September 1, 2013
To Vieux-Boucau-les-Bains: Through the forest
We whipped into town last night and got take-away pizzas then ate them in the lovely garden attached to the hotel so we are now once again reunited with that very important piece of equipment the pizza box.
Today was a day of perfect bike paths through pine forest all day. That may sound boring but it wasn’t. The extensive sand hills beside the beach make the path very undulating in fact there are often quite steep hills but all are manageable and you always have the wonderful swoop down the other side. Every while a fairly rough road comes in to the beach and there is often a small settlement and a camp ground, all along the way there are lots of bikes particularly concentrated near these camp grounds. As you are riding along you are suddenly passed by a peleton of serious looking riders all dressed in identical gear and clearly on a training ride on this fantastic surface. One of the interesting things about this well managed forest is that unlike the pinus radiate grown in New Zealand this variety of pine is self pruning so they have lovely long straight trunks with no side branches. When we left London over 4 weeks ago the blackberries were still flowering and very few were set. Now they are black and luscious.
When we arrived in Vieux-Boucau-les-Bains it was a real culture shack after the cool peace of the forest. The place was humming with a massive market. We found our hotel easily and there was a huge Sunday lunch going on, and we wandered around for a couple of hours until our room was ready.
Today's ride: 64 km (40 miles)
Total: 2,046 km (1,271 miles)
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