Clairefontaine to Surtainville – 20 kms
We woke up in the middle of the night, freezing! Our sleeping bags are really only for warm nights. It didn’t help that it was still warm when we went to bed and I hadn’t layered up. I won’t make that mistake again!As a result, we slept in until about 9am and didn’t get away from camp until about 10.30.
We’d ummed and aahed about our coffee situation. First of all we’d planned to bring our portable Nespresso gadget. But decided at 500grams it was too heavy. So we then decided on a plunger. But it wouldn’t fit in our panniers. So we had to resort to instant coffee. It was disgusting. It might have been the brand we chose or the foul tasting water, we don’t know. So at the first opportunity we stopped at a restaurant for espresso.
Our coffee saviour was in a scenic seaside town of Dielette, just 4 kms from where we had camped the previous night. As we sat outside enjoying our espressos, dark clouds rolled across followed by some spots of rain. We scurried inside and decided to stay for lunch. They had moules frites on the menu so it would have been rude not to.
We ploughed our way through a huge bucket of mussels and an hour later the sun had come out again and we were on our way.
We have not passed a shop since Cherbourg and are in desperate need of healthy food and a few necessities we left behind, such as things for our behinds.
It was a leisurely ride for most of the day. There still seemed to be a lot of pushing bikes up hills, but the roads were quieter.
We rode only 20 kms today and stopped at another municipal camping ground. It’s 12 euro for the night and I think there’s a pizza place nearby. We’ll start our healthy eating tomorrow!
It’s now almost bed time (7pm). As we have no food, we had no choice but to try the pizza joint down the road. We walked for about 5 minutes when I spotted what looked to be a pizza food truck but looked to be closed.
As we got closer we were surprised that not only was it open, but it was a 24 hour pizza joint.
As we got even closer, our happy smiles which we’re looking forward to pizza soon turned to grimaces followed by a WTF expression.
‘This can’t be for real,’ I said.
‘I think it is,’ replied Mike.
‘I didn’t even think this was a thing.’
‘Looks like it is and we don’t have any choice.’
Mike then proceeded to place our order, with a pizza vending machine! This was such a hideous experience which I will not repeat!