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Day 7 : The last part of the journey out

Bart had lost his cycling goggles that morning, luckily someone had left them at the front desk. Upon leaving, the owner's daughter laughed again, so I didn't want to go. However, as they say about the Tour de France, 'the cycling vacation stops for no one'. After a few kilometers we passed two cyclists who thought we were cycling fast on purpose, so they took a sprint and passed us again. A while later we caught up with them again, they acted like they were always cycling this fast but couldn't keep it up for long.

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We had a nice view over the Ventoux in the morning.
 

After 70 km it was time for lunch. We bought food at the same supermarket as last year. Then we continued through lavender fields until we reached some benches. The area was covered with grasshoppers, we saw at least 30 jumping away every time we walked somewhere. Fortunately, we had enough food with us, so we didn't need to catch them.

sausages

Here we bought some soda. The ceiling was full of sausages, and it smelled like them too.
 

When we were done eating, we continued cycling and a few hours later arrived in Manosque, where we had stopped last year. We went to get a receipt somewhere. To prove we cycled the entire 100 cols tour, we were required to provide evidence that we had visited certain places. This can, for example, be a receipt with the location and date on it or a stamp from the post office.

100 cols

We cycled through one of the hottest regions in France.
 

We cycled to a campsite that actually existed, which certainly wasn't the case every time this vacation.

lavender fields
lavender fields

The lavender had just been harvested.
 

The campsite was only one kilometer from the city center, but because there ran a river in between we had to take a 5-kilometer detour. When we arrived, I wanted to shower, Bart said he wanted to go later so I decided to wait so he wasn't alone. As it was only 19:00 we decided to rest a bit. We had bought beer, an orange, a melon, nuts, candy, and for the first time in all vacations, we had music. Bart had put a few songs on his mobile phone.

While we were resting a cat came up to us to eat the remainder of the orange. It let us pet it and after taking a few pictures I decided it could prove to  Bart that my socks weren't that smelly.


[Bart : I kept my camera ready to immortalize the cat's reaction when Bram took off his socks. He gently waved one sock in front of the cat's nose. At first nothing happened until it suddenly smelled a whiff. The animal opened his mount, shut his eyes and meowed woefully 'meeeeoooowwww'. Then it sprinted away and we didn't see it again. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to take a good photo of it.]

 

We couldn't stop laughing while our neighbors had no idea what was happening.

cycling with a cat

Bram and the cat

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It sat still for the picture

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Meow
 

I told Bart we still needed to shower, and he said he already did. I thanked him for letting me know. Because it was cold and late I went to sleep without showering, everything (including ourselves) smelled anyway after a week of cycling. Today completed the first section of our cycling trip. There would be three: cycling to the route, completing the 100 cols tour, and returning home.

Distance cycled : 127 km.

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