September 13, 2019
La Rochelle
The hotel was right beside the onward route so it was an easy start. Today’s ride was short and basically easy but the complicated and ever changing route made it seem much more difficult than it really was and we found that we had to use our navigation system a lot.
Around Rochefort we were still very much in salt marsh country. At the start we were a bit inland and following the motorway on a cycle way. It isn’t particularly beautiful country and it seems that adequate drainage is the main problem for the farmers, there is a huge system of ditches - unless the land was a bit raised the crops didn’t look very good to me though that might be a bit unfair as most of them had already been harvested.
About half way along we were back to the coast and oyster and moule farming is the main industry. Oyster farming is particularly complicated and it takes around 30months to produce an oyster. The spat attaches itself to special supports prepared by the farmers and grows on these for around 18months. They are then removed from these supports and put into what look like giant pillows and left in these for most of the rest of their growing period. This all depends on an area with very large tides, as there are around here, as the oysters must spend part of their time under water and part exposed to sun and wind - in the meantime it is necessary for these ‘pillows’ to be periodically turned. Moule culture is much simpler The spat is seeded onto ropes and these ropes are wound around huge stakes that driven into the seabed. The baby muscles are protected by nets to stop them being washed out by storms. Harvesting just means sorting the whole mess out.
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We came to a very attractive little seaside town Chatelaillon Plage with neat really distinctive housing white with blue shutters. All along this seaside route the tide was far far out, it was so different from those wide sandy beaches of a few days ago with its surf. Although we seem to have photographed the sandy bits, in many areas there seemed to be little or no sand and as you you look out towards the sea what you see are the greyish containers of oysters which look like rocks.
We wiggled around on cycle tracks and were eventually brought to the port with its many boats. It seems as if La Rochelle is a very popular town for conferences, the area we are staying in is wall to wall with hotels - at the moment there is a big ‘World Rescue Conference’
Tomorrow we start on the next part of our journey ‘La Velo Francette’. This runs from La Rochelle to Ouistreham on the Normandy coast. It crosses the Loire at Saumur and we have previously riden it from Saumur to Ouistreham but this time we will ride the other half getting as far as Saumur where we will turn up the Loire
Today's ride: 40 km (25 miles)
Total: 2,224 km (1,381 miles)
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