Our naturist road trip through France 2022 - Week 3

Ever since we had arrived in France, a heat wave has been following our trail. We’re talking about 35°C (that must be over a 100°F) and more, every single day. Excellent naturist weather, that much is sure, although we did spent a significant amount of the day in the shade to protect our skin and keep our sanity. Life mostly happened before noon and from the late afternoon until the night. This was probably the best thing about the heat wave, it allowed us to be naked every single hour of the day. From when we woke up until when we went to bed, and also during the nights, no textile was needed other than our bed sheets.

We knew that this had to change one day. Tropical times in Europe only last for a while and are almost always followed by thunderstorms. And that was exactly what we saw appearing on our weather app when we drove towards our next destination: Le Couderc. Well, we had seen that this kinda weather was coming towards us a couple of times before, and that’s exactly why we chose Le Couderc in the first place. The last time when we’ve been to this campsite, about two years ago, we had also turned up in horrible weather. It had been raining day after day, and it was pretty cold as well, but yet we had a great time at the campsite largely thanks to its huge indoor bar. As we happened to be in the neighbourhood and we saw the dark clouds coming towards us, we knew that Le Couderc would be the best place for us to end up.

We put up the tent much better than we normally do, and even took out our set of emergency pegs (the ones that are only supposed to be used when we really want every possible bit of tent strongly connected to the ground. And it was worth the effort. The light show that followed that night was equally impressive as it was scary. Sometimes our tent would be literally be lit for minutes in a row, just by the lightning surrounding us. Or maybe it just felt like minutes, but we can tell you that we did not get the best night’s rest. Especially because our tent is not used to this kind of weather and the amount of water that kept falling out of the sky was all but comforting.

In the morning we looked at the damage and concluded that our tent is quite a lot safer than we imagined it to be. There was a bit of water leaking inside, the bottom of our air mattress was quite wet, but other than that, the storm did not do much harm. When we read the newspaper that day, we realised that we had been pretty lucky. Other parts of France had gotten serious showers of hail and winds reaching more than 100 kilometres per hour (we don’t know how many miles that is, but it must be many).

Shitty weather would follow us for the next days. Not that it was always cold or rainy, on the contrary, we had excellent moments when the whole campsite was naked on the terrace of the bar or in the swimming pool. But it was just that kind of unpredictable weather. The kind in which you wake up with a pale blue sky, make plans to visit a local market, and by the time you get there, it starts raining again.

Our neighbour told us that a couple of days of rain is just part of the camping experience in France. And she’s right, you can’t change the weather and we just have to look at it in a positive way. Being stuck in our tent or in the bar did encourage us to get some work done. But during the next stormy night filled with thunder and lightning, we just wished that those rainy days had not been part of our camping experience. We had originally only booked for 3 nights at Le Couderc, but ended up staying 7. We had a place with good wifi and a reasonably safe camping pitch, we just did not dare to risk that by going to another campsite.

As always, storms pass by and more warm weather came towards us. So a bit later than originally expected, we moved on to our next destination: naturist campsite Devèze in the Gers region. On the first sight, this campsite didn’t look all that spectacular. What had drawn our attention though was that it had a huge lake. We arrived quite late in the afternoon and decided to head towards the bar instead of exploring the campsite first. Sometimes, you just want a drink, you know? Apparently, we had arrived during the weekly communal barbecue. Before we knew it, we were invited to join at people’s tables, started talking, drank some more, had some food, and then it was bed time. So tomorrow, we’re going to have a look at that huge lake.

PS: We are very aware that when you look at the pictures in this story, it doesn't look at all like we've been having really bad weather. Over the years, we've gotten so used to run with our cameras out of our tent as soon as there are some sun rays, and to keep our cameras hidden when the weather turns bad. Unfortunately, we didn't consider this weekly update... Sorry about that. The next time we get some rain, we'll make sure to take some pictures!