To Buffon

June 9, 2024

Harder than we thought

The Hotel Centre although rather in need of a bit of refreshing worked out really well as the room was big and there were plenty of power points for charging. We had a good dinner and the breakfast surprisingly generous for a French one. There were two other sets of cycle tourists staying. A couple from Paris are doing a similar thing to what we hope to do to Lyon however they had started at Mingennes

Today the check in for our hotel was at 2pm so it meant that we didn’t have to wait around and we left at the much more respectable time of 9am and were soon along the tow path once more. At this time in the morning it is surprisingly quiet with hardly another cyclist and those in the boats still preparing themselves for the day. What I really enjoy are the grey herons. They stand like elegant statues until you are almost up to them, then with practices ease lazily move a few feet. There were lots of them on this stretch of the canal

Moored up for the night but no movement on them

The first boat we saw that was actually moving today

VFN men and women are busily up and down the path sometimes on small motorbikes or else in a white van. It suprises me that they provide such an amazing service for the relatively small numbers using the canal - it must be subsidised

I was delighted when I looked across the canal a saw a tiny cafe that looked open. It’s not the coffee as much as having a seat other than a bike seat to sit on

Along the route today there were was what looked like shattered dreams. Abandoned factories no doubt built in the time when the canal was built with the promise of good transport. What a massive job building these must have been and to think that it was only a few years latter that railways were built and their importance waned.

This is an aqueduct bringing water to the canal

Even though we were on a canal by the end of the day Ken was feeling pretty tired. Coming up to locks there is always a very steep slope and the locks were coming close together. However there is nothing like a good vegetable garden to revive his spirits

Our stop for the night is a hotel in Buffon we have a comfortable but tiny room and we can get a good looking meal here tonight

Today's ride: 54 km (34 miles)
Total: 251 km (156 miles)

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