Bono to Carnac - Granite, Granite Everywhere

We emptied our grey water tank before hitting the road this morning. We’re actually back pedalling slightly to visit Bono which is the village that we unsuccessfully tried to park in yesterday. Our favourite park4night app showed an alternative parking place across the river from the village which we’re going to try.

We arrived early and we’re lucky enough to find a nice long space for Kiki. Close to the parking area is an old suspension bridge which takes pedestrians and cyclists over the river to the village. It was just like stepping into a Cornish creekside village - substantial granite buildings with slate roofs. The harbour had a collection of local boats and one or two traditional oyster working boats identical to those in and around Falmouth, U.K.

We walked out of the village following the river. There were piles of old roof tiles here and there which we discovered were used in the cultivation of oysters. The tiles are laid in the shallows in July and the oysters lay their eggs on them - we’re not sure about the rest of the process but there were lots of abandoned wooden sided sieves which must have featured somehow...

The walk up the river reminded me of walks around the Fal in Cornwall - a wide still river with ancient oaks coming down to the waterline. After a while we wandered back to Kiki and retraced our wheel-tracks once again back towards Auray where, on the other side of the river, we found a flot bleu. Here we were able to empty our black tank and fill up with fresh water. We had coffee before pressing on to Carnac.

There’s a huge, free Aire de Camping Car located right next to the famous Carnac Alignments. We tucked Kiki into a corner - we’re expecting a lot of neighbours as it seems as if the whole of France is out and about in their camping cars!

We took a pre-lunch stroll around a small part of the alignments to orientate ourselves. Carnac is one of the world’s largest prehistoric sites - there are over 3000 menhirs arranged in parallel rows. These mysterious lines and patterns were created by Megalithic tribes as early as 4000BC (Av J.C.)

We returned to Kiki for lunch and then set out again to explore the rest of this fascinating area. We came here on our first holiday together nearly 12 years ago and enjoyed revisiting some of the places we remembered. The base of a windmill with its viewing platform on top and the “Geant”, a huge menhir brought back particular memories of the long weekend we spent cruising around in our open topped MX5.

All together we walked about 14km today and we were glad to see Kiki when we returned. We had our evening meal before settling down for the night.