looking the part

here we come!

"You know you can camp on any Crown Land in Canada, you don't neeed no permission." The man is talking to me outside a supermarket where I'm watching the bikes. "You can even camp under ANY bridge, and light a fire and everything and the police can't do nothing."  The man looks a little down at heel. "I done that just a little while ago with my friends.  We got a good ol' fire going and had us some beers." The first thing I notice when he first approaches is that he's Indian, First Nation.  He asked me where we're heading and when I mention Montana, he tells me that he's got family on the Flathead Reservation, that the Indians are really friendly and if we ever find ourselves on Indian territory not to be afraid to ask for help.  At which point he offers up his camping information for Canada.

Steph has welcomed us into her fine old house and found room for us despite having friends come to stay over the weekend.  One of the friends is jokingly called Dr. Weed as he is an experienced marijuana grower and supplies it 'medicinally'.  The house has an easy-going open-door shared house feel to it and we are invited to share in meals.  Steph and her partner live close to downtown Calgary in a lovely old neighbourhood.  The city itself now sprawls right across the plain and the downtown has an empty eerie unlived-in hollowness compensated only by the lovely green park that runs along the river bank.  Joggers and cyclists dodge dog-walkers and tourists on the different paths.  Outside a gear shop we meet a fellow cycle-tourist who surprises us by telling us he's from the Isle of Man.  Colin has crossed from the east and is heading towards the Pacific coast before turning southwards.  His bike is heavily loaded - mind-bogglingly so.   

dinner with Steph, Kyle and Jason

In the evening Gayle gets a message from our friend Karen who lives in Long Island.  She's seen that we're in Calgary and so is she.  We meet up for a quick lunch the next day.  Karen has lived in North America for over twenty years but her scouse accent is still broad.  The joy of Facebook - an unexpected chance to catch up with an old friend.

Karen & Gayle stop talking for a few seconds for a photo

setting out after a huge breakfast of pancakes

We head out of Calgary along the bike path beside the river.  After an hour the valley narrows and the bike path leaves the riverside and we are confused.  Which way to go?  We ask a passerby and she suggests we take a train.  A man with his son stops to help, but he doesn't know where the bike path is.  The woman suggests again that perhaps we take the train. The little boy looks us up and down and says "Maybe they don't have any money for the train."  Aha.  He thinks we're down at heel.  We are saved further embarrassment by another passerby who explains how we rejoin the bike route.  

It climbs steeply up onto the edge of the valley overlooking the river and leads us around the back of several housing estates before bringing us out on the old Trans Canada highway.  The road is busy enough but there's a good shoulder most of the time.  Our first day out of Calgary ends above a reservoir when we spurn an ugly campground in favour of a higher spot off the road.  After we've pitched and dined, keen to start with good camping etiquette, I gather together all our food and scented products to store away from the tent.  We have two large dry bags to tie up but there's not a solid branch on any of the trees.  Exasperated, I shove the bags into the crook of a branch at my head height.  If the bears want 'em, they can bloody well have 'em.

seen any bears yet?

annuver cantry, innit

sheds on a beach - who can teach the Brits about natural beauty?

 "Why do you wanna bicycle all the way to Worthing, then?   Why don't you just take the train?"  and as if to emphasise the point a train pulls into the nearby station.  We have paused to ask for directions.  In theory we're following the National Cycle Route 2 but we've also been following signs for the South Coast Cycleway.  We think they're the same thing but sometimes the signage differs.  The last fella we stopped was on a bike.  We explained we were heading along the coast to Worthing.  He knew where we wanted to be but he coudn't quite describe how to get there.  After some attempt at directions he suddenly gave up and touched his nose saying "Just follow your nose.  Just follow your nose." We thought he might have escaped from a Dickens novel.  

"Right?" "No, left" "Left?"  "Right"

Following our nose is what we've been doing most of the morning.  Yesterday we caught the ferry from St Malo to cross to Portsmouth.  On board we met an American couple who were also on bikes.  We thought our schedule was hectic, but suddenly seven days to get to our friends in Shoreham-by-Sea and sort out our stuff before flying to Canada seemed quite a reasonable plan.  The Americans were going to train it to London, then on to Anglesey to catch a ferry to Dublin where they would start cycling again.  They were looking forward to their hotel stay and evening out in Portsmouth's old town centre.  Mmmm.  England's towns aren't always as pretty as French ones, we warned them.  

