| Day # | 16 | State of Legs | :-) |
| Distance (miles) | Distance (km) | Ascent (feet) | Ascent (metres) | Punctures | |
| Today | 43.2 miles | km | 1654 feet | metres | 0 |
| Trip Totals | 631.2 miles | km | 19650 feet | metres | 0 |
| Today's Route |
| Route So Far |
Travelogue
Today, what can I say? Except, mon Dieu! Ill pleut!
It absolutely poured down in the night, heavy drops hammering the flysheet of the tent. But, our good little tent kept the rain out and we stayed snug and warm.
But it was raining again (it comes and goes) when it was time to leave in the morning, so full "waterproofs" (the quotation marks are significant!) were on from the start.
We cycled away from the campsite on "D roads", crossing the countryside, no longer by a river. About 10 miles later, we were in the village of Bannoncourt and left the Eurovelo EV19 route, starting to follow a self-planned route segment that will take us east for a few days, rejoin route EV5 eventually and ultimately take us to Germany by the end of the week. If all goes to plan etc etc :-)
And (drum roll), at this point, it had stopped raining!
 |
| Bye bye EV19 - you were very nice to cycle along! |
Not far after Bannoncourt, we entered the small town of Lacroix-sur-Meuse, which is in the Parc naturel régional de Lorraine. Now, from our point of view, the most significant point of interest of Lacroix-sur-Meuse is that it has a boulangerie and it was open! So, quelle surprise, we bought crosisants amandes and sat down to eat them on a bench.
With about 30 miles still to cycle, we continued through the countryside, passing fields of arable and sunflowers.
There were some hills to climb, affording a view of the way ahead, including Lake Madine which we could see in the distance and would cycle by in a few miles.
We were making good progress but the sky was dark and ominous. Rain was coming. Would we make it to the campsite and get the tent up before the heavens opened? We pushed on, racing against the elements! At about 8 mph! Except on the uphill parts where we raced at ... mumble, mumble, mumble, blush :-)
And guess who won the race?
Yup, those pesky elements! About 10 miles from the campsite, it started to pour down. And that's when we discovered that our waterproofs.... weren't! Waterlogged more like! Ah well :-)
At Pagny-sur-Moselle, we turned off our planned route to detour to the day's campsite. But before cycling the remaining 5 miles, we dropped into a bar on the square and had a coffee, which warmed us up nicely. So nicely, that we had another coffee! As previously noted, M1 and M2 are regarded as an adventurous pair. Two coffees in a row! Can you believe it?
We pushed on a couple of miles and stopped at LIDL for provisions and then cycled the rest of the way to our campsite, which was a large commercial affair, not bad but not that nice either. It probably seems nicer when the sun is shining though.
Pitching the tent was a slight nightmare, as it was pouring down and we haven't had much practice putting the tent up in these conditions. Consequently, the interior of the living quarters got rather wet and once we'd got the flysheet on, we found ourselves mopping the floor dry with toilet paper! Unorthodox, but it did the trick.
 |
| Taking shelter |
 |
| Il pleut |
We had a restful and uneventful afternoon and evening and hoped for better weather tomorrow!
We've now cycled 631 miles. The estimated distance we'll cycle in total this trip is about 1200 miles, so on that basis, we're past the halfway mark now after only two weeks and two days of the six weeks we've allowed ourselves. The 1200 mile total is only an estimate because we don't know how much extra distance we'll cycle when detouring to campsites or occasionally taking a wrong turn. There are some inaccuracies in the official Eurovelo GPX files as well, where unfinished parts of the route between points on the map have been plotted as a straight line, which is impossible to actually follow, passing directly through buildings, over rivers without a bridge and so on! These straight line segments mean the totals produced by the planning tool we use (Plotaroute) will be an underestimate. Maybe we'll end up having cycled about 1200 miles. Maybe it will be nearer to 1300. Time will tell.
Fin
No comments:
Post a Comment