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28th and 29th June

We cycled just 20km from St-Jean-de-Luz and got as far as Bayonne before stopping. It was a dreary day, threatening rain on and off. We seem to have lost a bit of motivation and direction since leaving Spain. We are heading to Bordeaux to visit Bryan, but are having trouble deciding which route to take. We decided a couple of days rest in a hotel might help. Well, we have cycled well over 2000 kms so far – a rest is due (well that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!)

Anyway, Mike bought me a personal motivator for my birthday (a little early as I left my other one in San Sebastian).

It’s a sports watch which measures my heart rate. When I am struggling up a steep hill, about to complain and get off and walk – I will check my motivator and realise I am only doing 115 BPM (beats per minute).

From experience at the gym, my personal trainer would push my heart rate to 180 BPM, so I know I can push myself considerably harder and this seems to give me more motivation, and surprisingly more energy. It didn’t work on those bloody mountains in Spain though (possibly because I lost my other motivator in San Sebastian).

25th and 26th June

We caught the train back to Hendaye which is the French border town. It was mid-30s so we decided to have a couple of rest days as the campground had a pool and it had a quiet beach.

Our day chilling out at the beach where we had our first beach swim – finally being hot enough!

We gave spain a couple of days cycling before deciding to get the hell outta there. It was very hard to get motivated in the morning knowing we either had to cycle on a major road or push our bikes up a mountain. So we made the decision to put our bikes on the train and head back to the French border. So two days cycling into spain, and one hour out again on the train.

23st June – Day 51

Our third day in Spain we continued over the mountains.

The only other alternative was a very busy road. See photo below.

We stopped in a town seaside town called Garautz. The camping ground was shut so we stayed in a hotel. We went into town for some tapas – or Pinchos as they call it in the Basque country.

They don’t seem to have restaurants like we are used to. The only restaurants we could find were in the back of the bar area, with a seating area, bright lights and usually a TV going. Zero ambience! They also didn’t open until around 9pm.

The food was really cheap though. We found a place that did a 3 course menu including wine for 14 euros. We couldn’t be bothered with our phrase book so we just picked our dishes at random for a bit of fun to see what we would end up with.

Mike ended up with a whitebait omelet for starters and steak for main (he cheated a bit as it was obvious Entrecut was going to be steak. I ended up with prawns for starters and a bowl of squid for my main. The squid was really nice but nowhere near a filling meal so I swapped for Mikes steak (serves him right for cheating!).

We decided the food is nowhere near as good as in France, and the people seem to a bit grumpy as well, so that and the crappy roads made our decision to backtrack to France an easy one.

Our last few days in France were lovely and hot. We cycled through Biarittz, Saint-Jean-de-Luz and Hendaye was our last town in France.

The only way into Spain was either via a major road or a 150 km detour. We decided to take the main road. It was awful. It was like riding on a motorway. Trucks and cars whizzing by at horrendous speeds. I wasn’t sure we should even be on that road.

We are now cycling (i.e. pushing our bikes up the hills) along the coastal route, well away from the main roads. I’m giving it a minimum of 3 days before I decide to catch the train out of here!

On the positive side the wine is very cheap (as long as you don’t mind it in a carton!). As cyclists we are very excited about 1 litre cartons of wine that only cost 55c. It means it is much lighter to carry than a bottle.

We really need to cut down on our weight if we want to continue in Spain. We checked the panniers today and are carrying approximately 3 kilos in food alone! So we really need to eat some.

We may backtrack to France if the hills and roads get too much for us. It’s not much point carrying on if we can’t cycle up the hills and if we’re not enjoying it. We might look at doing Spain another time on a credit card – which means we pack a credit card, a change of clothes and a toothbrush, and stay in hotels and eat out.

Last night we had our first tapas. They call it Pinchos here in the Basque country. They are laid out on the bar and you nibble while drinking your beer. Some bars have gourmet pinchos, and some have just sardines and olives, or ham on bread. We opted for a bar with gourmet pinchos and they were yummy.

I have uploaded some more photos on facebook.

Day 34 – Fouras les Bains to La Tremblade click to view route in new page

Monday June 6, 2011, 53 km (33 miles) – Total so far: 1,140 km (708 miles)

We left Foras and continued on down the coast. We stopped in Rochefort for lunch.

We met a german girl who had cycled up from Morocco and was on her way back home to Hanover in Germany. She had been cycling since December and wanted to know which way to get out of Rochefort. We also got a few tips from her on routes heading south. She said she just knocks on peoples doors and asks if she can camp in their back yard and most of the time they invite her to sleep indoors! Still – pretty amazing to cycle that far on your own.

We left Rochefort and had to cycle over this large bridge.

Later on in the day we had to cycle over another one!

The rest of the day we cycled through wetlands and spotted some wildlife.

Day 33 – Fouras again
Monday June 6, 2011

Yuck. Everything was damp after last nights torrential downpour. The day, however was overcast and not raining. As it was Sunday we decided to have a lazy day. We had Moules Frites (mussells and chips) for lunch and that was the highlight of the day!

Day 32 – Fouras les Bains

Saturday June 4, 2011

We were due a break so we took the day off to explore Foras.

It was really hot so we made use of the pool – first swim of the trip!

We cooked ourselves some steak with a Poivre sauce andnoodles. simple but yum.

That evening there was a torrential downpour and lightening immediately above us and I slept right through it. Mike said the rain on our tent was so loud that it blocked out my snoring! Probably just as well. I’m not a big fan of thunder storms and would have had glastonbury nightmares of our tent sliding away in a pool of mud.

Click here for Mikes blog

Day 31 La Rochelle to Fouras les Bains Click to view route in new page

Friday June 3, 2011, 41 km (25 miles) – Total so far: 1,087 km (675 miles)

We cycled from La Rochelle to Fouras-Les-bians. Seriously – this is what it is called!

As we were cycling along swarms of sandflies attacked us. They stuck to our suncreen and got into any open orafice. It was disgusting. Our arms and legs were black with bugs!

We stopped at the supermarket to get some supplies (beer) and were relieved to be inside away from the little beasties. We finished our shopping, starting packing our supplies onto our bikes when a huge swarm attacked us! It was like a sand storm of sand flies. I covered my entire face with my neckerchief and shouted to Mike to “run for cover”. Mike ran for the safety of the supermarket while I quickly locked the bikes and ran for cover also. We were both black with sandflies.

We were too scared to leave the airconditioned comfort of the supermarket. The little brats seem to be attracted to our bright yellow shirts. We sat for a little while, gathering the courage to make a run for it. Once on the bikes and cycling it wasnt too bad. We both had our neckerchiefs covering our faces to minimise swallowage. I didn’t want to camp with these bugs so we tried to find a hotel but they were all full.

As the weather got cooler, they seemed to disappear a little so we ended up camping. We couldn’t handle cooking amongst the swarms so we had a feed of sausages and frites at the campground restaurant.

Kids covered in mud – obviously to stop the sandfly attack.