Dit zijn de afstanden die er per dag gefietst zijn. Dag 4 was de rustdag.Dag 5 en 6 waren de dagen dat we rond hebben gereden in de Veluwe zonder bagage.
BramTeunissen.com
Day 16 : A dull rainy day
In the morning, it was dry but completely clouded. I wanted to get dressed but had lost my cycling shorts. I figured I might have left them on a stone bench on the other side of the lawn. Bram didn't want to take a look, so using my sleeping bag as pants, I walked over. It wasn't there and I didn't carry any other pants. Fortunately, I found them at the bottom of my bivy bag. Then I wanted to pee. It didn't seem like a good idea to do that against the church, so I did it in the middle of the field, hoping the pastor wouldn't stop by.
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The old lady in the bar already had breakfast ready for us. Croissants, baguette, and jam. It was the best breakfast of the entire vacation and we also got hot chocolate. We asked for a stamp in our 100 cols book. The dinner and breakfast for two people only cost us 38 euros.
Underneath a gray sky we jumped back on our bikes. We still needed to cycle a few kilometers before reaching the next col. There indeed was no campsite in the village we had intended to go to.
De Col de la Croix de Serra
The route was pretty flat. The farther north we came, the fewer bakeries and supermarkets there seemed to be. Around 11 o'clock it started to rain again and it didn't stop. We put on our warmest clothes and continued. We passed 'le petit village', or 'the small village' during a climb.
For a change a photo of the bad weather
The small village in the rain
We passed a factory where they made all the village name signs in France. The next village again didn't have a store, even though we were hungry. While always bought vast amounts of food in every store, but ate so much that it was impossible to carry enough for more than half a day. We ate an orange in the cold, which didn't really count as a break. It took more than an hour before we reached an epicerie. By then it rained even harder. The lady there explained where we could find a roof to hide under.
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Under the roof were already two other bikes with luggage but no people. They would probably be in the hotel across the street. Standing motionless underneath the roof was even colder than cycling through the rain. We wanted to eat though, because we had been hungry for the past two hours. We stood there for half an hour, hoping the rain would pass. We couldn't really get dry there, but Bram could wring out his socks, which helped. The owners of the bikes came over to take their bikes inside, they gave up for the day. We continued through the rain.
During the evening it became a bit dryer. At about 17:30, we bought the last bread left at a bakery. The hills we had to climb were all easy. There were only 15 km left to the campsite, all downhill. We sat down at a bench to eat the orange we had been carrying for two hours, it turned out utterly rotten inside.
We found the campsite shortly after, I also saw a large deer cross the road on the way there. The campsite was next to a river and cost only 5,60 for two people. That was the cheapest one of our entire vacation. The showers were good and felt nice after being out in the rain the whole day. We had no water left, so we walked to a nearby restaurant to get a drink. Even though it was only 21:00, it was nearly deserted. The waitress told us we could only stay if we ate, but there was a bar in the next village.... yeah thanks but no thanks.
We decided to just go to sleep early; tomorrow would be an easy day. We had been telling ourselves that for three days already.
Distance cycled : 138 km.