We had spectacular thunder and lightning storms last night. We’d set up our tarp so we could sit under it if it rained and I was watching the storms when the tarp got full of water and collapsed over me.

I dried myself off and crawled into bed, the rain pelting down and flashes of lightning illuminating our tent.

Finally the storms moved away and I could hear them rumbling in the distance. Then the rain stopped and I finally got to sleep after midnight.

We had a slow start to the day. We had tea, followed by coffee, followed by muesli, followed by waiting for the sun to dry out tent.

We eventually got packed up and left camp around 11am. We cycled through the town of Amboise, then pushed our bikes up a very steep hill.

It was threatening to rain all day but it still hasn’t happened. We only rode 30 kms today as we found a nice campsite by the river for only 10 euros. It also has a shelter beside our tent which is good as dark clouds had appeared. So we decided to stop at 2.30pm and have a quiet afternoon. It was actually cool enough to crawl into the tent and have an afternoon nap.

I awoke to some French cycle tourists who had decided to join us at the shelter. They were very nice and even offered to share their wine with us! We politely declined.

As per usual, there is no shop here, so we had to rely on emergency rations. We had some dried salami that didn’t need refrigeration and fried it up with some rice. I also fried up some stale baguette in garlic oil and it was actually quite nice. Not a vegetable is sight though.

We also ran into a couple of English cycle tourers we ran into a few days ago. They are taking it slowly like us, not wanting to miss anything. They camped here last night as well and didn’t get the rain we got in Amboise.

A nice sunset tonight and still no rain as yet.