Ruth, our Warm Showers host in Portsmouth, was out sailing in the evening, so her housemate welcomed us in.  Ruth had given up her bed for us, which seemed above and beyond.  We meet up in the morning over an early breakfast before she heads off to work.  She has her own plan to cycle to Australia in what seems an impossibly short time.  Before we part she gives us directions to get on the cycle path.  It shouldn't be difficult, should it?  I mean, we're just riding along the seaside. Half an hour later we pass by a road we recognise - Ruth's road.  Somehow we've done a circle.

It's the housing estate that does it.  One of those thirties-built semi-detached suburbs where everyone has a drive.  Where the roads curl around each other in long arcs and intersect only occasionally.  Gayle bursts out into a series of salty phrases that might even make a sailor blush.  The gist is simple: we are lost and why don't we have a smart phone to navigate? An hour later, having recovered ourselves, we enter a rather plush, posh and private-looking estate.  I say private-looking because the sign at the gate says "Private - Residents Only".  We end up almost on the beach - a footpath ("Cyclists Must Dismount" "Public Footpath" "All Cyclists Will Be Shot On Sight") leads us to a sandy dry riverbed and a cafe at the end of a cul-de-sac.  We've reached Worthing.  As you'd expect from the name, and despite what some West Sussex folk might say, Worthing is worth it.  Here we get to stay with Claire and Andy and their young son, Felix.  This is a happy Warm Showers experience with a twist as we stayed with them in 2015 when they lived in Hokkaido.  It is an absolute delight to see them again.  Felix arrived soon after they completed their long ride home from Japan.
 

in the south of England the council tax is used to provide better summer weather

In the morning it's a mere bagatelle to make the ride along to Shoreham-by-Sea so we spend a little more time with Claire and Felix before failing to break sweat reaching our other friends Suzi and Dino.  These two lovelies look after us for a week - entertaining, feeding and amusing us as they usually do, whilst we hurriedly get last minute gear and clothes to take with us.  They have kindly acted as a postbox for us to receive replacement kit.  Hannah comes down from London and Claire and Andy cycle over with Felix.  It feels really good to share this brief time with good friends.

low tide on the pebble beach

local bye-laws state that brunch must always be served outdoors between April and October

Claire, Felix and Andy

For some perverse reason I decide to wash our sleeping bags in an attempt to revive them.  While we're faffing about Suzi is preparing for a job interview (she gets it) and Dino is putting finishing touches on the garden he has built (he's still doing it)

Amazingly, the garden was a yard two years ago.

We think we can box up our bikes and drag them to the train station to get to the airport but Dino has a better idea: he gets out the roof rack.  There is a moment when I wonder if their mini will cope with us, our bags and two bikes but I've passed the point of blind panic and already moved onto blind faith. Just close your eyes, it'll be fine.

our hero

a bout de poufff

So after a couple of day's rest and wonderful hospitality from Daniela and Robert - including a look around nearby Auch and a delicious lunch in an old-fashioned family-run restaurant in a tiny village - we must continue our ride across France and back to Ye Merry Olde England.  It's about 1000 km from the Spanish border to the port and we have three weeks in total to get there.  If only we had more time.  Quelle dommage.

I think Robert's parting words are on the lines of "it's all downhill from here!".  At least that what I think he says as we wave goodbye and career down the hill.  He's directed us along pretty quiet lanes and tree-lined roads that take us through some pretty towns and deposit us on one of France's great cycle routes.  This one links the Mediterranean with the Atlantic and runs predominantly along canal banks.  Except when it doesn't.  After some steep climbs up and down slopes that are covered in vineyards it brings us into Bordeaux which looks rather glorious on a hot sunny day.  
 

camping in the first bit of hidden field we can find

pleasantly cool cycling

We continue directly westwards over a flat landscape directly out towards the Atlantic coast to join the Eurovelo coastal bike route.   It helps when you don't have to concentrate too much on navigation and worry about where to cross rivers.  We cross the large estuary by ferry and then continue northwards up to La Rochelle.  We pass through large summer campgrounds teeming with French families.  The cycle paths are hugely popular with holidaymakers.   Happily the cycle paths provide us with access to easy wild camping spots.
 

