Day 6: Sibenik to Pag Island

126 km – 1,200 meters climbing and descent

Today the first half was pretty easy riding, ups and downs along the coast, and reasonably cool. My legs were still feeling the benefit of the rest day in Split.

I drink about a bottle of water an hour which seems more than anyone else, which means having to stop and buy water a couple of times a day. So I decided if I am paying for water I may as well have sparkling. Interesting fact: the gas in the sparkling water and the motion of riding doesn’t work so well. No matter how tight your bottles are screwed shut, the gas builds up and pushes through the spout, and sprays your legs at regular intervals with trickles of water.

There are many beautiful coves with beautiful clear water, sandy beaches, boats at the shore, certainly this is a country to put on the list to come back to. The country is very clean, especially the hotels and the shops.

Lunch was at 65 km, then next 5 km was along the coast. We crossed a big bridge onto PAG Island. After this we spent about 20 km in the country side, with lots of long hot steady climbs. The country side is very much like Spain, lots of rock walls and olive trees, and hot.

PAG Island Bridge

Then there was a three km down hill, which was followed by 26 km of what seemed like endless long clinbs and descents in the beating sun.

The landscape was very rocky, dry and barren. I am finding the bumps in the road hard on my arm, and my right foot felt like someone had shoved a knife into it. When the lunch truck came past 15 km before the end the temptation was great, but I resisted.

Dry rocky lunar landscape

Finally we came to the township of Pag, there was a choice of left or right. The left was a steep long climb and the right was a short climb. Yay the flags showed go to the right!

Finally got to the hotel, a lovely place set right by the beach, called Hotel Frane.

Hotel Frane

As soon as I got my gear up to the room, I was off to the beach for a swim. Amazing how different I felt after a swim and a shower. The room has a nice balcony which was great to dry the togs and air the riding shoes out.

Room balcony at Hotel Frane

I am still having some problems with the bites from a previous swim in the ocean, and have to keep two of them covered, but whilst yucky they don’t look infected.

I look a bit like a crazy woman, I still have not been able to find any conditioner so my hair is all over the place, and despite putting sunscreen on frequently, my face is red.

Dinner was Chicken noodle soup and bread followed by an amazing platter with seabass, potatoes and veges, accompanied by fried squid rings, and octopus and rice. This was washed down with cold water as today was one of the two alcohol free days for the week. Dessert was a sticky cake thing, it looked nice but I was too full to eat.

After a long hot 127km day – dinner for a starving cyclist

Tomorrow we have to catch 3 ferries.

 

Day 4: Rest day in Split

I slept off and on, there was a full-on party on the promenade most of the night. When this fizzled out the street cleaners took over.

My arm is pretty sore, it’s not too bad holding it straight, but as soon as I try to rotate it, ouch! Luckily this trip has a number of doctors: there are 3 ED doctors Kathy, John H, and Peter M, plus Tony the cardiologist. So when I went down to breakfast I pretty much picked the first doctor I saw, which was Peter M, and got a consult. Sure beats spending hours waiting around at medical clinics.

The consensus of Peter and John was there is no break at the wrist, and possibly a small crack in the radial head (which wouldn’t be plastered anyway) and badly sprained. Approx time to come right is about 10 days. Riding won’t make it any worse, and whether I can ride will depend how sore it is. Thankfully today is a rest day as I don’t think I would be able to ride with it today. Fingers crossed it is improved tomorrow.

Breakfast was an experience trying to do everything with my left hand. Amazing how difficult it is to use a spoon or butter toast with your non-dominant hand.

After breakfast Brett and I headed off to get the laundry, and then to a small supermarket. I have been trying to get some hair conditioner since I got to Bosnia but neither country appears to sell it. My hair is looking seriously messy! Back at the hotel I spent some time catching up with the blog (thankfully typing doesn’t require me to rotate my arm).

Then off to explore, we looked around for a while and then we went to a place called Chop for lunch. I chose the Angus Beef Burger and had major food envy as Brett chose Lamb chops and they looked amazing. Luckily Brett gave me one of the chops. Have a look at the photo, you will see what I mean. We had a very nice red Korlat Syrah.

