Velodyssee

Underway early at 11.00am (!!) in order to catch a ferry across Arcachon Bay to Cap Ferret. Bit of a palava getting on board. Down the ramp with the other non-cycling tourists then told to remove panniers and bags from bikes. This was a bit of an unnerving moment as we had just strapped everything on and to undo everything takes a couple of minutes. This had to be done on a pontoon next to the boat as it is pitching and rolling in the swell. I could have easily disappeared over the side of the pontoon, bike and all, before I even got on the boat!!

However fortitude prevailed, bags came off, we clambered aboard , muscular French matelot hoisted bikes onto back of boat and off we went. Landing at Cap Ferret repeat sequence in reverse. Thankfully neither bikes nor intrepid cyclist took an unwanted dip in the Bay of Arcachon!!

After that another 30 miles of pine forest, sand dunes, cicadas etc yawn, yawn zzzzzz!!

Arrived in Lacanau Ocean at about 4pm. Signed in at the Hotel Loyat (well known to our amigos John and Rhona as the departure point of our Canal du Midi trans-France trip a few years ago). The hotel hadn’t changed – same ‘can’t swing-a-cat’ sized room and this time an infestation of flies and potentially man-biting midgey things. Spent 20 minutes with a rolled up towel turning our room into the ‘Killing Fields’. Job done, I am lying on the bed in the sweltering heat in just my sweat-ridden M+S underpants and with all our cycling debris strewn around the room and a nice man knocks at the door and comes in to fix the curtain rail! ‘Bonjour Monsieur je suis ici de faire un reparation des rideaux.’ He comes in and does a good job on the sagging curtain rail and then we have a discussion about the World Cup which doesn’t interest him greatly as there are too many starving people in the world! He did proceed however to tell us a World Cup joke in his best Franglais.

‘Zis man goes to hees friend’s ouse and sees zat his friend is watching Brazil v Belgium in zee world cupe on his tv. But ze tv ees on it’s side in ze lounge. Ze man says to ees friend ‘ why av you ze tv on its side?’ Ees friend say ‘ zis ees ze only way I can see Neymar in an upright position’!!

Oh how we all laughed!!

Having got rid of the curtain- fixing joke-teller, we headed off for a late afternoon swim on the thousand mile long beach at Lacanau. In amongst the lythe, bronzed and toned bodies of the young surfing set I manfully strode off down the beach in my flimsy shorts sporting my west of Scotland cyclist suntan (ie pinky brown arms and legs attached to a slightly flabby white torso) and got to the water’s edge. Having been scorched to death for most of the day cycling through the midday heat I thought a dip in the Atlantic Ocean to cool off would be a good idea. That was until I put one foot in the water which was freezing. But having braved the walk of shame down the beach I could hardly simply wimp out and walk back again. So putting on a brave face I progressed further into the water until my nether regions became numb. After that the sea simply took over and a series of enormous waves came crashing in and knocked me for six and I found myself spreadeagled on the sea bed covered in foam with sand forced up every orifice. Of course I pretended that this was all jolly fun and stuck it for a bit longer and then did the reverse walk of shame back up the beach to where Mrs Nelson had remained with an air of ‘I told you so’. She was ever so proud of me!!

Oh well let’s just keep heading north and see what other embarrassments unfold!

Endless rolling cycle track through endless pine forest backed by endless sand dunes in endless heat with an accompanying cacophony of screeching cicadas just about sums up the day’s cycling. Another few hundred miles of this could send a chap mad.

However, the day was highlighted by two memorable events. The first was climbing up Europe’s highest sand dune, Le Dune du Pilat, which is just south of Arcachon and weighs in at 380ft tall and approx 2 miles long. There is a fantastic view from the summit looking across Arcachon Bay towards the long spit of land which terminates in Cap Ferret. The main drawback to scaling this massive sand dune is that, in this weather, the sand is about 3000 degrees C and for delicate-footed souls such as me this is too much to bear. So in classic British style I attempted the climb in my cycling shoes and white socks. This was doomed to failure as all that happened was that my shoes filled with hot sand until every internal nook and cranny was packed full making my shoes feel as tight as a camel’s a**e in a sandstorm!! Coming down the dune was worse as you inevitable end up flicking sand all over the place including up your shorts and into your tee shirt. Having got back down I took off my socks and shoes and emptied them making my own mini dune in the car park. However it was all worth it for the view.

The second notable event of the day was plucking up the courage to slurp some oysters. Arcachon Bay is oyster central in France so there was a local imperative to giving them a go. They get presented raw with just a slice of lemon. How to politely describe the texture and taste sensation…… how about – a sea-flavoured gelatinous mass in its own brackish pool. Doesn’t sound too appealing but actually they did taste really good. Can’t say the aphrodisiac thing worked tho’!!!!

