Tuesday, 30 July 2013

Notre Tour de France #11 (68 mi)

We're getting more efficient at this packing up business. At the beginning of the trip we were looking at perhaps 2 hours 45 minutes from waking up to setting off on the bikes. This morning I think that duration was closer to 1 hour 30 minutes. Will we be able to do it in an hour by the end of the trip? Who knows.

We headed almost directly south to a bike shop in the middle of nowhere which is listed as an official SRAM distributor (the manufacturer of my broken gear shifter). There is nothing particularly exciting to report about the journey there, but when we arrived they of course didn't have the part in stock and it would take around two weeks to order it in. Another plan required methinks.

From here we headed west towards the coast, aiming for a campsite we'd selected on the iPad. Well, were we in for a surprise when we got there. The reception was closed and a sign advised us to speak to the staff at the bar, which is exactly what we did. But as we entered the building, we were greeted by a gentleman wearing nothing but his sandals. Oh yes. We'd managed to choose a naturist site. His meat and two veg were blowin' in the wind and more than willing to give us a little wave. The woman at the bar (clothed, as she was working) advised us that wapping our wangs out was mandatory. Now don't get me wrong, Jwan and I are more than willing to comply with this "hangin' free" rule, but what we didn't agree with was the price. We've been paying between around €8 and €14 a night. This site would have cost in excess of €23, so we left in search of somewhere a little cheaper.

One of the neighbouring villages had a small campsite, but it was literally a field with a toilet and sink, so obviously no wifi - something I needed to order a replacement bike part from England to have it shipped over here. Onwards and upwards. We made our way to Luçon to the next nearest place boasting wifi. It was a tough 15 miles, battling a strong headwind all the way here. The site seems reasonable, was considerably cheaper and is close to Luçon, which we'll go back to tomorrow to explore in more detail. For my family reading this - do any of you recognise the place names on the attached photo? Jealous? :)


2 comments:

  1. Hi Stu,
    Trust you to find a dodgy site ;-)
    Yes I did recognise the names - as I did yesterday. I thought you may have been better heading for Nantes which is a bit bigger place?

    G x

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    1. We were hoping to get closer to La Roche-sur-Yon today but this bike shop had us moving in the wrong direction. Luçon seems like a nice place so we'll explore that tomorrow. Then after that we should be moving closer to all the places you took me on my summer holidays ;-) x

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