June 26, 2023
Cadenet to Maubec
Since we had to leave with our hosts at 8, Tobias decided to treat us to a sleep in. Thankfully they let us keep the key and lock up after ourselves. I love warmshowers and we loved staying with Caroline, Bruno and Colin, but routine mornings getting packed up and going to work look a bit different to packing your lives onto bikes. We probably could have made it if we needed to, but there is just a lot to get into the right bags and a small human to feed and look after. If it's just us, we can cut a few more corners. We all enjoyed our stay and slept really well. Tobias especially loved staying with another kid and was talking about Colin all day. He got the pronunciation wrong though so Colin didn't recognise when Tobias was trying to talk to him.
So earlier than usual we got out of the house and celebrated by riding 200m to the bakery for coffee, croissants, and bread for the day. Cadenet seemed like a really cool town, our hosts were involved in some cool projects and as we left we passed a bustling market and lots of very cute houses.
The climb was not a surprise today and the gradient was really gradual so we actually quite enjoyed it. With so much extra time up our sleeves we decided to stop at the next very cute town of Lourmarin. There were so many people sitting out on the footpath having coffee that we thought we needed another one. And there was a delivery truck blocking the road. We chatted with some German road cyclists who were having an early ride to beat the heat.
From Lourmarin the actual climb started. Our hosts had warned us that the road through the gorge was pretty narrow, but being after 10am on a Monday the traffic wasn't too heavy. Everyone was really careful when passing and we pulled over whenever we had too many people behind us. The route was beautiful with big cliffs on both sides and thousands of butterflies flitting about in front of us. The gradient was great. As James put it, we were just going a bit slower not doing constant leg press repetitions. Just over halfway through the climb we turned off towards Bonnieux and wound our way through the pine forest before a glorious descent into town. There were lots of people in town and I could see why. It has a beautiful view out over the whole valley. Half the reason we are even in this area is because James is on the hunt for lavender fields and we could see dozens of them. Behind all this is Mont Ventoux.
On the suggestion of Caroline and because we were still feeling good after the climb we altered our route and instead of going directly towards our campsite we headed up a little further then descended into Apt to join the EuroVelo route. We opted for the main road on the descent since the cycle route suggested by komoot had a very bad surface and we had a somewhat tired and hungry baby on board. The only drama was James getting stung in the face by a bee and then us getting tooted at for blocking a small road while I was trying to extract the stinger with the tweezers.
We found the public gardens in Apt and had lunch in a shady spot after a bit of playground time. The butter didn't hold up to the sun so Tobias enjoyed dipping his bread into it. I was all geared up for our nice descent on the cycle route so was a bit grumpy with the short sharp climb just out of Apt that got us onto the route. Once on it though it was great. The surface was good, it was wide enough that we could ride beside each other, and the downhill gradient perfectly counteracted the headwind. The only issue was the blockades they put in to stop cyclists speeding across the streets that cross it. They were okay for me to get around but with James and the trailer they were quite a lot of manoeuvring.
Tobias woke up close to our campsite and we rode the last 5km with him up front. He acquired a long stick which made its way onto my bike as a sort of javelin and he had a great time trying to poke the trailer in front of us. We are staying at a small farm camping. Luckily all the sites are very shady and we could get the tent up and in the breeze to cooldown before bedtime. There was a sandpit with a bunch of toys but more importantly for Tobias a small plastic ride on tractor that he named his maaier (mower) and refused to get off (except to push it up slopes) for the rest of the evening. It caused a few tears at bedtime.
Our evening has been spent rearranging our route for the next few days. We enjoyed our ride today so much, and our hosts last night warned us that the route we had planned was pretty industrial and kind of boring, that we decided we will stick over here for a bit longer. The only spanner is we have an apartment booked near Pierrelatte in a few days for a couple of days off so it will look a bit odd on a map.
| Heart | 2 | Comment | 0 | Link |
Today's ride: 53 km (33 miles)
Total: 1,815 km (1,127 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 2 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |