June 25, 2024
To Bourg St Andol
A day of two halves
Our day started well we had a long breakfast with the lovely people we met yesterday from the Gold Coast. They are two couples having a 90 day cycle tour of Europe so we spent ages talking cycle touring.
Then once we were across the long swing bridge across the river we were on a wonderful track. Today there was little or no wind and the sun was shining and the temperature pleasant what a fantastic day for cycling
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And then the going was really great the path was smooth and we were passing through agricultural country that always interests Ken. Hay was being tedded ready for bailing, they were cultivating between the rows of recently germinated sun flowers. Now we saw grapes growing on the flat land. They were beautifully looked after. The rows were quite far apart so use of machinery would have been easy. Like nearly all grapes we have seen in France they were spur pruned unlike the cane pruning we and most growers in NZ use.
There was a turn off to the town of Viviers and as things were going so well we took it in search of a cup of coffee. It was a nice little town and had want we wanted so we sat drinking our coffee and watching the world go by.
And now the photos stop because things got a bit stressful and Ken was concerned his phone had drowned. We were looking for a place to stop for lunch by now and we came to a sign Route Barre at 900m Indondation. Now usually we think we can get through these but our Aussie friends this morning had told us about it and the the water was up to their knees. We would take the deviation, that was fine we biked about 4 or 5 km and came to a road that looked as if it would go back to the river. It turned out to be almost unridable after a few 100m with massive rocks pretending to be gravel. But we got to the track and congratulated ourselves and on we rode. We came to it, it looked horrendous but we had been told it was only up to our knees. Ken set off to test it. Something had clearly happened overnight. It was over his panniers then right up to his handle bars. He got to the other side and it was clear that there was no way that I could get through on my electric bike. So back he came and back a very long way to the original deviation (900m was clearly a lie). On to the road and that deviation took us almost all the way to Bourg St Andol. Finding the hotel was the next drama - we lost each other and I had Kens phone in my dry front bag. But all is well that ends well we are here, things are charging, Kens belongings including his passport are drying out ( his Thule panniers didn’t let in a drop of water) and his IPhone didn’t drown
Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles)
Total: 833 km (517 miles)
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