Day 5 : Headwinds all day

It had been cold at night, but we needed to get going. The bakery would come at eight to deliver bread so we couldn't leave sooner. To kill time, we sat in the chairs in front of the desk to eat. We had bought enough yesterday: a piece of brie, a jar of paté de campagne (which tasted a lot better than it looked) , and some jam.

 

At exactly 8 o'clock the bakery came to the campsite in classic French style. The French are accustomed to arriving in an at least ten year old Renault Peugeot or Citroën and either floor it or stand on the breaks. The baker came while drifting over the gravel, pulled the handbrake, threw a box of bread on the table, and drove off again.

 

I saw only one pain de campagne. That meant either our order wasn't included at all, or he had delivered only one instead of two. If this wasn't our order it would mean we would be taking someone else's bread. Bram had a theory that I agreed with. It was best to take it, because either it was ours, or  we and the person who had ordered this bread both would have one bread less. We probably also needed it more.

 

There were no cols on today's route, but it was still extremely tough. It started with all sorts of back roads running through villages with only ten inhabitants. Along even more roads, with hardly any asphalt left, we continued south over many short but steep hills. The weather was not bad today. The sun came through a few times, it didn't rain, and the temperature was nice.  

For the remainder of the day we cycled along back roads with a strong headwind. Everywhere were grass fields or rapeseed fields, so there was no way to hide from the wind. In Givry, we needed to obtain another stamp. We found some excellent pizza baked in an authentic brick oven. At a store, we went to buy something you can only ask for in France. They weren't even surprised when we asked for a 'pile and a tampon'. They gave us a stamp and some batteries.
 

During the evening we climbed, there was no descent. We found a very simple 'camping the muncipal', that happened to open today.

Distance cycled : 150.48 km