Day 10 – Allllrighty Then!

Pretty much a very similar thing happened like yesterday, I had set off at a good time and then within first mile or so I had photo taken. It was with Napoleon himself and the city was once called Napoleon Sur Yon and built for Napoleon I. The monsieur that I asked to take the photo joked and went to run away with it, which I didn’t see coming, a Frenchman with a sense of humor!

I bought this amazing loaf of Brioche yesterday for breakfast today and lunch. It was amazing, so good in fact that I’ve bought it again for breaky tomorrow swell as a tub of jam! mmmm, I love jam!

I was quite far into my ride today when I was cruising past some fields with barrels of hay staggered everywhere. Now after working with my dad for so long, you pick up his skills for spotting a bit of wildlife where others would fail and miss out on. Perched up on top of a barrel of hay about 20 foot away from me was a Kite. That’s a bird for those of you that don’t know. So I stopped and went to get my camera out, it wasn’t moving and was happy enough to stay and pose. When a farmer and his tractor decided to start up and move in the field opposite! It was like the moment in Ace Ventura Pet Detective when he is trying to catch the White Dove and the mascot pushes it out the way. I missed the moment to take the picture as the Kite took to the sky. Damn tractor man!

I could tell I was getting closer and closer to a holiday destination as I saw more and more English number plates the closer I got to La Rochelle. This is actually the closest I have stayed to the coastline since I left 10 days ago and I really noticed the sea breeze coming in and making it harder to pedal into. What was nice however was the massive sprinklers they have hear watering the fields, every now and then when they spray over the way your riding you get a nice mist to cool you down.

I’m actually staying just outside of La Rochelle in a place called Angoulins. Its a nice little town with a really cool water feature in the main square next to the church, I took a photo of this for anyone interested. Also had to add the photo of me at the beach as I hear the weather at home is a little stormy! Although from looking at google maps I didn’t think it would be that much of a walk, about 45 minutes later I was there, and thats not really the sort of thing I had planned to do after a 60 mile ride!

At one point today I thought sat nav was trying to stitch me up, it took me down this farmers road (pic below) and although it was a shorter route, it wasn’t the way I would have liked to go!

Some more rules to let you know that I have made up over the last few days, Rule 3, Never go one handed to wipe your face or wiggle your numb hand when a massive arctic lorry whizz’s past! Rule 4, Keep your mouth shut when going fast, bugs seem to find there way in like its a homing beacon!

Today’s journey was 59.2 miles, riding time of 4:20:50, max speed 27.3 mph, avg speed 13.62 mph, 3318 calories, 3 litres so far.