Due to the frogs partying and the church bells donging, we had a late start today, getting away about 10.30am.

The roads today were quiet country lanes with very little traffic. It was the perfect day for cycling, overcast and not too hot.

We were still trying to head to Nantes, but the gadgets still want to send us on the main roads. We know there is a canal path, if only we could pick that up. We’d been heading south, but due to avoiding the main roads yesterday, we ended up at a campground to the east. Now when we look at the map, Nantes is in a SW direction, when ultimately we want to be heading east towards Switzerland.

Then we realised, we don’t actually have to go to Nantes. It was just a starting point for the Loire valley cycle route, but we’ve been to Nantes before, so don’t really need to go back. We can pick up the Loire valley route from Angers. So we changed our route to navigate to a campground on the way to Angers.

There were no shops on the way today, but we stopped at a town that served coffee. We sat and had a little rest, before heading on.

We were feeling very pleased with ourselves, managing to avoid main roads. We were navigating to a camping ground at the 43 km mark for the day. But when we arrived tired and hungry, we found it was shut. This is starting to become a thing. The nearest campground from there was another 37 kms on. As well as that, my knee, which had been fine for a few days, was playing up again. And we hadn’t had any lunch and it was now 5pm. We scoffed some walnuts and peanuts and biltong and that helped curb the hunger.

We had a break while looking at our options. There was a town about 10 kms away with three hotels, but I didn’t want to cycle there to find they were full, or shut. Mike tried calling a couple of them, but there was no reply. I was willing to set up camp at the closed campground if need be.

After about an hour of researching where to stay, Mike found a chambre d’ote (B&B) about 7 kms in the direction we were heading. He rang them but they didn’t speak a word of English. Using his schoolboy French he managed to book us a room for the night. Phew.

I put some anti-inflammatory gel on my knee and put on my knee brace and we were on our way. Thankfully there was a shop on the way and I was able to pick us up some ready made salads for dinner, and some ham for Mike to have with his baguette as a salad wouldn’t fill him up.

We arrived at the chambre d’ote and it’s a big house on a farm. Our room is very comfortable with our own bathroom and a patio for the bikes.

Tomorrow we head for Angers for a two day break.