We d done a sneaky camp on the banks of the Arrone River, less than a days ride from Toulouse, the church bells had been really pealing their clangers off, and people the day before had been walking the streets with flowers and wine: for it was Mothers Day in France.
Louise was standing in front of a florist shop, big bunch of flowers in her arms, being bussed on both cheeks by a young woman I assumed was her daughter. ¨A photo¨ exclaimed Val. I got the photo when she was halfway across the street, and as she saw the camera, gave a lively jig waving her flowers at us, pretty good for a woman who looked closer to eighty than seventy.
A chirpy conversation ensued between her and Val, establishing what we were doing and where we were from, then as she spoke, I noticed her feeling around in her purse and then produced a Fifty Euro note which she thrust into Vals hand. ¨Non, Non,¨ Val protested, some further conversation ensued, after which Val relented her protest. We did ¨Merci boquets¨ all round, everyone bussed twice on alternate cheeks, and off we rode out of Louises life.
Well, not before we had got her name and address, Val telling me that she understood that she was a widow with no children and though that we were worthy of a pampering. What a lovely lady.
That morning on the riverbank, as we were packing our tent, three men in camoflage trousers and jackets came across the grass; weve done it now, I thought, fishing and camping inspectors for sure. No, just a jolly three fishermen, who, when they found we were from New Zealand, tried to talk about Rugby, with a smidgen of success; the names Merthens, Oliver and Umunga were mangled and mashed around with lots of ¨Oiu, Oius¨ thrown in. Needless to say, the conversation did not last very long, but bonhomie was well and truly established.
Then an hour later, when Val went for walk round a monster garge type sale in a town park, I struck up a conversation with an English speaking Engineer from the Airbus Company, who was keen on NZ, had not been there, but had business dealings with us and in particular a big fellow who was a former All Black (of course, by the end of this trip, I myself, will probably be one!). Actually he did name him and I recognised it, but have now forgotten who it was, Bill someone.
These are the sort of things that are just one of the delights arising from sitting on a bike allday, get hot, cold, smelly and knackered. I hope it inspires some of my readers into trying it sometime.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Where The Tracks Are Now
In summary, we have crossed the Pyrenees into France, just opposite Barcelona, then headed back towards the Mediterranean coast in the foothills of the French Pyrenees. Lots of ups and downs, but the scenery has been fantastic, the villages beautiful but very quiet compared to Spain, but the French people themselves have been a lot of fun. Vals French is improving by the day!
We arrived in Toulouse on Sunday, it was drizzling rain but the track along the Midi Canal side led us to the centre of the city, where we decided to pamper ourselves with a couple of days in a two star hotel. After finding a couple that were either full up, or just not interested in catering for bikes, we found one that just loved bikes and put up with wet tents in the bath and hanging out the window above the Boulevard. Doing some sight seeing and hoping the weather will improve.
Change of plan has us keeping on the Garonne Canal towards Bordeaux, may even slope across to the Atlantic coast, but we are nothing if not flexible on this trip, so that could change at any time.
We arrived in Toulouse on Sunday, it was drizzling rain but the track along the Midi Canal side led us to the centre of the city, where we decided to pamper ourselves with a couple of days in a two star hotel. After finding a couple that were either full up, or just not interested in catering for bikes, we found one that just loved bikes and put up with wet tents in the bath and hanging out the window above the Boulevard. Doing some sight seeing and hoping the weather will improve.
Change of plan has us keeping on the Garonne Canal towards Bordeaux, may even slope across to the Atlantic coast, but we are nothing if not flexible on this trip, so that could change at any time.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Bad Day in Un Castillo
I rode down a long hill into Un Castillo, a small town two days bike ride from Pamplona, without putting on some warm clothes, the local bar had coffee, cigarette smoke and no Croissants, so we went looking. The girl in the information office said there was an Internet Cafe, but her directions did not work. The guy cleaning the street seemed to know where it was, but we could not understand him. My day was not going well; Val tried supportive councelling, but it fell on deaf ears.
Up to this point I had really been enjoying Spain, my ignorance of languages had been covered by Vals burgeoning Spanish skills, and the standard response to the question ¨Do you speak English¨ usually elicited a ¨Non¨, with an unspoken question that seemed to be ¨Why should I¨. Matter of fact and non offensive.
Being under pressure to get my Blog updated, this wall of impenetrable Spanish, accompanied by waving arms and pointed directions, led to my minor breakdown.
Such are the joys of cycle touring, the pressures, decisions, responses seem to be directly related to blood sugar levels, and at any one point in a days riding, a word thrown over your shoulder, or projected ahead to your cycle mate, can be blown away, torn to pieces and reassembled in many ways, not all of them gentlemanly.
