Day 18: Rack off

After a nice night of listening to the waves crashing in and the smell of pine, we headed off as a threesome for another day of cycling through pine forests just by the coast. Lucy's tent peg/cable tie/electric tape combo appeared to have done the job with her pannier rack and all was well and good.


Well, that was until the whole thing gave way about 10 miles down the road! Fortunately we had passed a bike shop 2 miles before, which was a blessing as we hadn't seen one for days! Lucy purchased a new rack, fitted it and all was right with the world again. It's funny how we always seem to be within touching distance of a bike shop when we need one, and nowhere near one when we don't!

We headed on along the bike path for another few hours, stopped in Le Porge-plage for lunch and then decided to head on to Cap Ferret, with the hope of jumping on a ferry across the Bassin D'Arcachon to Arcachon itself. Lucy wasn't convinced as we weren't sure there was a ferry. Nick thought there was, and I wanted to go there anyway as I had spent 6 weeks in Cap Ferret in 1997 with an ex (the lovely Tania) so Lucy was outnumbered. We absolutely hammered along the last 12 miles into Cap Ferret. I must admit I hardly recognised any of it, but it was beautiful and we had half an hour on the beach before going to find out if there was a ferry.

Having Nick with us has been really good. He's a really nice lad, very clever and more importantly has a GPS on his phone. We got to the port to find the ferry left in an hour so sat down for a drink in the sun. Across the bay we could see the biggest sand dune in Europe, which is immense.

We got across to Arcachon, where by a combination of Nick's research and my sisters text we knew there was an open campsite, bought some dinner and then headed up the hill to Club camping Arcachon. For the first time on the trip my legs felt a little tired. I'm suprised it's taken this long to be honest!

Once at the campsite we then had the pleasure of Igor, a Ukrainian that appeared out of the dark, who spoke little english but managed to explain that he had cycled 4000km from the Ukraine in 70 days. He came bearing Cognac and repeatedly tried to force it on us until none of us could refuse! A good quote from Lucy after an hour of trying to converse with Igor was "don't you feel like you are back at LAL?" which was the summer school we had both taught at in Taunton. It's not the quote of the day though.. that one is much better. Anyway, we fed Igor, which I think may have been why he chose us to chat to anyway and drank a couple of bottles of wine between us.

A good end to the day, and another 48.46 miles on the clock. We passed the 650 mile mark today as well. A quick thanks to all those that have sponsored me as well. If you keep sponsoring, I may just keep going.

Lucy's quote of the day, related to her addiction to chocolate mousse's (at least 2 per day, sometimes 4) "this mousse is amazing, it's like chocolate mixed with pure gold"

Me, Nick and Lucy

A perfect advert for Ortlieb!