| Day # | 35 | State of Legs | :-) |
| Distance (miles) | Distance (km) | Ascent (feet) | Ascent (metres) | Punctures | |
| Today | 42.4 miles | km | 335 feet | metres | 0 |
| Trip Totals | 1270.9 miles | km | 43469 feet | metres | 0 |
| Today's Route |
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| Route So Far |
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Travelogue
Heading down for breakfast from our room in the attic space of the barn this morning, we passed our bikes, parked in a small room by the door into the courtyard. M1 placed his hand on the saddle of M2's bike as if to bid the bike a good morning. On removing his hand and walking outside, there was a CRASH behind him. M2's bike, TBWNM had fallen over and hit the ground and with no panniers to cushion the fall! Oh dear, not a good start to the day.
We picked the bike up and put it back on its kickstand. The floor is quite uneven in this part of the barn and that might explain how the bike toppled over so easily. But there was no obvious harm done, so we immediately put the incident to the back of our minds and walked across the courtyard and into Philippe's kitchen for breakfast.
Once again we enjoyed Philippe's homemade bread and confitures.
After doing our final packing and loading bags onto bikes, we said our goodbyes and were on the road by 08:25.
A mile from the village, M1 noticed a fairly loud, continuous scraping sound coming from M2's bike. It didn't sound good. We stopped at the side of the road and M1 investigated.
It turned out that one of the bolts that holds M2's pannier rack onto her bike's frame had fallen out. Whether this was related to the bike having been dropped earlier, we'll never know but it seems likely. Without that bolt to constrain it, the rack had dropped and shifted to the right so that it was touching the rear disk brake rotor as the wheel turned and was no longer rigid, moving side to side with each bump.
M1 carries various spares and tools but no bolts or screws that could be used to reattach the pannier rack. So, a repair had to be improvised instead.
Last year, when deciding what the packing list should include for bike repairs and maintenance, M1 had remembered watching The Long Way Round which features Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman making a round the world trip on motorcycles. There's a scene where they improvise a temporary repair to a crack in the frame of one of the motorcycles (or something like that) with nothing more than plastic cable ties. So, for no other reason, M1 had included a few heavy duty cable ties in the repairs and spares kit, just in case. One did get used on last year's trip, but only once. And not for a repair. It was used to attach a French baguette to the pannier rack! This prototype baguette attachment mechanism was not exactly a success, either!
Two cable ties were used to lash the rack into position as tightly as possible, with the second cable tie also making it difficult for the first to slide upwards and become less tight. Rather than cut the loose ends of the cable ties, they were tied to the rack out of the way with twine. This later proved not to work well and so the twine was replaced with strong stick tape (Gorilla Tape in fact) and this worked well.
Over forty miles later, the repair seems to be holding up well. Fingers crossed it gets us home!
Today's section of EV4 was almost completely flat, making it a very easy forty miles of cycling. We didn't see the coast until the end when we arrived in Berck, the route sitting back from the coast and crossing farmland and wetlands.
For a while we cycled on a cycle path that ran by a busy and noisy road but we eventually turned away from the road and enjoyed quiet cycling from that point on. There was plenty to see, including a nature reserve for birds and a steam train.
As you can see from the photos, yesterday's sunshine and blue skies had gone elsewhere and the sky was full of dark clouds. It rained for a little while, stopping more or less immediately after we'd donned our waterproof jackets as is so often the way!
The blue sky did make an appearance, but was absent most of the day. The cycling was fun and easy, regardless of sky colour and we enjoyed the excellent cycle path and its surroundings, which included lakes and forest.
The route passed by a holiday village called Belle Dune, near to the town of Fort-Mahon-Plage. We stopped and bought some bread, honey and biscuits from the little shop, just in case we couldn't find an open supermarket nearer to our destination, it being a Sunday. We also treated ourselves to ice creams and sat on a bench to enjoy them.
Ice-creams eaten, we continued on our way, stopping to take photos on this cool looking bridge over a river.
Soon, we were on the outskirts of Berck. To our surprise, we found a Carrefour supermarket which was still open and as usual, M1 was dispatched to buy a few things for lunch, dinner and tomorrow's breakfast. That done, and it being almost an hour before our AirBnB apartment was due to be available, we cycled onwards to the sea front and then found a place to have coffee and kill a little time.
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| M1 with the day's groceries on his back |
The apartment is on the first floor at the top of narrow stairs, with an equally narrow doorway at the top. There was no way to get the bikes up and into the apartment, so they're padlocked to each other in the parking area outside. They seem happy enough :-)
Lunch was fresh bread, tomatoes and two very tasty Cheeses of the Day. Beaufort is a bit like a gruyère. Cantal is apparently one of the oldest cheeses in France. Ours seemed fresh enough! ;-)
If all goes to plan, we expect to be home a week tomorrow. The end of this trip is now coming up rather fast! All good things must come to an end, of course.
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