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April 27 Thursday Bicycle touring France from Granges France to a free bicycle touring camp spot along the Rhone River The morning dawned foggy and miserable. Is this going to be another inside day? we wondered aloud. Doesn't look that great out there to be bicycle touring in France. Then the sun broke through and instantly the our little cycle touring tent was hot. That's good in a way -- it hasn't been dry in a while now. Our cycle touring sleeping bags don't get wet though because our Thermarest keep the sleeping bags off the tent floor, but the tent floor is always wet from osmosis. The wet patch starts by the orange ground sheet and works its way across the floor bit by bit. When I look out the tent door, I see the vineyard workers already toiling in the field. How many bottles do they get off a field? Sharon said Chateauneuf de Pape produces twelve million bottles a year. That is why those grape growers have such big houses and estates. The rocky soil is supposed to be fabulous for the grape maturity, too. During the day the rocks absorb heat energy from the sun and then slowly release it to the plants at night as the rocks cool. They are nice round red rocks that were left over from a long ago sea. A train is working on this section of the track . They signal one another by blasts on the horn. It is starting to sound like railroad horn-tooting school. Two of them have become excited and are doing their own rendition of dueling air horns. At times I half expect them to break into The Devil Came Down to Georgia. Now some guy is trying out toot de le toot toot. Toot toot. I had a three egg omelet with all the fixings. Lots of green onion and tomatoes. Before we could leave Sharon had to brush out her curly locks and then I faithfully braided it for her. Must be a French braid. How many times have I used that joke now? We packed up our cycle touring gear, then spent the next ten minutes looking high and low for the cap to our milk bottle. It turned out Sharon had stuck it in a mesh pocket on her front cycle touring bag and then forgot she put it there. We take the cap off when there is no milk in the bottle so it can air out. When we buy a litre container of Tetra-pak milk, once we open it, whatever we don't use goes into the plastic 500 ml bottle for later. Sharon carries it on her bike in her bottom water bottle cage to air out -- her lower water bottle has long since broken and been chucked out. Sometimes a container of olive oil resides there when the milk bottle doesn't. The are lots of slugs and snails to flick off our cycle touring tent, tent fly and ground sheet. They like all the moisture we have been getting lately. We are finally brushed, flicked, packed, and ready to hit the road. As we cycle past the train, the engineer blasts his air horn and waves to us out his open window. Since France has public toilets in most towns by the post office we decided to wait to use them. The first town, the road bypassed. The next town I spotted a Mairie sign and turned off N86 towards it. Sure enough a little door was present. Sharon went first and returned with her nose wrinkled. She is starting to think the woods aren't so bad either. I used it next and it wasn't as bad as the last one I had the misfortune to find. At least this one had water to flush. "Why doesn't anyone clean this things?" Sharon wanted to know. "Because they're too yucky," I respond. "Obviously, they don't have to use them." This one had merde way up by the push button that was sunk into the wall that flushed the thing. Dang tourists. Guess we're going to have to start a washroom star rating again. Hopefully these are the no-star variety. I'd hate to learn these are four star. Squat toilets. Watch those pant legs. Don't pee on your shoe. Remember to bring your own toilet paper. Deep knee bends. And ah, one. And ah, two. Are you cycling more but enjoying it less? We stayed on N86 all day. It is flat, but that is all it has got going for it. The river is wide, muddy and murky. It is very high. Trees along the bank are in the river. I saw a road on the map that we thought about trying out for variety, but then decided against it as it was too much trouble to get to for just a few kilometres. Farther on, I looked across and part of the island was underwater, so probably that road we were thinking of cycling was too. That would be a change of scenery. Passed through a village having a Pedonque tournament. Numerous men, mainly ancient, lined the action watching intently. I wonder if these games ever get out of hand with the losers winging their steel balls at the competition? Bought some William powdered grapefruit mix. It gives our water an extra tang. It tastes like real grapefruit juice. A delicious thirst buster. Especially if we ever get some sunny day on this French bicycle tour. We pulled our touring bikes to a halt in a village for a bite of apple and some nut-filled chocolate. Four white