This part of the world is renowned for its fine wines from the Bordeaux and Entre Deux Mers regions and houses some of the finest wine producing dynasties such as Chateau Mouton Rothschild and Margaux. However they don’t forget about their dogs and they get well looked after.

30 miles of the forested coastline between Mimizan and Biscarrosse has been annoyingly commandeered by the French military for war games practice thus forcing pacifist cyclists in a major detour inland. Having said that, the route does a grand tour around three large inland lakes which are connected by waterways which is all very jolly. This freshwater system harbours monsters from the deep, one of which was scuttling across the cycle route in front of us as we passed by this morning. When it saw us coming it stopped in its tracks and reared up brandishing a large pair of fearsome pincers. Undaunted, Mrs Nelson approached and gave it a ‘retired’ teacher’s stare and it backed off timidly into the undergrowth never to be seen again.

Further along the track we stumbled across Cirque de Soleil’s summer camp for incompetent gymnasts. I’m thinking of abandoning the cycling in favour of joining their merry band of bohemian no-hopers for the summer like the fellow below;

After wrestling some minor hills in the heat we finally arrived in Biscarrosse where cold beers on the beach became the order of the day. Sitting in the beach bar we witnessed a lot of ecstatic French footie fans as they ousted Uruguay from the WC. ‘Allez les Bleus’ they drunkenly cheered despite the fact that France had had a strip change and were playing in white and the Uruguay were in fact playing in blue. Hey- ho, they won comfortably and more beer was consumed all round.

I had drunk so much beer on an empty stomach that I began to hallucinate and thought I spotted a kite surfing the waves out in the bay. It in fact turned out to be one of the best kite displays ever by a bloke in shorts! Note his skill in simulating the kite riding the crest of a wave.

Now I’m thinking of giving up my budding bohemian gymnastic career in favour of becoming a kite flying bum on the beach for the rest of the summer. Carol says she will become a kite groupie if there is free wine in it!!

You have to love pine forests and sand dunes otherwise this isn’t the trip for you. Covered 32 miles today and saw little else. So there was plenty of this ……

and an awful lot of that ….

No wrestling for a bit of beach space here!!

Took a spin up the lighthouse at Contis-Plage which is described in the guidebook as looking like a stick of barley sugar. (146 steps to the top if you must know). For the nerds it flashes 4 times every 25 seconds. Great view from the top tho’. However the sad thing is there is no longer a lighthouse keeper as it is controlled automatically from Bayonne 60 miles away to the south. ‘Gonnae no dae that!!’

Arrived tonight at Mimizan Plage which appears to be famous for two things: firstly, it is allegedly the centre of French naturism and secondly it seems to be the French capital of sweet sugary substances. I have a beautiful technicolour picture of one of these characteristics.

Sadly I didn’t bring a telephoto lens on this trip so don’t have a photo of the other. Aw well!!….

I write this in a hotel room above a restaurant amid a cracking storm. The downpour is such that the rainwater is surcharging the inadequate French drainage system and so we have the slightly distasteful smell of sewage mingling with the delightful smell of spit- roasting chickens!! Not sure I can face going out to eat at the moment !! Luckily we arrived at the hotel just before the storm started so at least we didn’t get wet! As you can see from the following video clip a boat is floating down the street on its way to the boucherie.

However, before the rains came the sun and for those of us travelling the Velodyssee from south to north this means that for the majority of the day, when the sun is out, it is shining on your back. So this requires the assiduous application of the factor 50 to the back of your legs and arms to avoid that searing back burner feeling. However,the back of my neck feels a bit over cooked as I forgot about that bit and now I now have a pain in the neck as well as having a pain in the a**e. An image of increasing familiarity on this trip is the shadow pattern cast on the ground by us northbound travellers. One spends many happy rear-heated hours looking at this view.

Had a couple of minor navigational errors today either as a result of inadequate signage, or, lack adequate attention to adequate signage. Either way we got a bit lost and at one point rode frustratingly around an industrial estate and ‘dechetterie’ (waste recycling dump) for half an hour. We also went haring along a busy road which we shouldn’t have been on mixing with hoary hgvs and thrusting BMW drivers. We were bemused during our passage along this scary road to be overtaken by two senior French touring cyclists, which at first gave us comfort that we were not the only lost idiots, but which turned to amazement when one of the oldsters got off his bike ahead of us and hitched down his fulsome Lycra shorts to take a leak on the highway verge in full view of us and the passing traffic. We sailed passed them with a gay ‘Bonjour’ as we forged onward towards Vieux-Boucau-Les-Bains and a well-earned chicken liver dinner!!

Sorry readers for the delay in publishing yesterday’s blog trash but couldn’t write it last night due to collapsing in shock at watching the England football team actually win a penalty shootout (against Colombia). England have perfected the art of playing backwards so it is a miracle that they won at all. Anyway enough about the WC – what about the Velodyssee I hear you say.

