Day Two

Douarenenez to St Nicholas des Eaux

86 miles

5249 ft climbed.

We’ve been doing these cycle tours for 18 years now across France and to southern Spain and Portugal and had some hot and dry days But today felt the hottest and muggiest day ever with the temperature hitting 38 degrees, whilst we were moving. Nick claims that at one point he saw his Garmin register 45.8 degrees C! To give you an idea I have drunk over 5 litres of fluid and have yet to need to go to the loo! When we called into one of the town halls to get our passports stamped the lady behind the counter just laughed at these mad Englishmen cycling on such a hot day.

To try to minimise the heat we left the campsite ahead of time before 8am and rode across the estuary into a very sleepy town Nothing was open and no one was about.

Leaving the town Nick and I joined the first of two long greenways. Whilst the surface was unmade up gravel for the most part there were no potholes and we didn’t need to shout out once all day to check the road surface. The greenways have the added benefit that they are usually flanked by trees and today that kept the sun off our backs.

This greenway took us almost to the largest local town Quimper, but before Quimper we had a bit of small road which was as smooth as a freshly resurfaced Brands Hatch.

We got into Quimper just after 9 am and even though it’s a big town it was empty. The tourist office had yet to open, but we took advantage of being in town and stopped for coffee and croissants.

We had arranged to meet Nigel and the rest of the team for lunch after another long stint on a greenway which took us through to Rosporden where we were able to get our passports stamped.

It was now that we had a couple of brief but sharp warm showers which were welcome but made our legs and bikes very dirty . Nigel disappointingly has for once refused to clean them!

Nigel and Monica followed by Gill on her motorcycle had as usual done the Lidl shop and then found a deluxe lunch stop by a village church. The camper’s awning came in super useful as a heavy but only ten minute rain shower could have interrupted proceedings.

Unlike our greenway filled morning this afternoon was exclusively on small country roads. As we left lunch our first town was the very pretty Le Faouet, which had the biggest covered market I’ve seen.

The route was very up and down and designed to occasionally run through very pretty river valleys- the prettiest who was the river Scorff where we had decided to slot in an addition stop to top up the water bottles and cool down a bit in the shade as the heat was by now reaching its height.

We even had a quick stop in a chapel St Anne des Bois to cool down.

The last leg to the campsite remained tough being up and down in the relentless heat. The final highlight was the view over the river meander right next to our campsite at St Nicholas des Eaux

Getting to the campsite enjoying a cool beer and a swim before a bit of stretching and a healthy chicken casserole with plenty of veggies was certainly the right way to finish the day.

I am sitting outside at half past ten writing this blog as it’s too hot in the camper as the temperature is still 27.5 degrees. Please note Nick did provide that figure.

As the Fast Show said Tomorrow has promised to be Scorcio We have once again planned a three stop day to ensure we keep our water topped up.

Wish us luck.