Day 16 – Malestroit to Rieux (click to view link in new page)

Thursday May 19, 2011, 45 km (28 miles) – Total so far: 563 km (350 miles)

Today we plodded along the canal cycle path, just taking our time and enjoying the scenery.

There is no hope for me losing weight on this trip with this diet of bread, cheese and pastries. Here is a pastry that looks like a foot.

Mike got a flat tyre today which he repaired beside the canal.

Even though we only did 45 kms, it seemed a long day on the gravel roads of the cycle path. We finally found a basic campground beside the canal. Only 4 euros for us both to camp.

Last nights 5 course dinner consisting of cold meats and breads for starters, meat and noodles for main, cheese platter, desert and a big carafe (a bottles worth of wine) cost us just 11.50 euros each. We were very pleased.

We started off on main roads again until we forced the garmin to re-route onto minor roads. It was a lovely days cycling, topped off with a nice campground in the middle of someones farm. It was only 11.30 euros to camp AND they had toilet seats AND toilet paper!

They allocate a large area for an individual campsite – far bigger than what we need for our little tent – but somehow we manage to use the whole area!

We had no fresh food and there were no shops around so we made do with what we had, which was half a stale baguette, leftover ham, tuna and rice.

I boiled the rice and chucked in some spices and garlic into the water to give the rice more flavour. The spiced water tasted so yummy we decided to use it as a soup rather that waste it.

We drained it into our bowls with some ham, chucked in the stale baguette and voila! A tasty starter!

This was followed by tuna and rice for our main.

For desert we had leftover chocolate that had gone soft then hard again. It’s funny how something so simple can taste so good after a day of cycling.

This is what we do with leftover bread that has gone a bit stale at the end of the day. Sister Lynda came up with this idea on our cycle trip through Germany and Austria in 2009.

The Recipe.

1. roughly chop some garlic
2. Mix garlic with butter
3. smother bread with the garlic butter mix
4. Fry in the frypan

ok – so it’s just garlic bread, but it tastes damn good after a day of cycling.

Day 8 – 9/5/11 monday 26 kms

It was a short ride to Mont-Saint-Michel. We set up camp about 14:30 then spent the afternoon wandering around the abbey.

Day 7 – Sunday 8 may 2011

It was a drizzly start to the day. We had ridden 15 kms when we spotted a Decathlon. We had been trying to find a cycle shop for ages as Mike wants some front panniers to redistribute the weight on the bike a bit. The only problem was it was Sunday and Decathlon was shut. poo.

As it was threatening rain we decided to call it a day and we booked into a hotel near decathlon. This way we could sit out the rain and visit decathlon in the morning. Typical – as soon as we checked in to the hotel the sun came out and it was a glorious day. To top things off – Decathlon didn’t have the panniers we wanted. But we did have free internet – so we caught up on some mail and some blogs.

Day 5 – Briocquevill-Sur-Mer to Genets (click to view days route in new page)

I was woken in the night by someone or something trying to get into our tent.

“WTF is that” I whispered to Mike.

“Snore” replied Mike.

“Seriously – wake up, there is something trying to get into our tent”

Mike rolls over and continues to snore.

I turned around and there was a giant frog sliming up the side of our tent. gross! and it wasn’t just a little pond frog, it was gigantic – larger than a small bunny.

“Mike – It’s a giant frog – get it off, get it off”.

“Snore” replied Mike.

I had to flick it a few times to get it off when finally it fell to the ground with a thud. So gross, now our tent is covered in frog slime. I couldn’t sleep in fear of it sliming all our belongings that lay outside the tent.

Apart from the frog episode the day was pretty much the same as the others. There were a few more hills which I managed to cycle up today. I have started treating the hills as a bit of a challenge and as a result I am starting to enjoy them.

View of Mont Saint Michel

We decided to camp after only 30kms. No point in pushing it is there?

It seems the worse the campground facilities, the more expensive they are. This is the most expensive campsite yet and the facilities are hideous. At 17 euros (NZD $35) per night I would expect better that this.

toilets

At least they had toilet paper – but you had to grab some before you went in.

And the grotty outdoor sinks.

Day 4 Gouville-sur-Mer to Briocquevill-Sur-Mer (click the link to view the route in a new page)

Another awesome day of cycling. It really doesn’t get much better than this. It was warm, and the quiet country lanes a pleasure to cycle through.

We did a detour down to the beach and prepared a ham baguette we bought earlier on.

We found another nice campsite right on the beach. The only problem was it kept threatening rain while we were cooking tea. We hadn’t seen any shops so we had to resort to emergency rations of tuna and rice.

There was a storm overnight. Scary thunder and lightning and heavy rain, so we snuggled down under our sleeping bags and hoped the tent wouldnt leak.