Next we went for a walk around in the old town, very interesting, lots of small alleys with the buildings very close together. Just about every alley had a few tables with sometimes the restaurants just inside, and sometimes a couple of streets away. You would see waiters weaving their way through the streets with food or empty plate.

Old town

A huge underground shopping area, plus in the Diocletian’s palace in the vestibule were Dalmatian singers, stopping in between each song to hawk off their CD.

The Vestibule at southern end of the Peristil

I bought some sandals with slip resistant soles (something I should have done before I left NZ). I also bought a couple of presents for the grand babies, a plug, and could not resist a quick visit into the lolly shop.

Cathedral tower rising above the Peristil

After this we went back out onto the promenade and a pirate looking ship caught my eye. My granddaughter Lucy likes dressing up as a pirate, and pirate stories, so I decided to have a look at the ship and take a photo. When we got up to it we were asked if we wanted to go on an hour and half cruise. We asked when it was sailing and “Now” was the response, so we hopped on board.

We headed out along the coast for about 35 minutes, it was really nice being in the sun and the breeze. Then they stopped and said anyone who wants to go swimming now is your chance. I had no togs (or swimmers as they are called in Aussie) but with the beating sun and inviting looking clear blue water, it was an easy choice: off with the sunnies, hat, and shoes, and over the side.

It was amazing warm water, we spent about 15 minutes swimming. It was a bit of mission to get back in the boat, as I had to go up a ladder which started at the water line. This required hauling up my body weight, but not being able to use one arm. Thankfully Brett went up first and gave me a helpful pull.

Heading back to the waterfront

Once we got back to shore we wandered around the old city some more. Whilst walking up on alley we noticed a sign “wine tasting”, so we stopped at Diocletian’s Wine House to try 3 Croatian wines.

First was a white Kujundzusa, unfortunately I can’t make out the rest of the name on the photo. We tasted this with shrimp and feta
Second was a red Dingac Nikolica, we tasted this with prosciutto and cheese
Third was also a red, Bedalov Zinfandel. We tasted this with cheese and honey.

 

This grape wine Zinfandel got a disease and was dying out in Croatia, there were only 25 vines left. Some of the wine makers took some of the surviving plants to other countries so the type of vine would have a chance to survive. 20 years ago the vine was bought successfully back from America and now this wine is made again Croatia.

While we were there, we asked about the sign that said they prepared traditional Dalmatian food. They prepare a dish called Peka, which is a famous Dalmatian dish prepared with meat or octopus and vegetables. The ingredients are placed in a covered pan and cooked in the embers of the fire. This type of cooking is often referred to as cripnja (under the bell) as the pans often have a bell shaped lid. As this is the only rest day in Croatia we booked in for this at 8pm.

We wandered around a bit more, then back to the hotel to tidy up and get ready for the next day.

At 8 pm on the dot we arrived back at Diocletian’s restaurant, ready for a new food experience. The Peka was good, it was very rich as the liquid content had reduced due to the long slow cooking. I thought it was just over onto the slight overdone side, but still enjoyed it. This was followed by a panna cotta with berries, also very nice but much thicker / denser than any panna cotta I have had before.

Then it was time to return to the hotel, another day riding tomorrow. Pretty noisy outside, but am pretty tired after last night so hopefully will sleep ok.

Diocletian’s Palace

Day 2: Mostar to Tucepi

95 km riding today: 1,244 meters of climbing and 1,268 meters descent

It’s already as hot as Wellington gets on a summers day when we leave. During the day the heat gets up to 37 degrees Celsius.

The first part of the ride is climbing up for the first few kilometres, then some descents followed by steady climbs.

Vineyards! 

We got to the border at 46 km, and all had to meet up there to cross together. Thankfully when faced with 45 riders, 3 staff, and vans stacked with bags, the Bosnian  border just waved us through. Once we got to the Croatia side it was a simple passport stamp and off we went.

Coming into Bosnia the riders who did the first section were standing for over an hour in the heat getting through the border, so everyone was relieved not to have this repeated.

