We left Arcachon fairly early and headed down the coast, looking to get a good days cycle in and at least make it to Mimizan. The cycling was going fairly well and we followed bike routes for most of the way. In fact we were making great progress through the beach villages, and the weather was still fairly good apart from being a little colder.
Some of the scenery was lovely, although to be honest we´ve been in pine forests for a few days now and it´s becoming a bit samey samey. With Nick pulling us along we were making fantastic progress and decided we could make it to Contis-plage, a reasonable sized town about a days cycle away from Biarritz. It´s only the last couple of days that we´ve started to realise that we are very close to the border and therefore not far from the finish line of San Sebastian.
Most of the towns we have been going through are shut for the season, and the ones that are open are what can only be described as surfer towns.
As we headed through Mimizan plage we pushed on to Contis-plage.. although this is where the nice smooth bike path faded out and we were once again off roading. Not good for the bikes, certainly mine, which doesnt seem to like anything other than smooth roads.... and as we were negotiating a particularly nasty bit of sand/tarmac I started going sideways, and for the second time in 2 days was sent sprawling from my bike. This time at speed. I did well to throw myself away from it as I came crashing down, in a dive similar to that of Cristiano Ronaldo when he hasn´t been fouled. Another scar, this time on the knee, but nothing to write home about.
However, after brushing myself dwon and re-attaching one of my panniers, which had also taken the same route as me, off we went again.
We got to Contis-plage to find the town almost entirely closed. Funnily enough this is where we bumped into the 3 muskamigos again, who were also trying to find a place for the night. After a bit of searching we ended up pitching our tents in the trees beside a motor home park, which at least had running water and toilets. It was unbelievably windy and at first I didn´t think my tent would stand up to the almost gale force winds!
It was at this point I realised another spoke had broken... which must have happened when I fell off, and decided it was best not to worry about it until the morning.
This was also the point that Igor made his second appearance of the trip. None of us had the patience to deal with him though.. seeing as the only english words he knew was proffesional, visitad(!), magistral(!) and because. He pitched his tent, disappeared off then promptly returned with a box he had retrieved from the bins, full of various hair and skin products. It was at this point we decided he was a proper nutter. This time we didn´t feed him, and settled in for a windy rainy night.
64.58 on the speedo, all in the right direction as well!
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