ordered a burger and chips.  Tina noticed that on the menu board it said "Steak au Cheval" so she had to ask if our burger was beef or cheval which made the guy really laugh.  We took the burger back to the van and shared it; there was also a ton of chips.  One of the moorhens was wandering around on our grass pitch so Tina went out and took some photos.  Boy are they ugly little things!  Tonight we're having a chilli for dinner.