Just crossed over into Croatia

The next 20 km were climbing, which was a bit of a struggle and I had to stop a couple of times. Lunch was at about 15 km. After lunch more climbing, followed by a nice descent, followed by a long hot climb.

At 67 km I was thinking I am not going to be able to finish the day. I got to 71 km where I thought the descent started, thank god I thought, but no! A descent for 2 km, then climbing again!

Another hill to climb

Then thankfully at 82 km, just when my legs were giving up, there was a long descent. The last 4 km we turned off the main road, and came down a very steep and narrow track to the coast. I got off and walked a stretch as it was so steep.

Have a go at this in Croatia

Down on the coast, Tucepi is a lovely holiday town, with a beautiful beach and lots of hotels. We stayed at a Hotel called the Blue Sun. It was a very big hotel with a big swimming pool, and a number of outside areas and bars. The room had a small balcony looking out to the sea.

When we got there, there was a note on the white board that Grego (tour leader) had weighed the bags, and orange stickered those weighing over 23 kg, with an instruction that they needed to be 23 kg the next day. Thankfully my bag was not one of these, as there really is nothing I have that I don’t need.

The beach looked so inviting so off I went for a swim. Instead of sand there were quite big pebbles, and it was quite rough to walk over. The water was lovely and warm.

comparing the Adriatic Sea to Titahi Bay

I noticed later that I had a number of bites on my back and side, not sure if there was something in the water, like a jelly fish, as had I not felt anything bite me. I did not think too much of it at the time.

At the Hotel Beach, where’s my boatshed?

Dinner was an experience: a dining room that would have sat 1,000 plus people, with three separate buffet counters (all serving the same food). The hotel has a number of tours where the table was reserved. The buffet catered to a number of tastes, including the English tourists with roast meat and chips available. Whilst it was not high up on the gourmet scale, there was food that was ok to eat, especially after a few hours on a bike.

The other riders are very welcoming, the majority have done TDA tours before. In the first section there was only one rider who had not ridden with TDA before. In this section there are 7 riders from Sydney.  They are a group of friends who have done a number of rides together. Over the next week or so, once I have got a handle on the names, I will introduce them.

Sunset over the hotel in Tucepi

Day 21: Sunday 4 Dec – Greymouth to Hari Hari

112km today – 800 meters climbing, 750 down.

The weather remained fine and today should be a relatively easy day, not much climbing , not a long distance, and not much rain.

We had the choice of the highway, or following a bike trail which would keep us off the main road but would add about 35 km and the surface was gravel and possibly not hard packed. Given it was a Sunday I decided the traffic would be lighter so chose the road.
There was probably only three trucks the whole day and they were milk tankers which would work 24/7, but also quite a few buses.

At 12 km we came to the last remaining shared bridge in NZ, which is shared by cars and trains, and until recently by cyclists. Thankfully when they created the bike trail they clipped a bike lane to the bridge.

Shared bridge (Photo credit: Sue’s blog)

The bike path on the side of the bridge (Photo credit: Sue’s blog)

At 36 km we stopped in Hokitika for coffee, and we went down to the beach. There is a concrete armchair down there that looks just like a real arm chair. Outside the coffee shop was a big arm chair made of driftwood, pretty impressive, wouldn’t mind two of them on my deck at home.

Concrete armchair at Hokitika

Driftwood armchair

The ride was mainly rolling hills with some climbs but nothing significant. Stopped in a town called Ross for a drink and took a couple of pictures of a house and a general store with car number plates all over them.

Interesting shop front in Ross

Interesting house in Ross

The person in front of me at the shop was a local and had their shopping entered onto a card. To start off with I thought the guy behind the counter must be writing down all the purchases, but then realised the local was putting his stuff “on tick” (buy now, pay later – usually pay day). This took me back to my childhood where we would be sent to the corner store to get stuff “on tick”. Every now and again the shop keeper would say ‘Tell your mum she needs to come and see me”. Looking back that must have been when the tab was getting too high and he wanted to be paid, but he always gave us what we had come in for.