swans the size of small house boats were gliding on the river. The town across from us had a house with three stone towers. A bridge, spanning the watery expanse, was made of orange metal. It looked completely out of place by a few hundred years. "At least it could have been a different colour," Sharon observed. Back to pedalling down the highway on our touring bicycles. Around 5:30 PM, Sharon saw a road crossing an ancient double arch bridge to a farming area of fruit trees and vineyards. Tiny onion shoots are in a field we cycle past. Workers are bent over weeding. A sign informs us this is Rhone country. We zig and zag along on our bicycle tour on this narrow one lane asphalt. Then it becomes gravel. Finally it abruptly ends at a pond where another majestic white swan is happily finding dinner on the pond bottom. It swims closer to check us out. When we don't throw it any handouts it goes back to dunking for supper. We push our fully loaded touring bicycles along a trail that leads beside the orchard and along the pond into a gnarly forest behind both the pond and orchard. The trail then parallels the river. Sharon left me holding the bikes while she walked in to investigate possible free bike camping spots. I watched the swan and enjoyed a brief moment of sunshine as it weakly projected over a far mountain. Sharon returned and said she had found a spot for our little bicycle touring tent. She lead me along a path as I pushed my heavily loaded touring bike over the squishy earth. We come to a small clearing by the path, between some thick growth that all but blocks out the last visages of light. I balk, declaring the spot too gloomy. I like cheery free bicycle camping spots. We leave our touring bikes and look for a more open space. After finding two possibilities, we return to our first spot. The others are harder to get to -- at least with fully loaded touring bicycles. Then, as I go to unload our cycle touring tent from my bike, a strange feeling hits me. Looking at the muddy river, I feel like I am beside the muddy North Saskatchewan river on a path back home in Edmonton, Alberta. With some difficulty I persuade myself that we are not in Edmonton waiting to be stumbled upon by trail users or dog walkers. We are in a forest, in France, quite a distance from a small town. It is after 6 PM and it is not likely that the French will be out walking tonight. They will be at home, sitting down to dinner and soon will close up their shutters as darkness falls. I marvel at the similarity between the two landscapes of France and Edmonton. I set up our compact two-person bicycle touring tent as a barge chugs past. Now there's something I don't see on the North Saskatchewan every day, I think. Hey, there are those ivy plants again. How do I know if they are poison ivy or not? Roll around in them and see if an itchy rash develops? I decide to wash up with half a pot of water, but I can't get our Whisperlite stove to work. I disassemble and clean out the jet which always restores it to perfect functioning order in the past. Clean. Reassemble. Still no go. I take our Whisperlite stove apart again. This time I replace the jet with a new one from our stove spare parts kit. Upon reassembly it works like a charm. Soon I am bathing in luxurious hot water, albeit with somewhat sooty hands. Another barge rumbles past . Waves lap the shore after a time delay, like the sound of a jet reaching one's ears long after the jet has passed. The alien frog voices begin. They sound like that macabre laugh box the Joker left behind at the crime scene in a Batman movie. Ah ha ha a ah ha ha a ah ah ah a.... Tres creepy. The river is a couple of feet below a washed-away section of the bank, indicating how high the water has come before. The soil is washed away from the tree roots too. We are set up above, about four feet from the edge of the river. Darkness has fallen. It is complete blackness beneath our tangled canopy of leaves. I get up for a call of nature, and while grasping a sapling for balance (I'm a quick study), I glimpse a few stars far overhead. I return to the tent. Just as I am getting comfortable in my lightweight bicycle touring sleeping bag, I hear a big splash in the river off to my left. "I hate that," I say to Sharon. It always startles me. Beavers? Do they have beavers in Europe? I don't think so. I am lying on my side, listening to oldies on our shortwave radio. I wiggle the antennae, trying to improve the reception. The antennae suddenly pops off in my hand. The reception doesn't change. Trains are on both sides of us tonight. Lot of France's trains go through the flat Rhone River Valley. I am sure they are rerouted miles just so they can go through this flat north-south corridor. Sharon has her earplug in and is already snoring blissfully. I settle down to read a couple of mystery stories from my Alfred Hitchcock anthology of mystery stories. A frog croaks loudly, echoing in the still forest. So much the better.... |
