Soulac sur Mer

September 9, 2019

It is fortunate the second half of the day was easy

We had a very comfortable night at the Golf Resort. Today we had a reasonably long day on what we imagined would be a straightforward and easy route so we left early. Finding the turn off to the new cycleway was easy and it was well signed. Not far from there is the highest sand dune in a the world. I certainly believe it in fact it felt as if we may be climbing it. The track was fairly broken up and continually up and down with gradients of 10%, I was trying to use as little power as possible as I certainly didn’t want to run out of it before the end of the day. We took the turning towards Carcans Plage but I think we must have gone too far. I fired up the navigation - it told me we were off route but it would fix it. What a nightmare we were on about the worst path we have ever ridden It appeared to to be made of small squares of concrete, some broken up and to each side was sand. It was about 18inches wide There was nothing to do but to go for it, the concentration required was huge but I sure didn’t want to fall off again. This went on for I think around 6km and it seemed a very long way - what a relief to come to a connecting road that took us to a perfect cycleway with a smooth surface wide and with only gentle undulations.

We came to this lovely lake and turned off

A camp ground near Carcans Plage - we have gone too far

The end of the nightmare track - actually it doesn’t look so bad here - the problem, as well as the broken concrete in many places was it was so narrow and for nearly all the way if you went off you were in deep soft sand

Now we were beginning to see other cyclists. Hourtin Plage was not far to the side so in we went for a welcome Coffee creme and a pain au chocolate. Yesterday at Lacanau we saw a really over the top beach resort but the ones today like Hourtin are much more restrained. The beach itself is still glorious with white sand stretching for miles and good looking surf but they are not built up to the same extent and the buildings tend to have a slightly run down look. There are lots and lots of massive camp grounds all along the way - this is how the French have a holiday at the beach. Bikes are very popular and in the vicinity of the plages and the camp grounds there are a lot of cyclists, though a week or so ago before the school holidays ended there would have been a traffic jam. Our now perfect easy way continued and we stopped again at another beach for a coffee.

This memorial is to the British Commandos who in WW2 set up the estuary in collapsible canoes to attempt to put limpet mines onto German cargo boats

I must say it was rather a relief to get to Soulac sur Mer find our hotel and have a shower and generally relax. Tomorrow it is only about 10km to the ferry across the mouth of the estuary to Royan and we will start the next phase of the trip

Ken’s favourite PMU - we stayed above it last time we were here

Today's ride: 82 km (51 miles)
Total: 2,077 km (1,290 miles)

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