June 5, 2011

The new, quieter route starts out with a steep climb in very hot sunshine – but compensates by providing us with a superb view.  After a short descent, we continue to climb again – the general direction of travel is now definitely upwards.

Although the day started with an absolutely clear blue sky, suddenly clouds appear and within half-an-hour the sky turns very dark.  We agree that at the next bus shelter we will stop and see if it will blow over.  As luck would have it, a few minutes later we pull into a nice new bus shelter with plenty of room for both us and the bikes and 2 minutes later the heavens open with a clap of thunder directly overhead.  The rain beats down for over an hour and a half before we continue on our way.  It is much cooler now and much easier to climb the hills.

We see a pizza van in a village and follow our ‘eat when you can’ rule.  Eventually we find a camp-site by a lake, Lac de St Point, – very pretty – where we sit at a picnic bench overlooking the water with a beer and eat chips with tomato sauce.  You can’t say that our diet hasn´t been varied – a couple of nights ago it was all ‘nouvelle cuisine’ – tiny portions in delicate piles, all swirls and sprigs of stuff and today pizza, chips and ketchup – yum!