Day 13 - Les Sables d'Olonne to Rennes

Of all of the many unique experiences we imagined having in France, the one we did this morning had never occurred to me. We decided that Brett needed to do something physical and fun after being tucked away working for most of the day yesterday, so we booked a segway excursion! The french way is to start the day late and finish late (perfect for you uh Dan :-) ), but the guide was happy to open early (10am) to fit into our schedule.
Chris and Al took the option of a bit of a lie in and the rest of us trucked off - with a bit of trepidation - to have a go. What we learned was that it is really easy as long as you relax and FUN!!! We took it easy along the promenade, dodging English pensioners walking their dogs and once our guide was happy that we had got the hang of it we left the safety of the footpath and ventured into a park area, a bit like a little Bottle Lake Forest. Woohoo!

To watch they must seem really bizarre and even to drive too, they look and feel like they must work on telepathy as they adjust to subtle changes in your weighting. You simply lean where you want to go and the more you lean, the greater degree of movement. Sounds simple? It is! I was even turning and taking photos behind me on the go, it was that natural. very funny to watch people looking at us as we stopped and then took off again, they couldn't figure out what we were doing to make it work lol. You should all give it a go if you get the chance.

After our morning adventure, we checked out and then went t a bakery to get some picninc supplies for lunch on the beach. It was lovely. We were all interested to see an old woman make her way down to the beach leaning heavily on her walking stick and then sit in a rock pool that had been left by the receding tide and rub seaweed all over her legs. She had fab skin tone for her age, so there must be something to it huh! It wasn't quite so enthralling when she then lay down on her towel or a bit of topless sunbathing though.

After lunch we headed off to our next stop, Rennes. We got here as a storm rolled in and have just been out to dinner at a local creperie where we had fabulous food and were sitting in the glass fronted area of the restaurant - a perfect spot to watch the lightning display. It went on for ages and we were all looking for the Delorean to zoom through the square in front of us - the view was only missing the clock on he building for a scene straight out of Back to the Future.

Everyone here is saying we are very unlucky that the weather is so bad, in fact, when they hear that we have come all the way from NZ, they apologise for it like it is their fault. It's stillwarmer that we hear you guys are having at home - so still not complaining really.

Hopefully the rain will stop overnight so that we have a clear day for our visit to Mont St Michel, but if not, I guess the silver lining will be fewer tourists.