Hendaye to Bayonne via Biarritz – the first real stage. Got drizzled on in the morning and baked in the afternoon. The ever-present Atlantic breakers made a fine distraction to the stiff climbs out of one bay over the rocky headlands to the next. Mrs Nelson is already eagerly awaiting the the miles of flat dunelands of La Côte d’Argent that lead up to Bordeaux.

Had to wrestle with a fair amount of traffic through St Jean de Luz, Bidart and Biarritz including the typical scooters which rasp around like angry wasps in bottles.

Arrived in Bayonne and the scaffold erectors has beaten us to the Cathedral again. Haven’t seen a church without scaffolding yet.

St Jean de Luz is a very attractive fishing port with a very long harbour wall at the end of which is a massive lump of concrete. Sprayed onto the concrete is some graffiti which says ‘Altsasu Koak Askey’. This neither French nor Spanish but I doubt very much that this translates as ‘I love Arthur Askey’, unless the Basques had a hidden penchant for second-rate British comedy of the 1960’s, but I guess anything is possible. If any of you readers are able to make suitable translations then feel free to submit them as I am keen to know what it means.

A Kraken is a fearsome cephalopod- like sea creature that lurks about off the Norwegian coast and scares fishermen and, according to Tennyson, lies

‘Below the thunders of the upper deep,

Far far beneath in the abysmal sea

His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep The Kraken sleepeth…. etc etc (look it up)

How this one ended up in a scrappy old industrial estate on the outskirts of Bayonne one can only speculate.

Covered over a thousand miles today. Pretty impressive with the bikes eh!! Fortunately they were on the train with us and only limited pedal-power was used to get us to and from the stations in Morlaix and Hendaye down on the Spanish border. Sadly we have to ride all the way back starting tomorrow!

First train from a Morlaix to Paris arrived in the station on time. I knew we were booked into an end coach and started running with the bike to the front of the train. A French chef du train shouted ‘no- bikes go in the last carriage’ causing a rapid turn around and a sprint the the back! Caused some Gallic disgruntlement as we had to shuffle a few people’s bags around in order the get the bikes into their allocated space. Sat opposite a 6 ft tall guy who had legs sprawled all over the place and invading my leg space. Harrumph!

Arrived Paris Gare Montparnasse which is currently under reconstruction amid a throbbing sea of humanity. Not a seat to be had anywhere in the station. Long Q for coffee and baguettes which had to be eaten standing up. Lunch completed we scooted to platform 8 for our TGV out of Paris to Hendaye and once again the reserved bike spaces are full of other travellers bags so we had to cause another international incident to get them moved before we could get the bikes into their correct place. By this time there is a big Q of angry French folk out on the platform trying to get into the train before it leaves muttering inexplicable things about Les Anglais et leurs velos!! We finally all get settled down when the conductor comes on the intercom to say that the driver can’t re-engage the pantograph with the overhead power lines and a new engine has to be found. ‘Desole pour le delai pour 30 minutes’. Merde – after all that mad scramble to get aboard the train is now going nowhere!

At last things all get sorted out and off we go topping 320kph through the rural cornfields of central France. Then I fell asleep and woke up somewhere near Biarritz.

Anyway all is good. Hotel in Hendaye found, beers ordered and tapas scoffed. We start the cycling in earnest tomorrow. Hope Ernest doesn’t mind!!!

We were of the first people off the ferry this morning ridingly confidently down the car ramp and into France. Straight to passport control. No problem with that. First navigation decision after 50 m – went the wrong way heading into the ville of Roscoff not out of it towards Morlaix. Minor detour required to get us back on track. Doesn’t bode well for the next 800 miles.!!

First stop – St-Pol-de-Leon. Full of other Brit cyclists (including a tandem pair) stumbling around looking for coffee, somewhere selling croissants, a bank to get some Euros, some cold water and the public lavs. Mon Dieu.!

The local authority had honoured our visit with 5000 sq m of scaffolding around the magnificent eglise. Rather spoiled my photo what!

Arrived in Morlaix after some cursing and swearing directed at a few steepish hills. (It wasn’t their fault!). A very fine town (twinned with Truro) and sporting a most magnificent 19c viaduct. (For the geeks among you, it is 292m long and 58m high and was completed in 1863).

As it turns out Sunday 1 July in Morlaix is classic car rally day. Old Renaults, 2cv’s,VW’s, Triumph Stags, Citroens etc. Derek Beacock – get your MGF sorted out and get rolling into Morlaix. You would go down a storm!!

Carol’s new best friends of the day: Eppi and Glottis – two beautiful Siamese cats with eyes of pale blue glass.

They live at the hotel we are staying in which is a bit like the Bates Motel with spooky Victorian dolls lurking about the place and evil looking gargoyles adorning the breakfast room fireplace. I’m off for a shower now so if there are no further blog posts you know what’s happened.!!