Having cleared out my orifices of beach sand we set off northwards again up the west side of the Gironde estuary.
More pine forest – ho-hum very nice. The constant deafening din of the cicadas prompted Mrs Nelson to do some research. According to ‘national treasure’ Sir David Attenborough these critters are hatched underground and remain there for a staggering 17 years before emerging as a grub and climbing up a tree whereupon it metamorphoses into a winged creature leaving the outer eco-skeleton attached to the tree trunk. They then climb up the tree a bit further and rub their legs and flutter their wings making all this noise in order to catch a mate. This is one hell of a noisy orgy we are cycling through. Having mated the female flutters down lays more pupae in the ground and 17 years later they pop up and off we go again! Today we must have passed a billion of them which means that there are 17 billion just lurking about in the ground just being really really bored!
Dear reader, please note the three exo-skeletons in the above photo.
Arrived at the end of the day at our hotel very hot and very sticky. Hurrah it has a pool. Only 2 other people there so far less embarrassing than the Lacanau beach debacle. This hotel also turns out to be something of a walk-in menagerie. There are dogs and chickens roaming about plus a guineapig in a cage and 30 caged up birds including paroqeets, budgerigars, finches and other zany coloured birds. Breakfast was served in amongst this lot and the cocophony of cicadas was replaced by a din of twittering caged birds ( to be fair, the guineapig did stay very quiet). The vague stench of bird poo mixed with Trill and foetid water troughs slightly put me off my yoghurt and muesli and to add insult to injury I skidded slightly on some escapee parroqueet droppings. However the saddest spectacle of all (apart from the notable absence of scrambled eggs at the breakfast buffet) was the grey parrot who had pecked off all his feathers apart from those on his head (which, if you think about it, would be physically impossible). The short shambling woman who ran the place explained that it was just moulting and that it was perfectly normal. This sounded to me like a Michael Palin response to a dead Norwegian Blue complaint! But just look at the poor chap:
His mates in other cages looked distinctly healthier.
The reason why there was no blog published last night was because there was no internet. This famous menagerie hotel was also surrounded by ongoing road improvement works and the wonderful French contractors had dug through the phone lines hence WiFi blackout. I went to inspect the hole but could do nothing to fix the damage!
Velodyssee 
Trip to Specsavers required. You stayed in a poor man’s zoo masquerading as a menagerie hotel.
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