Lunch wasn’t until 82 km so I was getting pretty hungry by the time we got there. I had a sandwich and then an apple. I decided rather than throw my core in the rubbish bin, that as it was organic, I would throw it into the bush. Unfortunately I didn’t think about my terrible aim and actually threw it straight at Justina’s head! Oops ! It gave her a hell of a fright. I apologized profusely and she was ok, and thankfully it had not hit her eye or anything. Imagine the ACC report! Note to self: put all food scraps in the bin, always!

Justina from Poland, works Switzerland. It’s her first TDA tour.

The afternoon saw some amazing rivers, and it got pretty hot. We were pretty happy to arrive in Hari Hari even more happy to find the Hari Hari Hotel open and we could sit inside and have a cold beer. I also bought Justina a drink as continued demonstration of remorse.

A well deserved cold beer at Hari Hari pub, with (from left) Tony, Michele, Don, Walli and Brett

At the camp we also managed to get a room with a shower so we didn’t have to compete for the one female shower with the other riders.

Hari Hari’s claim to fame is that it was where the first pilot to fly solo Trans-Tasman landed. Upside down in a swamp! Guy Menzies told his parents he was flying to Perth and left them an envelope to open after he had gone, telling them he was flying to New Zealand. He had to land at Hari Hari as was out of fuel but did not realise it was a swamp, he thought it was flat ground. He walked away with only a few scratches.

Hari Hari plane plaque

Hari Hari’s claim to fame

Every riding day, before dinner, we have a riders meeting. At the start of tonight’s meeting, Emily (tour leader) said with a totally straight face “First of all, we have to deal with the serious matter of an assault on another rider. Kaye, you have been yellow carded” and handed me a yellow card. Emily said 3 more yellow cards and I would be off the trip.

The majority of the riders had already heard about the incident, and thought it was very funny. For the rest of the evening I had people sitting in front of me and then saying “Oh that’s right, not safe here” and moving etc – all in good fun. Justina has ridden past me a couple of times since then with her arm over her face.

Getting my yellow card

Trying to explain / defend my actions

Dinner that night was sausages with onion and gravy , smashed potato, broccolini and cheese sauce and sauerkraut. Plus fruit cake with custard and cream. Washed down with a shared bottle of Craggy Farm Merlot.

Getting close to Hari Hari

Day 55/164: Rest Day in La Gramita – more photos

Rest day in La Gramita – Las Aldas Hotel

The local supermarket (called Miramar)

Holiday bachs in La Gramita

Cristiano (tour leader) having 5 minutes to himself (Editor’s note: until Kaye asked him for a photo . . . )

Not quite at secure as our boat shed at home!

The fishing village (Photo and caption credit: Sue’s blog)

The fishing village (Photo and caption credit: Sue’s blog)

Overlooking the fishing village (Photo and caption credit: Sue’s blog)

The fishing village (Photo and caption credit: Sue’s blog)

The fishing village (Photo and caption credit: Sue’s blog)

What an idyllic rest day (Photo and caption credit: Sue’s blog)

Looking over the bay (Photo and caption credit: Sue’s blog)

La Gramita (Photo and caption credit: Sue’s blog)

Sunset tonight (Photo and caption credit: Sue’s blog)

Day 55/164: Rest Day in La Gramita

Although it is nice to be able to sleep in, I was awake as usual by 5 am. It was nice though, lying tucked up in bed listening to the surf, and knowing there was no desert or head wind to battle today.

We are used to eating breakfast at 6:00am, I thought the white board had said breakfast from 7:00am. But shock! horror! – when I got to the restaurant at 7am, it was shut up! I checked the whiteboard and it said 8:30am! One of the other riders had already checked the town a kilometre away and that was also all closed. So I sorted out some gear and went for a short walk along the beach. The hotel staff must have got sick  of having a bunch of riders either prowling around or standing with their noses pressed against the restaurant window as they opened up early at 8 am.

