We had a little bit of trouble finding our way out of Le Treport. The Garmin kept trying to send us up one way streets and steep hills. We gave up on the Garmin and just decided to follow the main road.

We had to ride up a steep hill to get out of town. At the top of the steep hill we realised we had cycled up the wrong hill. So we cycled down the steep hill and cycled up another steep hill (the correct one this time). Did I mention the hills were steep?

Some funny looking houses we saw leaving Le Treport.

Funny looking houses

We rode through the Somme region where a lot of soldiers lost their lives in the first world war. I still remember Sebastian Fawke’s graphic description of battle of the Somme in his book “Birdsong”, and this gave me an eerie feeling when cycling through this region. It’s strange that when you visit a historic place it makes it real, whereas before it was just a novel I had read.

Cycling through the Somme

The rest of the day’s ride was fantastic. It was sunny, the roads were flat, and we had a tail wind. To top it off, a few of
cycle paths were traffic free. Perfect!

Mike got his first flat tyre today.

Mike fixing a flat tyre

After 70 kms we decided to find a campground for the night. We stopped at a seaside town which had a lot of campgrounds. I noticed a few dodgy looking characters in the town. We navigated to the first campsite and it was a dive. As well as that,they lock you in from 10pm until 8am with big wooden gates. We decided this town was a bit creepy so we headed on tothe next campsite 17 kms away.

We were lucky we had a tail wind and the roads were flat and we motored along and finally found a campground in a nicepart of town with a LIDL supermarket next door (22c beer).