Day 76: La Rochelle to St Vincent de Jard

October 2, 2013

We left tthe Port Neuf camping quite early. No chance to thank again the British couple in the next site, who had given us four Valencia oranges from a bag just bought by them, in Spain. We cycled back across town and then north through a city park to finally access D roads heading up the coast.

At the edge of La Rochelle these signs looked like we would be shown an alternative way up the coast. As so often happens, these were the only signs like this we ever saw. We had to make our own route.

Based on the information from Tricia and Joanne, the general idea was to hug the coast, meaning staying west of the Velodysee route. The towns in our sights were Lagord, Nieul, Marsily, Esnandes, Charron, Saint Michel en l'Herme, La Tranche sur Mer, and Jard sur Mer. To achieve this we used D105 and later D9, as Tricia had done, plus a pile of others. We came to places made "famous" in the other blogs, such as the Pont de Brault and the town of St Michel.

Dodie could not believe I thought Moules Frites could be like moule mcnuggets. In fact it's steamed moules with french fries.

The town of Charron. Unless near the beach, towns are plain, white stone style.

Joan of Arc, I presume, in the church of Charron

Fisherman under the pont. Is he after moules? gambas?

The path looks good. Not sure where the problem area is.

Champagne les Marais is much like the other towns of this region.

Eglise Saint Hilaire in Champagne les Marais caught our attention just because it was not grand. It was built beginning in the 12th century. Some parts are from the 16th century.

Not much to look at so far in this region.

Dodie found abundant grapes growing wild by the roadside. At home, our coddled grapes seldom do anything.

All this was in aid of reaching the "good parts" of the Velodysee. However, when we reached La Tranche where we deemed it safe to return to the arms of the official path, Dodie had somewhat fallen out of love with it. Open Cycle Maps brought us to the Velodysee signage, but Dodie was playing hardball. "If you lead me beside the road I already want to take", she figuratively told the path, "We're in. But if you noodle off somewhere for some reason, I'm sticking with the road".

For a while the relationship held up, but eventually Velodysee decided to go hang out on the beach, beside a forest, on some kind of path developmental kick. We flounced off down the road.

This is an area with many many campings, but we found them to be closed for the season. At the last one we tried, we were standing at reception trying to figure out if the place were open or closed, when three young men drove up in a car, They too were looking for an open place. What made them fun was that they were from Scotland, wore kilts, and had broad accents. I found a worker on the grounds and confirmed that the place was indeed closed.

We wished the Scottish boys well and carried on, but only a short distance was necessary. The road had stuck close to the not beach side of the forest, and there we found a clearing with three picnic tables. Honey, we're home!

Supper consisted of Thai soup to which was added chicken brochets, tabouleh salad, raspberry filled chocolate, tartelette aux noisettes, and hot coffee. Gotta love the Carrefour and Super U!

The path they want us to take. We passed.

And finally, we disturbed four of these guys by the canal side. Muskrats, I presume?

Today's ride: 82 km (51 miles)
Total: 5,137 km (3,190 miles)

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