We awoke to a quiet camp, despite the beer neither of us slept brilliantly, but it was enough. Drummer Pie got us croissants for breakfast from the boulangerie van, and we had nearly set down the whole camp when the skies opened and it properly tipped it down! This was not the beautiful french sunshine we were promised! Sadly we had to pack the tent wet, and I got covered in mud when rolling it up. Spirits were high though, and we were both excited about our first proper full day on the bikes.
The vague plan was to head south, hugging the coast, and we eventually found the Eurovelo 1 route. Although it was pretty well signed, we actually ended up kind of following two french cyclists who were clearly more familiar with the route and cycling on the wrong side of the road!
After getting caught in a massive downpour- where we hid under some trees with a man and his dog, we stopped in Aytre for coffee, more pastries and an absolutely delicious lardon quiche. It was around 11am and everyone else in the cafe seemed to be having a beer, quite strange! On leaving town we got a bit lost, but flagged down and car and a lovely gentleman pointed us back in the direction of the bike path, we were back on the Eurovelo route. The route was great, almost all along the coast and segregated from the traffic.
We stopped for lunch in Roquefort, and ate our lidl packed lunch in the square- delicious square shaped brie! We also bought a new route map, it was an IGN one, it had all of the bike routes marked- very handy! There was a small part of the route we didn't have a map for and it had become obvious that we would really need one. We had a tasty coffee and were on our way.
As we went to leave town it started to chuck it down with rain again, and we made our way towards the transporter bridge- cool! It was a suspended platform that moved across the river, a very cheap crossing which avoided a horrendous big motor bridge. Drummer Pie doesn't like heights so he was a bit worried about it, but actually ended up chatting to a lovely Belgian cyclist the whole way across. One of the nicest things about cycle touring was meeting other cyclists and discussing their routes and hearing their recommendations.
We got off the bridge- it was still raining, and we set off to find the bike route again, we cycled up the hill to the main road and I had my first SPD disaster! As we came up the hill I realised that I couldn't unclip my feet and that I was going to fall off sideways, ahhhh! Absolute panic ensued and I shouted for help, very luckily Drummer Pie caught me just in time and I got off lightly with a bruised leg. Feeling pretty silly and full of adrenaline we cracked on and got lost.
Eventually we came across the two French cyclists that we were following earlier and we had a lovely chat. We also took advantage of the fact that they had GPS and a better map than us and they pointed us in the right direction. The Eurovelo route then took us on to a canal path , which was good for about 3km, until it turned into a gravely, bumpy, slippery track for about another 10km, very hard work!!
After what felt like a very long time, and some very slow kms, we came off the canal path and travelled on tarmac across a marshland area. Finally the sun came out and we dried off a bit. There were a lot of birds in the marshland and it was very quiet, and then WE SAW OTTERS!!! Just one escaping into the water off the path at first, then another two on the bank!! We were sooo excited by this as neither of us had ever seen otters before in the wild- we travelled silently for the next km or few just in case we might see another!
Out of the marshland we crossed a horrendously busy main road and dropped into the small town of Marennes. It was a typically french town, and the blue shutters throughout the town looked beautiful in the now sunshine. We stopped off at the tourist information to ask about camping, and they gave us a great map and told us about the night market that was on later- exciting! The campsite was another few kms away on the other side of town but has a nice little area for cyclists and was under 20 euros for the night.
By this point I was pretty damn exhausted, Drummer Pie made a dinner of pasta and tuna, but it was really hard to eat it. We did around 70km that day and I was tired. Eventually Pie convinced me to get up again and we went to the night market. I am really glad we did because it was so much fun! A local blues band were playing, we had a cheap bottle of wine and watched the locals dancing. When we cycled home the bike path was covered in baby frogs and snails, it made for some interesting slalom techniques!
That night we cosied up and dropped off almost immediately, then a few hours later a HUGE thunderstorm hit, it went on for hours and the tent leaked, nightmare!
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