Breakfast was ok, rolls and a small plate of scrambled eggs. The tea so far has not been drinkable in Peru as  it has some sort of spice added to it. The other choice was instant coffee in warm milk or buying a plunger of coffee. Usually this would have been a simple choice but I only have $10 soles as I assumed wrongly where we were staying for the rest day would have a cash flow machine (also wrongly assumed there would be Wifi and power in the room). Luckily Jackie got a pot for us both.

Sadly Jackie is leaving in a couple of days, the day before we get to Lima. I will really miss her. After breakfast Jackie gave me the first option on stuff she was going to give away. I now have another sleeping bag inner which will help when it gets cold, a travel pillow, some more medications, and small bag for rest days.

There are no laundry options here, other than wash your stuff in the shower and them hang out to dry (there are no clothes lines, but I have a line and pegs). Luckily it has been only 3 riding days since the last rest day, and only 3 to the next rest day, so I just washed my bike riding stuff and strung out my line on the balcony.

Next I went for a walk along the beach to check out the town. I got some great photos of birds, including some pelicans.

Birds in La Gramita

Guano covered rocks with Pelicans

Editors note: I’m not sure this counts as a “Great photo of birds” . . . See below for a better example

A pelican in the bay (Photo and caption credit: Sue’s blog)

Seabirds fishing in the shallow waves (Photo and caption credit: Sue’s blog)

The town is very small, there about 40 houses, a general shop, four restaurants and a small church.

View of the town from Las Aloas Hotel

Another view of the town in La Gramita

The industry here is fishing. A number of boats are pulled up on the sand, as there is no wharf. A few boats come in and out. The fishermen row the boats in until they are close to shore, then they haul them up onto the beach. The birds all hover around expectantly, and the dogs lurk around when any new boat comes in.

Fishing boats in La Gramita

Fishermen bringing in the boat in La Gramita

Fishing boats on their way into shore (Photo and caption credit: Sue’s blog)

Fresh fish for lunch arriving (Photo and caption credit: Sue’s blog)

As Jackie is leaving in a few days, this is the last rest day she will be around for so we checked out the restaurant options for dinner. One place looks a better option than the others (one of them we discounted as an option as the lady told us there is no menu), and Jackie who speaks a bit of Spanish checked that the one we were interested in is open tonight, which they say they are.

As predicted there are no cash flow machines in town, and none of the restaurants take credit cards or American dollars – the ‘restaurants’ consist of a few plastic chairs and tables, on cracked concrete floors. Thankfully one of the other riders Rolf has offered to lend me money so I will be able to eat tonight 😀

While we were walking around the town we went past one shack, and 5 gorgeous little puppies, about 4-5 weeks old, came running out. They were delighted to see us and wanted to come with us. They looked quite well cared for, but they must have been bored as their mum was out an about – probably at the shore watching the incoming boats with hopeful interest. We ended up having to lure them back to the shack, push them inside, and run flat out to the corner and hide until they lost interest to get away from them.

Local residents just chilling in La Gramita

Could this be a cousin of BenBen’s? Looks like he is loathe to bathe too

Before leaving the hotel I had put on swimming shorts and a top, and on the way back we stopped for a swim. The water was cold to get into, but once you were in it was ok. The waves were quite strong, and a couple of times I got spun around and around by them. However, as I do not know this beach I made sure I did not go out past where the water was over my head.

After we got back to the hotel Jackie found out that the owner was happy to change American dollars at a reasonable exchange rate. Yay I have money again! In Pacasmayo when I used the cash machine I did not notice the bit where I had to opt out of getting American dollars and pick soles, so I had a reasonable amount of American money.

I spent a bit of time with the usual repacking. I am going to trial only having one pannier, and having it behind my seat instead of two panniers one on each side. With the headwind we are having, and expect to have for weeks, anything that cuts down the wind resistance will be a bonus. However to do this I have to decide what is in and what is out, as currently both panniers are full. This takes quite a while, but eventually I get everything into one pannier.

The next problem I have is to fit the stuff that did not make the cut into the one pannier into one of my two bags. My permanent bag has lots of room but, I can only access it on rest days. My daily bag is so full it is a 5 minute struggle everyday to close it!