Up to this point I had really been enjoying Spain, my ignorance of languages had been covered by Vals burgeoning Spanish skills, and the standard response to the question ¨Do you speak English¨ usually elicited a ¨Non¨, with an unspoken question that seemed to be ¨Why should I¨. Matter of fact and non offensive.
Being under pressure to get my Blog updated, this wall of impenetrable Spanish, accompanied by waving arms and pointed directions, led to my minor breakdown.
Such are the joys of cycle touring, the pressures, decisions, responses seem to be directly related to blood sugar levels, and at any one point in a days riding, a word thrown over your shoulder, or projected ahead to your cycle mate, can be blown away, torn to pieces and reassembled in many ways, not all of them gentlemanly.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Sneaky Camping
By definition, sneaky camping is staying along the track or roadside without the permission of the landowner or local authority. So, for me, the mission is to find a suitable spot, flat enough for the tent and concealed from the eyes of anyone passing by. Once this is established, the bikes and gear have to be moved off the road and into seclusion without being observed. Because it is obvious to anyone who sees you that you are looking to camp sneakily, and if they happened to be of evil intent, they could take advantage of us.
So, all this is in my mind as we search for the ideal site, add to this the rapid approach of nighfall and a cycling amigo who only has a couple of k´s left in her legs and the pressure begins to come on.
Our first night out on the road from Fraca, where we got off the train from Barcelona, and on a backroad to the famous Costa Brava, it was drizzling rain and getting cold, Val was riding shotgun and I was on the lookout for that ideal site when unexpectedly we came to a main road. Val thought we´d missed a couple of likely sites and things did not look too promising. Crossing the main road into a small ancient village we came across a bike trail and soon we found an ideal site where we spent a night in total peace and quiet, getting back on the road without upsetting any of the locals.
The next nght, having ´´done the Costa Brava¨ we climbed out of the town via a very steep road and found ourselves in a National Park area, signs all over the place saying no camping and one that I thought meant no ´bivvy´ camping as well, (this later proved to be an open tin can with a line through it, discouraging littering). Eventually we found a side track with plenty of trees and cover, and as the night was mild we decided to bivvy camp without the tent.
We´d been there an hour or so, and had tea well under way when the sound of a vehicle stopping close by and door slamming put (me) on high alert. Shortly, throught the trees I could make out a person scouting from side to side with a stick in one hand, looking intently at the ground, poking things every so often with the stick.
´´He´s following our tracks¨ I said to Val and indeed he was on the path we had made. Advancing and still peering intently at the ground he was only 15 metres away without seeing us when I decided to reveal ourselves.
´´Hola´´ I said (my only word of Spanish at this point), he looked around for the voice,
´´Hello¨ I said to alert him of the presence of Gringos (thats what the Tom Mix comics called the likes of us anyway)
´´Hola´´ he said unconcernedly and continued on his prodding, searching way. For the next half hour or more he moseyed around, not searching for sneaky campers but for little gems of wild flowers and herbs that were growing in wild profusion under our feet.
So, all this is in my mind as we search for the ideal site, add to this the rapid approach of nighfall and a cycling amigo who only has a couple of k´s left in her legs and the pressure begins to come on.
Our first night out on the road from Fraca, where we got off the train from Barcelona, and on a backroad to the famous Costa Brava, it was drizzling rain and getting cold, Val was riding shotgun and I was on the lookout for that ideal site when unexpectedly we came to a main road. Val thought we´d missed a couple of likely sites and things did not look too promising. Crossing the main road into a small ancient village we came across a bike trail and soon we found an ideal site where we spent a night in total peace and quiet, getting back on the road without upsetting any of the locals.
The next nght, having ´´done the Costa Brava¨ we climbed out of the town via a very steep road and found ourselves in a National Park area, signs all over the place saying no camping and one that I thought meant no ´bivvy´ camping as well, (this later proved to be an open tin can with a line through it, discouraging littering). Eventually we found a side track with plenty of trees and cover, and as the night was mild we decided to bivvy camp without the tent.
We´d been there an hour or so, and had tea well under way when the sound of a vehicle stopping close by and door slamming put (me) on high alert. Shortly, throught the trees I could make out a person scouting from side to side with a stick in one hand, looking intently at the ground, poking things every so often with the stick.
´´He´s following our tracks¨ I said to Val and indeed he was on the path we had made. Advancing and still peering intently at the ground he was only 15 metres away without seeing us when I decided to reveal ourselves.
´´Hola´´ I said (my only word of Spanish at this point), he looked around for the voice,
´´Hello¨ I said to alert him of the presence of Gringos (thats what the Tom Mix comics called the likes of us anyway)
´´Hola´´ he said unconcernedly and continued on his prodding, searching way. For the next half hour or more he moseyed around, not searching for sneaky campers but for little gems of wild flowers and herbs that were growing in wild profusion under our feet.
