Bikepacking 2023 - Renescure to Herlies

Day #

4

State of Legs

:-)

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	Distance (miles)	Distance (km)	Ascent (feet)	Ascent (metres)	Punctures
Today	42.4 miles	km	325 feet	metres	0
Trip Totals	187.8 miles	km	7153 feet	metres	0

Today's Route

Route So Far

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Travelogue

We had a nice lie in, today. I got up at 6:00 :-)

But, joking aside, we did take our time, with nothing to compel us to an early departure. We knew we only had about 40 miles to ride today and that it would be more or less flat, a welcome change from the last three days. 

So, off we went, cycling from the campsite back to EV5, ready to head east to our destination of Herlies.

Much of today's cycling route ran alongside rivers and canals, which made for very easy and pleasant cycling and with plenty of waterfowl to keep us interested and entertained on the wildlife front, like this lovely looking Great Crested Grebe.

After about 20 miles,  now cycling on quiet roads, we stopped in the town of Saint-Venant, first to visit a boulangerie to buy fresh pain au chocolat and then to sit down in a cafe to drink coffee and (with permission, what with us being so polite, typical of all British people) eat our pastries.

Yes, those pain au chocolat are as big as they look!

We passed through a number of small villages, which seemed to be relatively new, consisting of very nice houses and bungalows, each with its own character and set in plenty of land with trees and other green things. It was in such a place that we met these youngsters.

Which one's Bambi?

One of the villages had a rather curious waterway running along the front of all the properties, which out of necessity meant that each had a small bridge onto their drive from the road. I'd have opted for a drawbridge, not that I'm in any way anti-social :-)

There were a couple of sections of gravel today, which was fun.

Béthune was only about 10 miles from our destination, and being a fairly large town, had plenty of grocery stores for us to choose from for our daily shop. We selected this one, being the nearest to us:

But we were to be disappointed! It sold a large selection of fresh vegetables, lots of wine and.... nothing else. Weird. So, we went to the next nearest place, a Carrefour.

M1 was dispatched to acquire the required items whilst M2 stayed with the bikes.

Success! M1 returned with a bag full of French goodies for the afternoon, evening and tomorrow morning.

Our campsite for today is a green and pleasant affair, quiet apart from the sounds of birds and beasts. There are chickens, piggies and goats. And pigeons. And somewhere, horses that we occasionally hear.

Our pitch is spacious and we've set up a table and chairs, which is terribly civilised. There is no WiFi, which is a little less than civilised but when I asked about this, the answer in French, but which meant something like "No, but there is nature!" was fair enough :-)

After the usual routine of showering, changing, putting up the tent and so on, the first order of the day was... lunch!

And lunch was (drum roll), fresh bread, tomatoes and a decidedly yummy French cheese called Saint-Nectaire, which is apparently from Central France. Well, now you know!

And for dinner, we plan to have.... bread, cheese and tomatoes! But this time, a nice looking Roquefort, a blue cheese which we're familiar with from home.

 

Now, I know that some of you are thinking "that's too much cheese!". But the thing is.... you'd be wrong. You can never have too much cheese. Yes, there are those in society who would vehemently state the opposite, and even suggest that too much cheese could be unhealthy. Doctors. Scientists. So called "experts". Pah I say! Heathens, I say! Cheese Deniers!

Yes, it is a sad fact that Cheese Deniers are everywhere these days. On social media. In the mainstream media. In the real world, even, But I distinctly remember reading a very well informed article that said that cheese was always good for you, that there was no limit to how much you could have, that a lot of cheese would actually make you healthier, live longer and be more attractive to other humans of whatever type(s) you normally like and that anyone who said otherwise was a Cheese Denier and Enemy of the People! And that last bit was in bold and in a large font, so I instantly knew the article to be true. I don't have a link to the website anymore, otherwise you could read it for yourself, but I think it belonged to the Cheese Marketing Board of France or something. I can tell you. Those people know cheese.

Anyway, that's it for today. All that cheese has made me sleepy and perhaps a nap is in order to prepare for the dinner time cheese to be consumed later.

Beaucoup de Fromage, mes amis!