Friday and Saturday: two blissful days of cycling!

These past few days have been simply amazing. Canals, rivers, footpaths, small villages, great coffee! You know when everything seems to just…work! The bike repair I did on the rear wheel somehow worked – not sure why or how but I’ll take it! I had the whole rear hub dismantled with bits everywhere but whatever it was that was causing the problem had gone when I set off on Friday – happy days. Whilst I got hopelessly lost a few times (again, following Maps and expecting anything different is surely the definition of optimism!) At one point, like one of those annoying Sat Nav voices telling you to go straight….when straight is straight in to a river….Maps was telling me to follow a track that ….wasn’t there (see photographic evidence). Anyway, being the stubborn bugger I am I decided to ride across this field much to the amusement of the cows! Other than that the day was blissfully uneventful but utterly delightful!

I think today, Saturday, was the best day because I simply stopped at every opportunity to soak up the final days of France. I met a fellow cycle tourer coming along the towpath….where he hadn’t been wasn’t worth writing about. Amazing character. Then I stopped up video a boat going through a lock on the canal for Niamh and struck up a conversation with a man who lived in the old lock keepers house. Well before I knew it I was sitting in his garden sipping coffee and enjoying the fellowship of himself, his singer song writer wife and then his friends who turned up for Saturday brunch! Delightful. I arrived at my campsite and pitched up, meeting other cyclists there too! Mind you it’s bloody cold tonight but I’ve all the thermal gear I need for a toasty night. I’m staying in Besancon for three days as I want to only spend two nights in Switzerland- that’s all I can afford. The prices are truly off the chart even for youth hostels!