18,19,20th July – Roannes st mary
We spent three nights in Roannes-Saint-Mary as it was just too cold and wet to move on. Plus our room was comfortable and a good size and we had free internet. We figured as we had been cycling 10+ weeks that we were due a break anyway.
Not much happened here. We ate, we slept, we caught up on blogs.
View from our hotel room.
church in the town
no blogs for a while as internet has been scarce. Will update later.
Basically we have been having terrible weather (making up for the lovely weather we had for the first 12 weeks). We got rained in on the massif central for about a week. It has been on and off rain for the last two weeks. We are about 85 kms away from the ferry and we hope to catch the train as it is chucking it down yet again.
We cycled through France
To see Bryan and Lynne
We knocked on the door
And they let us in
It had been a hot ride
We had cycled all day
We smelt pretty bad
But were allowed to stay
We went to the markets
and all had some snails
Except for Jo
Who didn’t like their entrails
They cooked a nice dinner
It was lots of fun
The time flew by
And soon it was one
We were a bit drunk
So all went to bed
And awoke in the morning
With a sore head
Thanks for the wine
And excellent meals
It was a nice rest
From our two wheels
But it was time to move on
We enjoyed our stay
We hopped on our bikes
And were on our way
Sunday July 17, 2011
It rained in the night and it rained all morning. Our bladders forced us out of the tent about 11am. Luckily we had ordered our baguette and pain au choclat the night before and we didn’t have to venture far in the rain in search of food.
We decided to stay put for the day. It was too wet to pack up and too wet to cycle with my not so waterproof cycle jacket (which, btw, I paid a lot of money for and is a good brand).
We went to the local pub for a coffee. When we walked in they all stopped and stared. It was a local pub for local people. We said “Bonjour” which is the polite thing to do in France. They said “Bonjour” back. Mike said “Deux cafe sil voux plait”. They bought us two short blacks.
The moto grand prix was on the telly, so we sat and watched it in silence, sipping the surprisingly nice coffee.
One of the men at the bar (who was wearing an All Blacks t-shirt – go figure) saw we were engrossed in the bike race (it was close), picked up the remote control as if to change the channel.
Mike nervously laughed. I said “You just wait until the world cup – the All Blacks will thrash your arse!”. Luckily they couldn’t understand a word of English and just turned up the telly for us. A nice gesture, but seeing we couldn’t understand a word of French it was a bit wasted on us.
Day 67 – Levignac-de-Guyenne to Lagruere
Saturday July 9, 2011, 44 km (27 miles) – Total so far: 2,466 km (1,533 miles)
It was a late start leaving Bryan and Lynnes place, firstly ‘cos it was raining, and secondly ‘cos it was so darn comfortable there we didn’t really want to leave!
Lynne made us a delicious lunch of melon, jambon and mint pesto, plus bread and a selection of cheeses. At 3.30pm we finally got packed, the sun was out and we left in search of Canal du Midi.
After seeing Bryan and Lynnes barn conversion, we are now both inspired to find a dooer-upper in France. Bryan told us about a large house beside the canal for only 40,000 euros, so we stopped and had a look at it. It would be perfect to convert to a backpackers (another one of my “to do” things one day). It also had a little shop at the front – perfect for a cafe or bike shop. Sadly it had been sold 2 months earlier. On the positive side, the man next door to it said it would have taken 300,000 euros to do up. So that saved us a small fortune!
We continued on the Canal du Midi until we found a campsite right beside the river. It made a nice change from the ghastly resort campsites along the coast. It was only 10 euros to camp and not full of motorhomes!
We had a quiet night sleep, only to be woken by heavy rain during the night. darn!
Day 65 – Melhan-sur-Garonne to Saint-Pierre-Sur-Dropt
Thursday July 7, 2011, 37 km (23 miles) – Total so far: 2,423 km (1,505 miles)
After 10 weeks of cycling and 2500kms we finally made it to Bryan (an old school friend) and Lynnes place.
Bryan and Lynne have done an amazing barn conversion, which they live in with their 3 kids. Mike and i want one! (a barn conversion that is, not a kid)
Our first night we went to the night markets where we bought a tub of snails.
This snail had more guts than me and this was as far as it got to my mouth. Seriously, if you ever plan on eating snails, don’t look too closely at their insides!
Our second evening Bryan and Lynne cooked a delicious dinner. Bryan is a superb cook, feeding us on the most delicious prawns I have ever had, and lamb cooked to perfection on the barbie, accompanied with a selection of fine wines. Lynne cooked a delicious homemade pavlova. Definitely the best food I have had in France yet!
We have backtracked up the coastal route and are now in Bordeaux. It was a nice backtrack though, as the coastal paths are flat and scenic – much better than the time we had to backtrack 200kms in Australia because Mike forgot to fill up with fuel leaving Ayres rock!
The plan now is to cycle down the Canal de Garonne to Toulouse, then possibly the canal du Midi to the med. Will post photos later.
28th and 29th June
We cycled just 20km from St-Jean-de-Luz and got as far as Bayonne before stopping. It was a dreary day, threatening rain on and off. We seem to have lost a bit of motivation and direction since leaving Spain. We are heading to Bordeaux to visit Bryan, but are having trouble deciding which route to take. We decided a couple of days rest in a hotel might help. Well, we have cycled well over 2000 kms so far – a rest is due (well that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!)
Anyway, Mike bought me a personal motivator for my birthday (a little early as I left my other one in San Sebastian).
It’s a sports watch which measures my heart rate. When I am struggling up a steep hill, about to complain and get off and walk – I will check my motivator and realise I am only doing 115 BPM (beats per minute).
From experience at the gym, my personal trainer would push my heart rate to 180 BPM, so I know I can push myself considerably harder and this seems to give me more motivation, and surprisingly more energy. It didn’t work on those bloody mountains in Spain though (possibly because I lost my other motivator in San Sebastian).
25th and 26th June
We caught the train back to Hendaye which is the French border town. It was mid-30s so we decided to have a couple of rest days as the campground had a pool and it had a quiet beach.
Our day chilling out at the beach where we had our first beach swim – finally being hot enough!
We gave spain a couple of days cycling before deciding to get the hell outta there. It was very hard to get motivated in the morning knowing we either had to cycle on a major road or push our bikes up a mountain. So we made the decision to put our bikes on the train and head back to the French border. So two days cycling into spain, and one hour out again on the train.
23st June – Day 51
Our third day in Spain we continued over the mountains.
The only other alternative was a very busy road. See photo below.
We stopped in a town seaside town called Garautz. The camping ground was shut so we stayed in a hotel. We went into town for some tapas – or Pinchos as they call it in the Basque country.
They don’t seem to have restaurants like we are used to. The only restaurants we could find were in the back of the bar area, with a seating area, bright lights and usually a TV going. Zero ambience! They also didn’t open until around 9pm.
The food was really cheap though. We found a place that did a 3 course menu including wine for 14 euros. We couldn’t be bothered with our phrase book so we just picked our dishes at random for a bit of fun to see what we would end up with.
Mike ended up with a whitebait omelet for starters and steak for main (he cheated a bit as it was obvious Entrecut was going to be steak. I ended up with prawns for starters and a bowl of squid for my main. The squid was really nice but nowhere near a filling meal so I swapped for Mikes steak (serves him right for cheating!).
We decided the food is nowhere near as good as in France, and the people seem to a bit grumpy as well, so that and the crappy roads made our decision to backtrack to France an easy one.