Bike packing from Saint Mary de la Mer back home. I had made it to the Provence, but another question came to mind: ''Now where do I go?'' At this point I'd come to like the French culture and cycling routes so I decided I would stay in France and slowly make my way back north.
Saint Mary de la Mer, as I've written in my previous post, was absolutely horrible. After weeks of cycling gorgeous roads, passing through small villages and pitch my tent on smaller campings I had now found myself trying to pitch my tent on a tough clay layer. Surrounded by campervans, loud people and children running around to get to the water slides first. Even my finish beer was drank with loud music in the background. I'm sure it's amazing for people with kids and short holidays, but for me it wasn't the place.
The next day I packed up my bags and got going again. The plan was made very quickly: Head west roughly until Bordeaux, and then move up through central France, avoiding the tourist hot spots near the coast line.
I started the day pretty early to beat the intense sun. I had to cycle through the unprotected delta area again but soon I got to a small ferry that took me to a more sheltered area with more shade. I'd seen a nice bike path on google maps along the coast for this day, ignoring the many hotels and flats I could already see. I thought ''how bad can it really be''. The answer: bad. I was stuck following a boulevard one lane bike path crowded with pedestrians, cyclists, and beach visitors. Not enjoyable at all but part of it too.
During the last 5km of the day I heard the scary but unfortunately well known snapping sound followed by rattling metal. Another spoke had broken. Looking on google maps there weren't many bike shops nearby so I kept going, pitched my tent and then cycled 23km back where I came from to find a bike store that could fix my bike. Took a few attempts but luckily I did manage to get a new spoke in relatively quick. 23km back to my tent finished the start of my way back.
I'd seen enough hotels and busy campsites for a while so I made my way to Parc natural Haut-Languedoc. I was heading for a camping looking out on vineyards & mountains. It also had a small pool to cooldown. Looking at the forecast and seeing it would be 30 degrees the next day I decided to have a rest day.
France is mostly known for its wine, cheese and meat. On my rest day I made sure I had a massive lunch with croissants, wine, different cheeses and some meat. All whilst I was looking out over vineyards. I had some left overs that same evening, Big. Mistake.
The next day before I headed out for a 75km day and lots of climbing food poisoning had arrived and start knocking. That specific day happened to be on a pretty high altitude too with no shade and lots of sun. Small heatstroke and food poisoning made this one of the toughest days of the trips. I took 2 days off in an AirBnB to get better before even thinking of cycling again. The views however were very pretty.
Final stretch home
After recovering from my cheese and meat adventure I was eager to get on my bike again. People to see, places to meet, that kind of stuff. It took me little over two weeks week to get back home from Carcassonne where I'd had my last rest days. The weather started changing drastically and the forecast predicted heavy rain for weeks. My time to get back was there and with the clouds getting darker I averaged around 110km per day. I was flying through France. Bike-packing is very fun if it's eventful with challenging roads but it is not always a high adrenaline activity. Often it's long stretches of road and just cycling. This might sound boring but you'll see that once you get the flow going nothing can stop you. You ache for riding, the bike feels comfortable and you experience a whole country. Before I had realised I had crossed the Belgium border, and soon after the Dutch border. I had completed a full lap of France and I would do it all again in a heartbeat. Oh, although my last week might seem uneventful, I did of course break another spoke 80km before home. With some zip-ties and bending it would hold and I arrived home with a very dusty bike, with a small rattle in its back wheel with added zip-ties. I felt like a true adventure bike-packer.
Till the next one.
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