gps? pah!

a three metre drop-off on the right.......

a tap + picnic bench = laundry + dinner

in the middle of a huge pine forest plantation close to the Atlantic

We thought that getting to France would have brought us cooler weather but instead we ride into a heatwave that lasts a week.  We start rising earlier and taking longer siestas.  Some days the village pharmacy clocks display the temperatures over 40C.  It's enough to make your fromage melt.  As the days are long we also begin our summer tactic of cooking our dinner in one place and then moving on to camp somewhere else as the light begins to fail.  We have to do this because there are so many other people out and about in the evenings making the most of the cooler part of the day.   

easy cycling approaching Rochefort

crossing the Charente by ferry

One long day we find ourselves on a dirt track cycling across miles of flat farmland along a network of dykes.  It's never-ending. There's nowhere to hide a tent.  We reach a small town and the land is all fenced and locked up.  Finally we find a corner of a field where we feel okay and then a van pulls up on the lane just the other side of the trees we're hiding behind.  Zut alors. It freaks us out.  It's getting late.  We move away but quickly find another open field and duck in.  The sun has gone.  But the people keep on coming - teenagers on a late evening walk and then a car that crawls along the lane on the far side of our field.  It parks up for the night.  It's late and we have the tent up.  We can't be bothered moving on. C'est la vie.

 

he can't have been that bad if they named the street after him

At La Rochelle the marinas are so crammed with yachts, like sardines in a tin, that you could probably walk across them.  We turn inland here, away from the coastal bike route and weave a way up towards Rennes avoiding the bigger cities like Nantes.  Crossing the Loire, another cycling bottleneck,  we begin a real roller-coaster section through very peaceful and lovely farmland. One afternoon we approach a family walking towards us on a country lane.  They step aside for us and as we approach start cheering "Allez! Allez! Allez!" in mock-encouragement, as if we're doing the Tour.   

siesta

late afternoon 'ice-cream break'

"try and look like you're enjoying it"

We stop in Rennes for a well-deserved rest day and then continue up to St Malo along a winding canal-side bike path that we can ease along without breaking sweat.  And most importantly, without having to navigate and negotiate any tricky route-finding.  We stop to take a look around Dinan at the head of the estuary - this country's full of delightful towns.  The place is crawling with tourists, even though there's rain.  Ahh, rain.  No we're not complaining after all the heat we've had.  Clearly we're getting closer to England.....

nous sommes crevées

Imagine a rumpled bedcover.  That's what the landscape in France looks like on our map.  We are trying to link valleys to ride northwards but so many are crossing east/west that we soon find ourselves on one elongated roller-coaster ride. Let me describe this more accurately.  We crawl our way up to a ridgetop and then zoom down the other side.  These ridges and valleys are too large to actually get any momentum up.  We just have to grind it out.

grand houses in a village in Haut-Pyrenees

But don't get me wrong.  I'm a dyed-in-the-croissant francophile and I am really keen to make this ride work.  Our original idea was to cycle across Spain to Lisbon and then jump across the Atlantic from there.  But when we got the offer to house-sit for Andy & Kate, we then thought about other options. The clincher was air fares to Calgary in Canada. The cheapest flight in August is from Gatwick in England.  Not wanting to miss an opportunity to see a little more of France, I persuaded Gayle that cycling back to England in a short space of time would be the kind of training we needed in order to get fit for riding the Great Divide route in North America.   And so here we are.

Excusez-moi, ou est la boulangerie?

The landscape contrasts with the dry golden shades of Spain.  Here, the land is fecund.  It is being heavily farmed and much of the arable land is turned over to maize.  But there are other cereals too, vegetables and, our favourites, sunflowers.  Acres of them.  We start waving to them.  It's as if a crowd has gathered beside the road and is cheering us on.  Or turning their backs on us.  It depends which direction the sun is.  The Tour de France has already begun and we see signs warning road users of imminent closures for when the circus passes through on its way to Pau.  