After this we set off into town for dinner. We got to the restaurant that had confirmed it was open till 8pm and it was just closing! Two of the other restaurants were also closing or closed. We couldn’t go back to our hotel for dinner as we had to notify them if we were eating there at lunchtime.

The lady who had the restaurant that had no menu was standing at her doorway smiling at us, making “come in” gestures, so in we went. There was still no menu so we confirmed we were happy to have what she was serving – the only other option being having nothing to eat.

It turned out to be one of the best fish meals we have had. The fish was really fresh and even the rice had a nice flavour. Also she must have missed out on the price fixing memo that the rest of the town and restaurants have been following, as it is less than half the price of the other places, and the beer instead of being $10, soles is $2. Also she was delighted to have us.

The whole time we were eating, a local dog was sitting to one side unobtrusively, watching hopefully. At the end of the meal I went to give him a piece of fish. As my hand went out from under the table a previously unnoticed cat reached up and gently but firmly removed the fish from my hand. This was watched with a resigned look by the dog. I did manage to break off another piece and throw it to him clear enough from the cat. We left a reasonable tip and happily headed off.

Walking back along the beach we were so pleased we had bought our headlights as there were crabs galore scuttling around everywhere. We had to walk carefully so as not to step on them. A few rear up and challenged us but mostly they quickly scurried away.

Crabs on the rocks at La Gramita

Day 54/164: Guadalupito to La Gramita – 113km

1,100 meters up – 1,100 meters down

The roadworks went on for most of the night. The next day the stretch of road outside was three-quarters finished. Even though this is only the third day of riding I am really pleased that we have a rest day tomorrow.

The scenery is pretty much identical from yesterday: desert, hills, sand, wind, and once the cloud cover goes at 11:30am it is hot. Stark, but in a way it is strangely beautiful first thing in the morning, with fresh legs, and before the wind picks up and sun hits.

Dirt track to avoid a narrow tunnel (Photo credit: Sue’s blog)

Once again there is a separate highway for much of the morning that we can ride on, which keeps us away from the traffic. We were told at the rider’s meeting last night that the place we are staying at is very quiet.

The lunch bus (Photo credit: Sue’s blog)

The view from lunch today

The ride after lunch was hard, uphill through endless desert with a head wind. My two year old inner voice was running a negative commentary about this being the back side of nowhere, whilst my adult voice was trying to be positive about the scenery. The two year got the upper hand when I saw from a distance where we were staying: 3 kilometres in the distance down a dirt track to a small town that did not look appealing on initial viewing.

I stopped at the restaurant on the main road, and had a cold beer to deal with the dust in my throat, and tried the ceviche (raw fish) which is a speciality here. Both were delicious. Then I set off to find the hotel.

We are staying at the Las Aldas Hotel, which was actually ok, small cabins but no power switches or wifi. Plus no cash machines which was not expected, and they don’t take credit cards. To add to my joy everything here is really expensive! Captive market. We had to order dinner on arrival which was “Do you want the meal of the day or not”.

I am not sharing with Sue as she has really bad gastro and, unlike me normally, I have said I am not prepared to catch it again so I am rooming with Emma, a 22 year old nursing student on her summer break from England. Emma joined us in Loja.

After sitting sulking on the deck of the cabin, in a hammock looking at the beautiful view, I got over myself and appreciated the stunning scenery.

Photo from Trip Advisor website

A little touch of paradise for the next two nights (Photo and caption credit: Sue’s blog)

As I had very little cash thankfully one of the other riders paid for my meal. Hopefully there will be a cash machine in the town although this looks extremely doubtful! Will worry about this tomorrow.

The meal was meant to be at 7pm and finally arrived at about 8:15pm. I thought I was having chicken but for some reason some of the riders had been allocated fish. I was happy, as fish was the better choice.

So after a long day in the sun and wind, plus red wine, I went off to bed for an early night, and happily no 5am start tomorrow.

Day 59: Le Balcares to Colera – 76k

4,701km down: 1,524km to go (3/4 of the way there!)

