Maubec to Mazan

June 27, 2023

At some point in the night the cicadas stopped chirping and I think the silence woke me up. They were so loud while they were awake that I can't hear Tobias' voice in a video I took of him.

The tractor and sandpit helped make a pretty smooth getaway from our campsite. Tobias is getting better at playing by himself out of our sight so we could even do things like fold the tent up with two people which is significantly easier.

We backtracked to the EuroVelo route and then into Coustellet for bread and pastries. From there we headed north along a pretty busy road with a few trucks. It was quite narrow but as we got closer to Gordes we got our own lane and sometimes a separated sign posted route. We don't really do much research into the towns that we pass through, but it seems that Gordes is a tourist destination. It is beautiful, stuck onto the side of a hill with a big view up the valley. We stopped at a lookout point for a banana to look at the view, and all the other people looking at the view. It was the first time we've seen so many big groups of tourists on our trip.

We pushed on up the hill a bit more for lunch, though I was starting to get a bit worried since Tobias was complaining of a dirty nappy and we were both tired and there was nowhere really to stop except driveways with big private property signs across them. Thankfully a spot with a couple of picnic tables showed up just in time. A fair few cyclists went past, mostly on e-bikes which is fair enough. It was pretty steep. The wind picked up a bit during lunch and Tobias was trying to say "no" and putting his hand out to stop it. Was cute, but didn't work much.

We were running out of water and James had a look on maps.me and spotted an Abbey up ahead at the top of the first part of our climb so we decided to stop there. Turns out it was Abbaye Notre-Dame de Sénanque, which seems more for tourists than helping travellers with water. We still had 200m to climb from the abbey and Tobias had just gone to sleep. If we weren't running out of water we wouldn't have stopped. But it was very pretty even if I had to run a few hundred meters into the toilets to fill our bottles while James rode laps in the car park to keep Tobias asleep.

The last part of the climb was the steepest of the day. More leg press territory than just going a bit slower. Eventually we reached the top of Col des Trois Termes and started our descent through the gorge. The wind really funneled through so it was a bit treacherous to take hands off for a photo, but it was truly stunning riding through the rocks. Towards the end we popped out into another open valley and Mont Ventoux showed up again.

After a long descent we had another shorter but not insignificant climb to Venasque. Tobias woke up so we stopped for icecream in the pretty little town and found not one, but two water taps to fill our bottles. From there it was a good descent then an interesting ride through small roads between farms and vineyards to Mazan. The wind kept picking up and James' eyebrow has swollen up to the point where one eye doesn't really open properly. We're also both pretty dehydrated. It's just hard to drink enough water. I looked for electrolyte powder in the supermarket on Mazan because we also need to get more salt in, but I didn't find anything. The last 4km from Mazan to our campsite was on a pretty busy road and not all that much fun.

There are 2 campgrounds right next to each other but it was pretty easy to choose the smaller farm campsite with tents compared to the bigger campervan place next door. The host is super lovely. We are her first guests from New Zealand and her daughter is living and working there at the moment. She will visit her in June. She showed us the most sheltered spot which was useful for getting the tent up without getting blown away. We showered then enjoyed the pool, even though that meant lots of chores after we got our very tired kid fed and off to bed. The washer is much more affordable here than in other places, so at least I'm not hand washing nappies. One good thing about this hot, windy, weather is that everything is drying almost instantly.

The climb from today has featured (as a minor hill) in the tour de France

Mont Ventoux, again. We would love to climb it but not on this trip. I told Tobias we would when he can ride his own bike up there.

Tobias lay down on the tent and said "slapen" (sleeping). James thought that was a great idea.

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Today's ride: 41 km (25 miles)
Total: 1,856 km (1,153 miles)

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