Buying A Bike in Barcelona
Well all my time spent on the Internet trying to contact bike sellers in Barcelona went by the board. In the end our International cycle host, Adrien, and expatriate Frenchman living in the city and working as a tourist guide, turned out to be a real goldmine. Apart from giving us somewhere to sleep and recover from the horrors of long plane rides, he knew all the bike places in the city and marked them on our mud map.
First stop, a bike rental place with a heap of worn out bikes for sale. The owner, a woman with a good sense of humour and a very adequate command of English, allowed me to take it for a test ride,
¨I will leave my wife as security´´
´´Ah but you may ride off to find a new one!!´´
It had plenty of gears, was lighweight, the seat had no adjustment following some past repair job and the deal was 100 euros with option to return it if we did not get a satisfoctory mechanical report. We wheeled the animal all over Barcelona looking for a shop I´d located online with a good reputation ( as endorsed by my international cycling buddies). Koos´s mechanic (Koos owns the shop), also Dutch, shook his head and tut tutted numerous times over the fact that the bike should not be sold with a seat that could not be adjusted ´´We saw this bike advertised on the internet and sent them an email telling them that it should not be sold in this condition´´. He had nothing in the secondhand line, but added his weight to our host´s suggestion that Tomas Domingo, a ¨Bike Warehouse´´, may be worth a try. We bought some fancy pink ´´Ortleib´´ panniers for Val, a bike pump and rejoined the streets of Barcelona with our less than healthy bike in tow, busting for a pee and discovering that Barcelona does not supply public toilets with any degree of generosity.
Arriving at Tomas Domingos, we found him away at Siesta, so we filled in time drinking a couple of beers on the pavement cafe opposite and watched with great interest the workings of an automated city bike hire system. Hirers swìped a card over the reader, one of the bikes was released and they rode it around to another rack in the city and plonked it back into the self locking recesses. There were hundreds of them all around the place.
Tomas had a good siesta, we used the cafe toilet (several times) and were first in the door when the shop opened.
They had the bike we needed, the salesman learned a new word of English when Val described his glasses, which broke in half across the nose piece, as ´´Freaky¨. They were held together magnetically, and when reading, he gathered both pieces from the string round his neck and clicked them together over his nose. All the other staff shared his amusement.
´´Domingo´´ is proving to be a good workhorse and has fallen madly in love with Val´s ´´Ginger´´. Ginger is feeling a little vulnerable as Val is now thinking that she needs a new touring bike too.
First stop, a bike rental place with a heap of worn out bikes for sale. The owner, a woman with a good sense of humour and a very adequate command of English, allowed me to take it for a test ride,
¨I will leave my wife as security´´
´´Ah but you may ride off to find a new one!!´´
It had plenty of gears, was lighweight, the seat had no adjustment following some past repair job and the deal was 100 euros with option to return it if we did not get a satisfoctory mechanical report. We wheeled the animal all over Barcelona looking for a shop I´d located online with a good reputation ( as endorsed by my international cycling buddies). Koos´s mechanic (Koos owns the shop), also Dutch, shook his head and tut tutted numerous times over the fact that the bike should not be sold with a seat that could not be adjusted ´´We saw this bike advertised on the internet and sent them an email telling them that it should not be sold in this condition´´. He had nothing in the secondhand line, but added his weight to our host´s suggestion that Tomas Domingo, a ¨Bike Warehouse´´, may be worth a try. We bought some fancy pink ´´Ortleib´´ panniers for Val, a bike pump and rejoined the streets of Barcelona with our less than healthy bike in tow, busting for a pee and discovering that Barcelona does not supply public toilets with any degree of generosity.
Arriving at Tomas Domingos, we found him away at Siesta, so we filled in time drinking a couple of beers on the pavement cafe opposite and watched with great interest the workings of an automated city bike hire system. Hirers swìped a card over the reader, one of the bikes was released and they rode it around to another rack in the city and plonked it back into the self locking recesses. There were hundreds of them all around the place.
Tomas had a good siesta, we used the cafe toilet (several times) and were first in the door when the shop opened.
They had the bike we needed, the salesman learned a new word of English when Val described his glasses, which broke in half across the nose piece, as ´´Freaky¨. They were held together magnetically, and when reading, he gathered both pieces from the string round his neck and clicked them together over his nose. All the other staff shared his amusement.
´´Domingo´´ is proving to be a good workhorse and has fallen madly in love with Val´s ´´Ginger´´. Ginger is feeling a little vulnerable as Val is now thinking that she needs a new touring bike too.
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