On Friday the 8th July we wrapped up our second Workaway
and our 40th day of the trip. Currently for the trip we’ve averaged $135AUD
a day for all expenses (travel, accommodation & tucker) between the two of
us… We are starting to get into a routine with packing lunch etc. I reckon as
we get more experienced with day to day travel we will get better with money.
On a Workaway you don’t spend much but for the first two WA’s we’ve travelled in
our spare time and that has proven a little costly… the only thing we have
really been stung with was our hire car which cost nearly 500$ for the weekend
after fuel insurance etc.…..but we had an amazing time at Le Tour, and it was another
very memorable birthday!
We left our second Workaway on a massive high, we had a ripper couple of weeks. Cleaning the BnB was hard work, and we pushed ourselves to achieve a high standard of work in an effective time. This was rewarded by epic food made by our hosts (Peter an ex-head chef in London) and a variety of jobs outside including gardening, mowing, vegie patch, making some gates, slashing and general maintenance which played into our hands perfectly as we’re pretty practical. Pete and Su valued our strengths as we managed to achieve a lot during our stay and we really felt appreciated.
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| Arthur the goat, loved to head butt. Amy coped some bruises from not paying enough attention to him. |
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| Calvados - native to normandy and a birthday present from Su and Pete our host's. Trying to drink this as quick as possible because we don't want to carry it. Tastes like bailies and apple cider mixed together. |
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| Arthur - small in stature big in fight. |
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| Merlin was a fat goat. Easy to please and gentle. |
Falaise, the larger town 5min away with a population around 10,000. It wasn’t until the last day that we went into the town for a little
look around – not because we couldn’t mainly because we didn’t really feel like
it. The workaway was quite busy, we worked from 9-12 noon, had lunch, then work
again from 2-4pm and back to assist with dinner at 630pm so not much spare time
for riding around exploring. Falaise is notable for its castle which William the
Conquer was born around 1028AD. We really enjoyed just relaxing each day after
work, visiting the local patisserie to try its French desserts and hanging out
with our host family – playing table tennis, stirring up Merlin and Arthur (the
goats), watching Le Tour etc.
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| Picnic bound in Falaise with our WA hosts. |
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| Falaise Castle (whats left after WW2) - the birth place of William the Conqueror |
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| Lilly and I - WA host's daughter. |
We finished our stay a few days short to give us a chance to
get down to Provence (which is like 700km away - a lot further then I realised)
in the south east of France. Initially we didn’t leave enough time in between
our WA2 and our AirBnB booking at Carpentras (Mt. Vontoux) so instead of taking
our allocated days off we’d worked for in Fresne-la-mere we left early to travel.
This has worked out pretty well because we get to take more time to visit
central France and see the Loire Valley which otherwise we wouldn’t have been
able to fit in. We couldn’t resist going to Loire Valley and doing some winery
tours. Everyone has commented on how beautiful the Loire Valley is so we have
high expectations.
We decided to spend one night in Caen, the capital in Normandy
since we were close. Caen (pronounced “carn”) is where most people will stay to
see Mont Saint Michel, and the D-Day landings from WW2. We had a look at the
market, city centre and the castle in our short time here before we caught a
3hr train down to Tours – the Loire Valley (“lo-war valley”).
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| The streets of Caen |
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| There always seems to be a ferris wheel near a cathedral in France. |
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| Caen Castle - Chateau de Caen - circa 1060 by William the Conqueror |
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| The castle overlooks the skyline of Caen, something which fascinates me is the amount of dirt which has been shifted to inside the castle.. When inside the castle walls, the top of the wall is maybe 3m from the ground,. You climb up to the walkway on the wall and peer over the side to a 10m+ drop. A lot of work for the slaves a thousand years ago to shift all that dirt to inside the castle..... |
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| One of the buildings inside the walls of the castle - not so old. |
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| Cheeky 950 year medieval anniversary. |
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| Church of Saint-Pierre - roman catholic from around the 13th century. |
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| Entrance to the Caen market where we got some fresh local fruit, ham (the french ham is 100 times better then any ham I've ever eaten), crepes and croissants. |
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