I never sleep well in a tent but last night I was awake for a few hours and could not go back to sleep. I feel very conflicted being over here with Lizzy just having had a baby. I rang Lizzy before leaving camp this morning; it was evening there so I got to speak to Lizzy, Theo, Shellbe and Kelly.  It was reassuring as it sounds like everything is going along very well.

I got some great photos of the aunties and uncles with their nephew, my grandson looks a lot like his Mum did as a baby – long and thin, with a red tinge to his hair, and very beautiful.

Today we rode through more deserted holiday parks and shopping centres, and closed amusement arcades. Although they look quiet and deserted now that school has gone back, the places must have been humming in the midst of the season. We made our way through the south of France and went through a couple of towns too beautiful not to mention.

Collioure had an old castle, old walls, a nice harbour, interesting looking houses and old boats.

Collioure

The next town, Port Vendres, had a great big ship in the middle of the harbour unloading, and lots of other small and large boats.

Port Vendres

From about 40k we hit the foot hills of the Pyrenees Mountains so we had couple of significant climbs, including the one to the Spanish border.

Just before the climb up to the border we stopped in a really pretty little town, Cerbère, for a cold drink and tried not to look at the climb ahead.  At least today the wind was behind us and we had a bit of assistance up the hills, however we also nearly got blown over the sides a couple of times, especially up by the Spanish border.

There was a really pretty little bay with people swimming, unlike France with its long sandy beaches, this was pebbly with a rugged coast line (a bit like Makara).

John, me and Brett at the Spanish border

The Spanish border is at the top of a big hill, on the way coming down the hill we came across a small snake on the road, it was smaller than I expected snakes to be, it was more like a large worm! I will have to watch carefully for these in the grass at toilet stops!

Coming down the Pyrenees mountain foothills just past Spanish border

The place we are staying was just after the bottom of the hill, San Miguel Camp Site in a town called Colera. We rode past the campsite and had a look at the town, it was very much like Cerbère – a pebbly beach with a rocky foreshore, the water is so blue.

Beach where we are staying in Colera

The campsite has toilet paper and a shower that stays on, but still no soap and still no toilet seats!  This is the third country with toilets at camps without toilet seats, but on a positive side there were no squat toilets to be seen 🙂 The last couple of camp sites that we have stayed at have been set up for mobile homes rather than camping and the ground is like concrete. I have had to borrow some tent pegs as mine have turned into tired and bent squiggle shapes, and some of them can no longer be knocked back into shape with a mallet.

Tortured tent pegs, or art?

We must not have been able to cook here as we had dinner in the restaurant tonight. We had paella, it was really nice.

Paella (pic stolen from another riders blog)

Day 52: Rest day in Cannes

I woke up in time for breakfast this time. It was so nice to wake up in an air-conditioned room in a comfortable bed (and having a toilet and shower). It is amazing how you appreciate really simple things:

• No bugs! (although one small sandfly did attempt to bite me just before it went to sandfly heaven)
• A bed that is bigger than your body
• Being able to stand up while you get dressed!
• A bathroom with soap, toilet paper and privacy!

So after breakfast it was time to take the post box to the post office – I had my fingers crossed that it would be open and not have any strange rules like no boxes on Tuesdays! Luckily I managed to get the post box sent off – we are not allowed to have anything on the tour that does not fit in either our permanent or day bay. The box was taking up a third of my day bag, so it’s good to have that space back!

Then it was time to do the laundry, yay we could leave stuff there, and they washed and dried it for us, we just had to return to pick it up in two hours. We looked around the markets, bought lunch and sent some postcards.

The markets in Cannes

Cheeseshop in Cannes

We saw a number of beggars sitting with a cup in front of them on the sidewalk by the laundry and market. I guess if they tried to sit on the beach front they would be moved on. There were a few street performers, as well one was a man with a cat and dog, they were curled up asleep together. The cat looked just like our cat Boss apart from it had only one black ear. I did not get a photo as my camera was in the hotel but I did take a picture of another pair heading out to their daily spot.

Street performers on their way to beg

There was also a metallic man that stood really still until you put money into his jar, then he moved.

