Day 7 of Tour: Saint-Brevin-les-Pins to Les Sable d'Olonne

Day 07: Thursday 11th June 2015   -  Saint-Brevin-les-Pins to Les Sable d'Olonne 

Today's Ks': 167.80  Total for Trip: 733.22 ks'

St Brevin another little beautiful port with a castle, something like in a fairytale. You'd nearly wait to see would a princess be coming out in her carriage....wake up, you're typing your blog. Sorry strayed a little :-) The fact is all the castles, châteaus that I saw, appeared to be in excellent condition, amazing given the age of them.

Today was going to be one of those days that I would be on trails, roads, travelling through wetlands, the sea front and was just a great day and by the end of the day I would make up for the shortfall I had hadthe day before. The weather again was great and although I had initially got burnt I was managing not to any longer . Also I was getting past the sore muscle stage, although my I.T. band to the touch, was sore, I was no longer walking like a gun slinger after getting off his horse, after a twenty mile ride.

Today was one of those spins that just happens, but yet you don't remember it, other than it was a beautiful spin with everything for the senses. 

I saw a castle, windmill, a lighthouse and even a fine bird....relax a stork.

Now all the above are beautiful but sometimes following the route wasn't as easy as anticipated. Over the last few days, as I explained in other posts, my gps wasn't always that helpful, but sometimes the signs were just as bad. 

Some regions were great and you had arrows on the road and good signage.....others...lets just say, I took a few wrong tuns. Some signs said, left or right, and you turned THERE & THEN, whereas, others meant the next turn. In the end I decided if I went wrong, I just kept going until I found a sign for my next town.I had a breakdown of my days route on my handlebars to guide me.

Then there was the gps routes and signs not aligning properly, whether it was, I was reading things right or not. Again I went with one or the other and stuck with that. It had become an adventure, and I was just going with the flow.

I was following the sign under the big one, yup the little orange square and no they all didn't have the wonderful green sign above it but I believe that is the way they are going with over time as the big signs were brilliant and saved me on more than one occasion.

Riding a long the coast, there were beautiful beaches and my final destination of the day was Les Sable d'Olonne. I loved cycling along the paths on the coast and through the forest and dunes but I thought it funny on one path there was an obstacle, but they painted the branches red to warn of the danger....surely it would have being easier just to cut it???

Some more pictures from today and then all is left for me to do, was find a place to rough it. As I was on the coast, houses etc stretched for kilometres, and so I had to cycle a few kilometres outside and then just take a random road, away from the sea. I would remember this night...read on..

A few kilometres outside of Les Sable d'Olonne I took a turn away, as I said, from the sea and then cycling down that road. Another few kilometres I found a narrow side road and took it. Luckily a few hundred metres down there I found a quiet field with crops in it. 

There was a perfect spot just inside the field a bit, but unfortunately people had been using it as a toilet.

As it was getting late I had no choice but to stay here, so I decided to set up tent away from the bad area, and more towards the road. 

I off loaded the bike and starting pitching the tent, when a car came along...,.so I had to move the tent back towards the field again. I no sooner stated with the tent when a buzzing noise appeared and slap hit it.....a mosquito had bit me. And then the attack began......here's me waving my hands around like a mad mad, slapping wherever I got bit and all the time trying to set up the tent. With the tent set up I just threw all the panniers into it and followed in myself sealing the outer and inner layers but those little ba£$%£rds were in between the outer and inner layers.

 I was safe....BUT they had the last laugh because I hadn't eaten. Not risking it I took a chance and cooked my tea inside....chicken and vegetable soup with pasta added and tinned makerel (obviously not added). The only problem being my first attempt at cooking I knocked the pan off the stove and the contents went all over the place....so couldn't risk it today. All went well and as for the mossies...John 1 mossies two but that was to change the next morning when I woke and the mossies went up to about 50. The back of my head was just covered in bites and my arms and legs too, so they won. 

And to add insult to injury that night........a thunder storm rolled in that people had been warning me about. Ah well, it's an adventure.

And before I go I nearly forgot. Today while out on the roads I met a lovely 65 year old French man who was travelling around France by electric bike a present he had got from his family for his birthday. The bike could do a 100k daily and that's what he did., staying in b n bs nightly. We bought a ham and cheese baguette in a small bakery and a cake and had lunch together in the village church square. He with his schoolboy English and me with my schoolboy French...was lovely

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More to come tomorrow....keep smiling :-)