Well this is not on – we awoke this morning to the pitter patter of rain, to be fair the BBC weather app has been telling me that it has been raining on and off for several days but even so. It did ease off just after 9 so we scurried out for a quick “essentials” walk and then loitered in the van until around 11.30 as we are not travelling far.

After a quick (final) trip to the supermarket, we drove the short distance to Le Portel a coastal town neighbouring Boulogne and were soon settled into our Aire for the next couple of nights. Mid afternoon the sun came out to play and though pretty blustery we set out for a nice walk along the coastal path which passes very close to the Aire. Heading south we were greeted with spectacular views towards Boulogne Port in the north and out towards the ruins of Fort de l’Heurt built on a rocky islet by Napoleon in the early 1800’s with the Germans adding an anti-aircraft platform to the top during WWII….

A lovely long stretch of white sandy beach running from below the centre of town to the Port of Boulogne….

The central part of the beach is not open to dogs from 1st May so instead of going down we continued along the coastal path passed the town to the unusual light house perched up high on the cliffs…

We continued along the coast a bit further but were getting quite battered by the winds so soon decided to make our return….

Taking a little wander through the tidy but fairly unremarkable village….

One thing that really struck a chord with us was this memorial to all those lost at sea from 1877 to 1995 – I’m not sure how many but way too many and many of them in their early teens. I couldn’t find anything out about it so not sure if they were all local but you could see incidences of 3 or 4 members of the same family being lost – so sad and reminiscent of the many memorials we have found on our travels around the UK coastline – RIP….

With the cobwebs well and truly blown away and our hunger peaking we retruned to the van for the evening.

Today’s stats:

• Miles driven – 22
• Miles walked – 5
• Beaches – 1
• Groceries – £29.43
• O/N – £13.79