After we picked up the laundry we had the option of sightseeing or going to the beach. We headed to the beach for the afternoon. We went to a pay section, there are small public sections of the beach in Cannes, but they are small and crowded. The rest are owned privately – mostly by the hotels, unfortunately the Ibis where we are staying is not flash enough to have its own beach space. By sheer luck we went to a spot that you did not have to be a hotel guest, for the price of 15 euro we got 2 chairs and an umbrella. If you didn’t pay for the umbrella they took it down. We spent a very nice lazy afternoon there swimming and dozing. The sea was so warm.

I went back to the hotel as I had arranged to have dinner with Dan and Brett at 6:30. We wanted to go to the pizza place right by the hotel but when we went in there the staff were all eating. They told us to come back at 7pm. We went and had a drink just down the road, and when we got back to the restaurant at about 7:05pm it was already packed. The pizza was nice, but I could not finish it.

Then it was time to pack and an early night ready for an early start in the morning.

Day 51: Imperia to Cannes – 132k

4,119km down: 2,106km to go (2/3 of the way there!)

Another early start, we had a 130k to cycle, but it turned out to be 132k – I only mention it because the day was hard – 10 hours on the road and by 130k I was ready to give it up. One of the riders clearly felt worse as they gave it up in Nice and caught a train the rest of the way! There was no lunch truck as nowhere to park so we had taken a packed lunch, so he did not have the usual option of catching the lunch truck.

We travelled along the Ligurian coast (also known as the Italian Riveria) until we crossed into France, it is very very beautiful, I would not mind coming back here.

To start off with we were on SS1, after about 35k we stopped for coffee and a pastry, and spoke to a young lady (Luciana) from the flower shop next door. Luciana was really interested to hear about our bike trip and hopes one day to do one. We had another day of really pretty towns but of course now that it’s Monday, all of a sudden we were in rush hour traffic. One of the riders Scott said it was like being in a pin ball game and it was cars, scooters, walkers etc everywhere, it was crazy, mad traffic.

We crossed the border into France after 57k, and immediately the architecture changed and of course the signs as well.

Me and Brett at the border into France

We were on a mixture of the A8, D37, D35, D6908. We climbed quite a lot – over a 1,000 metres over the day, looking at the bays and yachts and the launches – millions of dollars in boats!

On the way to Cannes – a couple of dollars in boats

France

We had the option to take a small detour into Monaco, which seeming as it is another country we decided to take. We went 1k in and had lunch at a museum. However as we had not bought lunch at the museum we were not particularly welcome. First off we all got asked to stand up, and then we were asked to move completely from the property. We had taken a packed lunch of Vegemite and cheese buns (one of the riders had left his stash of Vegemite when he left in Venice so of course Brett and I swooped on it), I’m not sure our black toothed smiles covered in Vegemite helped the situation.

Monaco

Anyway at least we can say we had lunch in Monaco. After Monaco the next large town was Nice, and we were back into the pinball machine game again, thankfully we went through the outskirts and only spent about 10 minutes in the traffic. Amazing, there was a bike path that lasted about 22k.

In Nice, wearing the shirt that Chris and Dave gave me

The day was hilly and hot and seemed to go on and on. Just before Cannes there was a lovely little town, we thought it was Cannes until we kept riding and didn’t see any orange flags, and then to my horror we were out of town and climbing a hill again. Thankfully it was not much further and we came into Cannes, which was certainly nothing like the small town we had just left.

I got to the hotel and unpacked, it was too late for the laundry so it will have to wait until tomorrow as will the post box! I spent over 10 hours on the bike today, no wonder I’m stuffed.

I met Michele, John and Brett at 6:30pm for dinner, we went to a really nice seafood restaurant. After dinner we went for a walk along the beach, and paddled a little bit. I can’t believe how warm the sea is, and no wind!

We are staying at an Ibis hotel so we were fairly confident of it having air conditioning and Wifi and we were right, we have both.

The beaches from France until the town before Cannes were stony rather than sand, so I was happy to see sand reappearing in Cannes.