May 1, 2011

The rain carries on all night and by morning the tent is saturated and all our things feel damp.  This is how I remember camping in England.  We have to pack everything up wet and hope we get the chance to dry it out later.

The countryside is hilly today – very much like Derbyshire.  Absolutely everything is closed, not just because it is Sunday, but because it is 1st May and a holiday.  Once again we have to rely on our supplies as we don’t come across a restaurant or bar that is open during the whole day.  This seems strange to us – another cultural difference – as we would expect all the shops to be closed on a holiday but hotels, bars, cafés and restaurants to be open to take advantage of the holiday makers.  We struggle to find anywhere to stay but in the end we find a camp-site which appears to be open but we are the only people there.  Nobody to even collect the fee for pitching our tent.

Whilst Ken pitches the tent, I go off in search of take-away pizza, but return empty-handed.  Even that stand-by has deserted us today.  Back to baguette and cereal bars.  While we are eating this great feast we spot what look like two giant rats on the river bank, but after more discussion and use of the binoculars, we decide that they are Coipu (they were about 2 foot long).  I have since checked and they can be spotted in France so we weren’t hallucinating.  This was a little disconcerting as we were camping next to the river and I didn’t really fancy sharing my sleeping bag with one!  Fortunately, they didn’t fancy sharing with me either and we got through the night unscathed.