been great and the wine cheap and plentiful! The sun, however, has
been in hiding until 5 pm today when it showed itself for 5 mins and
we actually saw our shadows on the road as we flew along at 30km h.
Enough about the sun or rather lack of. We woke up this morning in the
bouldering (really hard rock climbing on boulders with no ropes gear
etc. pure form stuff) mecca of Fontainbleau. The campsite was packed
full of climbers from Germany and Switzerland. We followed them into
the forest to sample some of France`s best routes but alas our
climbing skills, left to rust over the years as cycling took over,
were not up to scratch. Or maybe we just found the hard boulders!
Still its a great place and I vow to come back. The joys of the forest
did not stop there as we decided to cycle through it. Problem is the
tracks are so sandy and we ended up pushimg our heavy bikes for ages
trying to follow a photocopied map from the campsite . It took forever
but good practice for lake turkana in kenya. We soon hit some gravel
and we started to emjoy the forest. A really special place.
On leaving Fontainbleau it was another 90 odd km to our overnight stop
near Joigny. We were not up to it but pushed ahead stopping at the 60
km mark for a feast from the aisles of the local Aldi. With food in
our bellys the power came back and we motored towards Joigny.
Our overnight spot turned out to be closed so at about 630pm we
started looking for other options. We found a great spot near the
river which looked like an abandoned campsite. Problem is other than
river water there was no water you could drink without treating it so
we put our trust in the dead and headed to the local cemetery which
always has a tap. Water sorted we cooked up a storm and eased our
aching muscles with a bottle of wine.
Tomorrow we start heading south to the Alps. We hope the weather
improves as we dont have much warm kit!
Thanks for all the generous donations to the Wildlands Conservation
Trust. Really appreciated it.
James
Disclaimer. Written on a kindle which must have the worst keyboard in
the world and a screen which you have to turn sideways to see your
email. So please accept my apologies for any spellings mistakes.
Especially the overuse of 'm'
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