Friday August 22, 2014

Today should have been an exciting day, I would be hitting the 10,000 kms mark to day and it should have been a day to celebrate.  However, the day started off badly for me.  I woke up late (7:30), which put me in a bad mood, waking up late means a late start from the camp site.  I got up and went to the washrooms, they were closed because they were being cleaned.  Now I understand that it is necessary to clean the washrooms but when everyone is getting up and need to use them, that is plain ridiculous.  I had to walk to the other washroom half a kilometre away – not a happy person by the time I got back to the tent.  We packed up the tent and had breakfast by the office where there were picnic tables.

We left the campsite at 9:45.  We followed the road towards La Teste de Buch, to pick up the trail.  I had a little melt down in Gujan Estras when Ralf kept asking me for a Town to punch in to the garmin so he could find the right road.  I didn’t have a town that worked because all my map showed was the cycle route and the “Towns” were beaches.

We eventually found our way to La Teste de Buch and a Tourisme Office.  The lady was very helpful and we got on to the Velodyssey route again.  The first section paralled the road towards La Dune – the highest dune in Europe at 160 metres.  By this time both Ralf and I were in a bad mood, so didn’t stop to take photos of this area (sorry) it was quite spectacular.

After we passed La Dune we were back into the forest area and mmba.  This route has become very monotous, but at our second hour rest stop, I took a photo of the trail. A lady and gentleman were walking by and asked about our trip, and offered to take a photo of us – my garmin said we were 5 kms short of 10,000 ks.  This photo is at 9,995 kms!

At 10,000 ks, Ralf took these photos.

Once again the route adds kilometres, we got to one point on the route where it stated 15.7 kms to Biscarrosse, the road was only 5 ks.  We took the road, it was hilly but so was the trail and the road had a shoulder.  It was awesome to get the wheels turning quickly and do some climbing without people in the way.

We had lunch in Biscarrosse and Ralf bought dinner for tonight at the same time, so that he wasn\’t searching for a grocery store after we had set up the tent.

By coming of the trail and following the road for a while we got to go through some of the smaller villages.

It was a long day today, due to the late start and by 4:30 we were searching for a camp site.  We found one in the Town of Saint Paul en Born.  It is a very quiet site, with no highway, no railway and no sound of surf crashing on the beach – what is that strange popping sound, oh heck we are next to a paintball site.  At least it will be quieter when we go to bed.

An early night tonight, ear plugs in as the French around us are playing petangue.