Etape 12 La Rochelle to Tranche-sur-Mer

As we rolled out of La Rochelle this morning the local army and police force had turned out en masse to form an honour guard for us which we thought was very charming of them. However as we cycled along the line waving at them we got chased away the gendarmes who told us to get out of their Bastille Day parade in front of Monsieur Le Maire.

We had seen from our mapping that the Velodyssee cycle route to our next destination took a large detour inland to circumnavigate around an extensive bay north of La Rochelle. We had a cunning plan to cut this almost 50 mile route in half by cycling onto to the Ile de Re and catching a ferry from St Martin de Re to La Tranche-sur-Mer. But detailed investigation revealed that the private ferry service did not take bikes on their boats so our distance-saving plan went up in smoke. There was nothing for it but to get our heads down and get on with it.

The first 15 miles were OK as we rode alongside the Canal de Marans which afforded some tree lined shade but after that the route opened up completely as it crossed the marshlands at the western end of the Marais Poitevin where not a stick of shade was to be found and there are no villages for miles. We had stopped for a cold beer and some water in a small bar in Marans and the patron asked where we were heading. When we told him he shook his head, sucked in his cheeks and did that Gallic ‘ooh la la’ hand gesture. ‘Ca va aller tres chaud cette apres midi Monsieur, il n’y a pas d’ombrage dans Le Marais.’ He wished us ‘Bon courage’ and I could see that look of ‘English fools’ in his eyes as we made off into the shimmering heat.

Sure enough not long after leaving his bar we were riding across the dyke tops bereft of trees and in the blistering 30 degree heat. Armed only with a few litres of kindly donated water we struggled on for a few hours as if cycling across the Sahara desert. The sun was burning a hole in the top of my head. A second dose of factor 20 was applied over the first lot to keep the piercing heat from turning my already lobster coloured skin into more of a ripe tomato hue! The birds of prey circled overhead waiting for us to collapse and die at the side of the track when they would swoop down and rip our eyes out just for starters. The occasional hacienda appeared in the shimmering haze over the horizon and then disappeared just as quickly.

The brackish marsh ditches are partly managed to control water flows and we occasionally had to ride over sluice gates. Then we came across the ‘sluice gate of death’ where over 30 large fish were floating belly up in the water. There was no obvious explanation for this phenomenon except perhaps that the Marais Poitevin has a reputation for insularity and historical interbreeding and maybe some mad wild-eyed farmer type had committed an atrocity and dumped the bodies in the sluice!!

Eventually Tranche sur Mer emerged like a mirage in the haze and we were saved from the clutches of the mad wild-eyed farmers, death from raging thirst and from being burned to a crisp in the merciless sun.

Now we are off to the bar for a beer and probably watch some Bastille Day fireworks before we do it all again tomorrow ! We must be mad!

Btw – the fireworks were average.