Thursday 3^rd October

Decided to head straight to Doazit in Landes about 40 miles north of Bayonne to make sure we are nearer the coast and Spain for the weekend. It seems funny driving past all the towns and cities I associate with French rugby teams like Dax, Pau, Toulouse, Bayonne and Biaritz.

The country side is gradually changing now with more conifers about and ferns and bracken a bit like miles and miles of Thetford forest.

We camped the night on a Beekeepers farm next to a field of maize and just as we arrived there was a Honey Buzzard circling overhead. After lunch met Alain Laluquer the farmer who has been keeping bees for 15 years and he took us round his workshop and spent over an hour explaining how he makes his hives and how the honey is produced, all in French! Each colony has one queen and 15,000 workers and he gets about 12kg of honey from each compartment of the hive. He changes the queen every three years for a new young one to keep the colony fresh and active. Afterwards we got to try the two types of honey he produces, Acaia and Chestnut and bought some to take home.

As we were cooking a thunderstorm started in the distance and gradually just built and built until all we could see to the east, north and west were thunder clouds with massive lightning flashes. As it got dark the storm just continued to build until it reached us and it thundered all night with some massive cracks and lightning that lit up the whole van every few minutes. It just went on and on and poured with rain and we timed the last roll of thunder and lightning at just gone 10;30 the following morning, some storm.

We are currently at the coast in a small town called Soustons and hope to go to the beach later if the sun comes out.