Our last few days in France were lovely and hot. We cycled through Biarittz, Saint-Jean-de-Luz and Hendaye was our last town in France.

The only way into Spain was either via a major road or a 150 km detour. We decided to take the main road. It was awful. It was like riding on a motorway. Trucks and cars whizzing by at horrendous speeds. I wasn’t sure we should even be on that road.

We are now cycling (i.e. pushing our bikes up the hills) along the coastal route, well away from the main roads. I’m giving it a minimum of 3 days before I decide to catch the train out of here!

On the positive side the wine is very cheap (as long as you don’t mind it in a carton!). As cyclists we are very excited about 1 litre cartons of wine that only cost 55c. It means it is much lighter to carry than a bottle.

We really need to cut down on our weight if we want to continue in Spain. We checked the panniers today and are carrying approximately 3 kilos in food alone! So we really need to eat some.

We may backtrack to France if the hills and roads get too much for us. It’s not much point carrying on if we can’t cycle up the hills and if we’re not enjoying it. We might look at doing Spain another time on a credit card – which means we pack a credit card, a change of clothes and a toothbrush, and stay in hotels and eat out.

Last night we had our first tapas. They call it Pinchos here in the Basque country. They are laid out on the bar and you nibble while drinking your beer. Some bars have gourmet pinchos, and some have just sardines and olives, or ham on bread. We opted for a bar with gourmet pinchos and they were yummy.

I have uploaded some more photos on facebook.

Day 34 – Fouras les Bains to La Tremblade click to view route in new page

Monday June 6, 2011, 53 km (33 miles) – Total so far: 1,140 km (708 miles)

We left Foras and continued on down the coast. We stopped in Rochefort for lunch.

We met a german girl who had cycled up from Morocco and was on her way back home to Hanover in Germany. She had been cycling since December and wanted to know which way to get out of Rochefort. We also got a few tips from her on routes heading south. She said she just knocks on peoples doors and asks if she can camp in their back yard and most of the time they invite her to sleep indoors! Still – pretty amazing to cycle that far on your own.

We left Rochefort and had to cycle over this large bridge.

Later on in the day we had to cycle over another one!

The rest of the day we cycled through wetlands and spotted some wildlife.

Day 33 – Fouras again
Monday June 6, 2011

Yuck. Everything was damp after last nights torrential downpour. The day, however was overcast and not raining. As it was Sunday we decided to have a lazy day. We had Moules Frites (mussells and chips) for lunch and that was the highlight of the day!

Day 32 – Fouras les Bains

Saturday June 4, 2011

We were due a break so we took the day off to explore Foras.

It was really hot so we made use of the pool – first swim of the trip!

We cooked ourselves some steak with a Poivre sauce andnoodles. simple but yum.

That evening there was a torrential downpour and lightening immediately above us and I slept right through it. Mike said the rain on our tent was so loud that it blocked out my snoring! Probably just as well. I’m not a big fan of thunder storms and would have had glastonbury nightmares of our tent sliding away in a pool of mud.

Click here for Mikes blog

Day 31 La Rochelle to Fouras les Bains Click to view route in new page

Friday June 3, 2011, 41 km (25 miles) – Total so far: 1,087 km (675 miles)

We cycled from La Rochelle to Fouras-Les-bians. Seriously – this is what it is called!

As we were cycling along swarms of sandflies attacked us. They stuck to our suncreen and got into any open orafice. It was disgusting. Our arms and legs were black with bugs!

We stopped at the supermarket to get some supplies (beer) and were relieved to be inside away from the little beasties. We finished our shopping, starting packing our supplies onto our bikes when a huge swarm attacked us! It was like a sand storm of sand flies. I covered my entire face with my neckerchief and shouted to Mike to “run for cover”. Mike ran for the safety of the supermarket while I quickly locked the bikes and ran for cover also. We were both black with sandflies.

We were too scared to leave the airconditioned comfort of the supermarket. The little brats seem to be attracted to our bright yellow shirts. We sat for a little while, gathering the courage to make a run for it. Once on the bikes and cycling it wasnt too bad. We both had our neckerchiefs covering our faces to minimise swallowage. I didn’t want to camp with these bugs so we tried to find a hotel but they were all full.

As the weather got cooler, they seemed to disappear a little so we ended up camping. We couldn’t handle cooking amongst the swarms so we had a feed of sausages and frites at the campground restaurant.

Kids covered in mud – obviously to stop the sandfly attack.

Day 28 – Le Village du Bois de saint Jean to Le Tranche sur mer

Tuesday May 31, 2011, 43 km (27 miles) – Total so far: 983 km (611 miles)

Today was another day of expensive camping grounds, most of them 25 euros plus. One campground quoted us 46 euros just to put up our tent for the night. Luckily we managed to find a basic campground for only 12 euros and we had the place to ourselves!

Today was a mostly scenic ride alongside the sea, past some more Surfers Paradise style towns. The camping grounds along this have become very expensive – 20 euros plus! All we want to do is put up our tent for the night and move on the next day.

We found a modestly priced camping ground for 16 euros a night, and it was full of British holiday makers! It is the busiest campground we have come across and everybody was British. Apparently it is school holidays so that explains things a bit.

The one good thing about it being a British holiday resort is that the standard of the facilities are excellent. There are separate ladies and mens toilets and showers, the toilets all have seats and each cubicle has toilet paper! It also had a bar that was actually open.