Day 13: Kidding Around

Morning. The sun rising through my tents mesh areas and, as you would expect from France, accordion music filled the air. A guy from a couple of tents down was having a jolly old time with his instrument..cough.

As I said before I should have stayed a few days as I liked it there but I had itchy feet and it wasn't just the insect bites. Maybe I'm just used to moving on by now. I would make sure to come back here, but onwards. I stayed mostly on the trail but was beginning to veer off only to meet with it later.





One such veering was after I saw a sign for Decathlon village. It was quickly becoming my favourite shop and I went out if my way down newly laid tracks to get there dodging a few joggers. Using their feet like commoners. The trail circled me round a loopy cycle bridge and bright me to the complex. Let's just say I have a new lime green shirt and Wheelfred has some new white antlers to cushion my palms.



There was shade on the inner bends of the winding road and I was thankful for it. Another hot day. I was then obliged to join the cars and went by a few km of beach on my right. There was a forested island that I kind of wanted to swim to but that meant stopping and its hard to kill your momentum. A close shave with a road kill coypu distracted me from the idea add I swerved to avoid it's giant rat face hanging to it's pancaked body.

Terns were diving to catch the little fishies and after leaving the main road I went through several little towns. They gave great scenic views accented with historic buildings and boats.




Frankly it's hard to find a building that's not historic. Even the new builds seem to have at least a section of dilapidated tower left over from the last.

At this point I was being inundated with pictures of Bailey on WhatsApp and had to Skype Viv who was working from home, to catch up with my puppy. The poor girl whined and searched behind the computer... but Viv eventually found me and then put me on for a chat with the dog. Hahahaha.

I was sitting just off the path on a boat, itself just resting on the sandy shores of the river. Some people did hear me baby talk into my phone screen and I wondered if 'who's a good girl, yes you are, she was a good girl Baileyboos' translated. I'm sure they got they gist.



After that the roads were deceptively level and made me work for it. Through a town called Samur and on to the main river path. In Samur they neglect to consider the efficiency of umbrellas diminishes when you tie them together over a large area. Should have used a big tarp.



I was going to finish today's journey just on normal roads but got tempted up a hard hill when I saw tunnels going through the rock face.




This part was well done and more or less seamless to the rock. There were fancy houses built from the same rock bursting out of the cliff. Later on I wound see the same concept but where bricks were built up to as close to the rock as possible but leaving a consistent gap all the way round. Good ventilation I guess. Here cars were parked in caves not garages.

If gotten distracted by a cat at this point and was trying to take pictures of it without getting off the bike. Leaning awkwardly around the frame to get low enough.



The cat I think knew what the camera was and was entirely sick of handing out freebies so it walked on slowly whenever I got near. I had to waddle after it still astride the bike.



At this point another cyclist came from a tunnel to the south and saw me being foolish. They then saw the cat and started excitingly bothering it instead and I used this chance to escape.



The next campsite wasn't as nice especially for 8 Euros but it had goats which was at least original. I struggled through the non-English at Belle Rive.




There were three tied up, well one little just wandering with a rope dragging behind. The other two were butting heads playfully. Just kidding around.

What you looking at?

I whipped out my tent next to this tree which was just periodically dropping large slabs of bark. It also exuded some pigment in a recognisable pattern to tell me how it was feeling. I just thought while writing this that the rest of the message might have fallen off. Maybe the bit saying 'I feel fan' and later 'ing tastic' were on the floor.



I'd neglected to find any food today and when talking to Helen she tried her absolute worst (love you) to direct me to a supermarket as I had no data signal to look for myself. Fruitless and I ended up buying two packets of crisps for dinner from the owner. I filled my belly with water instead and I think I needed it as much more went in than I got out.

I was reading half in the tent for comfort and half out for coolness. Drips appeared on the tent and I readied the rain cover but nothing came of it. What it did do was make me notice the big red rain storm behind me. A few miles away judging by the thunder. A huge pink movement of visible rain and in the centre a crack of horizontal lightning.

Here's my camera's estimation of the spectacular scene.



And here's more what it looked like.



I feel asleep reading though I was closing in on and trying to get to the end. I cycled around 50k compared to yesterday's 20k.