August 25, 2011
Along the Canal du Cantre to Changy: We have done more than 1000km !!
Ken says that it is almost impossible to get enough food here in August to maintain our body weights. That is a jolly good thing as far as I am concerned as I did swell up rather over the winter. We had spied a likely looking pizza place so decided to eat there rather than have a picnic - it opened at 7.30pm. So along we were at the appointed hour, ferme. We waited and waited but clearly nothing was going to happen. The epicere was of course now also ferme. We scoured the streets and found a Chinese restaurant with fly spotted Chinese lanterns. Even if the fly spots weren't there I don't eat Chinese in France - doesn't seem right to me. The hunt continued and we found a hotel with a restaurant 16Euros for the meal plus wine. We chose the largest sounding dishes there were a wonderful entre of various salads, pates etc, Ken then had Andouilette and I had entrecote both were served with the biggest portion of frites I have ever seen. I couldn't even eat half my meal it was so huge but did justice to my share of the excellent bottle of Rose. I don't think either of us need eat for another day or two.
The morning was overcaste, no wind and a temperature of only 19 degrees. Idael cycling weater so we fair sped along the Voie Verte. The herons were reluctant to share the path with us so in their laborious but graceful way took off to the other side of the canal. Soon we noticed hot air balloons. At one point I counted 40 in my field of vision. Amazing, then Ken remembered something in the local
paper about what sounded like a Mongolfia convention at Pary-le-Monial. The locals all seemed as intrigued as us and even the cows were looking skywards.
We stopped for our second coffee as it started to rain. Waited about 20 minutes or so but it was still raining so we donned our wet weather gear and off again. Just after our restart the Orage really kicked in, a massive electrical storm - deluges of rain but thankfully no wind. We continued for an hour or so until Ken decided we were travelling at the same rate as the storm so we should stop for lunch. I thought it a stupid idea as I don't like rain soaked baguettes. He was right though, after about 5 minutes the rain stopped and for the most of the rest of the trip we had very little rain.
The whole day was very easy cycling as it was always along the canal and often on a Voir Verte. It was interesting to see the canal boats silently and slowly approaching like majestic swans. What an amazing engineering feat the building of this canal network has been. Today we passed the high point of the canal and the locks started going down hill. In one lock we spotted a boat with a NZ flag - there excitement was that during the electrical storm they were in a lock which lost all its electrics.
We are now in Le Hotel De La Poste in Changy. The day's coffee score is 3. Two were 2Euros (one of those was huge but so weak you couldn't even taste the coffee). The other 2.50Euros but very good though small. Ken has seen a good looking Pizza place for dinner, just hope it is not déjà vu.
Today's ride: 102 km (63 miles)
Total: 1,036 km (643 miles)
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