a welcome tap outside an old monastery

We feel like we are now riding against the clock.  Our first objective is to visit Robert and Daniela who recently moved from the Alps to a new home and a new life in the province of Gers.  In the middle of nowhere, it seems.  We find the place on Google maps and mark it on our road map.  But how to get there? Gayle has a cunning plan.  First we cut straight up and through Montrejeau, which just happens to be on the top of a hill.  Then we follow a zig-zag route valley-hopping north.  The gradients are unforgiving.  Late afternoon we hit a long valley at the end of the day and sneak down a track into a field of maize to camp.  It's light so we cook first behind some trees.  A tractor enters the field and moves into the maize to set up a water cannon.  Of course the farmer then drives out of the maize and onto our track.  We go over to greet him and ask if we can camp here.  He happily agrees but warns us to stay clear of the water cannon which is firing water in pulsing arcs across the maize.  Pas de probleme, monsieur, merci beaucoup!  At about 10 pm a horrendous noise begins.  A combine harvester is hoovering up acres of wheat in the next field.  The hungry beast keeps munching until about 2am......... 

it was peaceful when we arrived

and it was still peaceful when the sun went down

mid-morning break

We pause for lunch in a village.  We're close now.  But none of the road junctions are matching our map.  Gayle's instincts kick in.  Turn right, up here!  We crawl up a mean-looking hill.  At the top another junction.  We phone a friend.  Robert picks up.  Keep going, he tells us, it's up and down all the way.  It is.  We finally turn a corner and see beyond a farm someone waving at us.  Robert.  He and Daniela walk down their track to greet us.  We're hot and tired and very happy to have found them.

we last saw Robert in Kyrgyzstan in 2014

so tell us Daniela and Robert, what attracted you to this house?

the only sound is birds

run for the hills

We ride away from Lleida train station in the mid-afternoon haze.  The light is bleached and the fields are straw yellow.  Up ahead lie the Pyrenees but we can't see any big mountains yet.  The valley road isn't too busy.  After stopping in a small town for supplies and a break in the shade we turn up and away from the main road and take a steep climb up onto the farmland that drapes over the long broad ridges like a pastoral checkerboard quilt of wheat and corn.  And then we ride past a pig farm.  At least I think it is from the stench and the screams. All very bucolic.  Our road stays up along a ridge and we finally find a camp spot in an open field next to a ruined barn.  A rural idyll.

We have taken a quieter road in the hope of avoiding some unnecessary climbs around two large reservoirs.  With mixed results.  We still have large climbs followed by big descents and eventually return to the main road.  The days are long but we try to take a real siesta during the midday heat. We get water by asking at cafe bars.

enjoying a birthday 'power' breakfast of porridge and ...... chocolate?

vrrrooooommmm!

We pass through a series of tiny villages, some wearing well and others looking tired and beyond care.  Riding due north brings us to the pretty little village of Llavorsi set beside a river.  We siesta here at picnic tables in the shade of a tree.  There are locked toilets here and we ask at the campsite cafe next to the park but they refuse to give us the key.  So I pee behind their cars, ooops was that the wheel??  The valley we're rding up is definitely climbing.  It feels like foothills.  There's forest on the slopes and the farms are now limited to the valley bottom. As the road steepens and the valley walls begin to close in we consider our camping options.  Miraculously a farm track appears in the trees and climbs up to what look like abandoned grazing fields for cattle.  The fields have collapsed stone walls and they terrace upwards. It's worth the push up the steep track.  Later we hear voices below on the road.  Two cyclists are weaving their way uphill and looking exhausted.  We wonder where are they heading and why haven't they stopped sooner. 

cooking the tea high above the road

 

early morning

 Our plan is to rise early, before the sun has reached into the valley, and to get beyond Esterri d'Aneu.  This is the foot of the pass over to France and we need an early start.  We start well but by the time we reach the series of hairpin bends that mark the pass I am fading.  We stop for a snack and watch a wiry old man in lycra zip past us on his racer.  At the pass is an ugly concrete ski-centre.  
 

looking back

We sit in the shade and struggle to eat our lunch.  Altitude? Heat?  The sun has been unforgiving this morning but now we can reap the rewards of a descent into France.  It seems endless.  

wheeeeeee

It is endless.  On and on through the ugly ski resorts and then the town of Vielha and beyond.  The valley we're descending northwards into is narrowing.  It feels green and lush after the barren mountains.  We find a shady and overgrown field with a chain across the entrance, down by a babbling brook.  It slopes steeply but there's a spot tucked away which will fit the tent.  We have crossed the Pyrenees.