Still scoffing and drinking our way up the French Atlantic coast and tonight we have relieved the ocean of 7 more oysters and about 100 mussels. I’m really getting into this game.
The little hotel in St Jean de Monts with the garden oasis among the candy floss fairgroundland that we were in last night provided us with a sumptuous homemade breakfast which fuelled the boilers for the next leg of the trip to Bouin.
The first 15 miles we spent on forest tracks winding about on gritty tracks when we could have just stayed on the asphalt road and done the mileage in half the time! However the big event of the day was passing from the mainland onto the Ile de Noirmoutier via a very long and high road bridge. The allotted Velodyssee route stays on the island for about 5km before leaving again via Le Passage to Gois. This is a 2.5 mile long causeway which is built on a raised sand spit and which gets inundated at high tide and submerged under 13feet of water. So the critical thing to know is when is low tide because then you have about 1.5 hours each side of that to get across otherwise you are scuppered for the next 9 hours waiting for the tide to come in and then out again so that you can cross. This is the only way onto and off the island apart from the road bridge at Pointe de la Fosse at the southern end.
By sheer meticulous planning and good fortune we arrived just as the tidal water was sloshing off the asphalt on its way out to the ocean. This gave us a 3 hour window to get across and muck about waiting to see the tide come in again and cover the road once again. For mucking about read ‘drinking beer, eating ice cream and drinking coffee.’
In the event that you attempt to cross when the tide is rushing back in again but realise you are not going to make it without disappearing into the briny the French have kindly provided three rescue shelters at intervals across the causeway that you can clamber up to save yourself. I’m afraid your car (or your bike) gets lost beneath the waves and is then kaput with seawater. Apparently this is a very regular occurrence as naive tourists make a last minute dash to get to the other side to avoid having to wait for 9 hours!!
What gets revealed at low tide is a vast expanse of mudflats beloved of cockle pickers and clam hunters. Folk drive onto the causeway and park and then fan out across the salty mud to look for gritty gristly bivalves that they can chuck in a pan of hot water and have for tea.
One fella was demonstrating the art of getting out onto the mudflats to his kids but made a bit of an ar*e of it and just about fell in himself.
It was all jolly good fun and fortunately no tourists, cars, bikes or children were lost this day at Le Passage de Gois.
Velodyssee 
That’s quite amazing and didn’t know of its existence and so relatively close to Carnac. Must be a headache for the authorities to rescue stranded people and cars.
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