Day 8 - Out of Le Man and into a storm

We cycled out of Le Mans on the Sunday, but not before stopping at a very nice supermarche that had deigned to be open on the sunday morning (thank god). Picked up lots of tasty treats, and I also picked up a roll of bin-liners because I was worried about my sleeping bag and tent bag getting too wet in the rain. They work a treat.

We imagined that cycling out of Le Mans would be quite easy, but oh no, it is very easy to get lost in a city when you are on a bicycle. Coming into a city is very easy as all you need to do is follow the signs to the centre ville or tourist information place and you are there. Cycling out, however, seems to be far more difficult. Especially if you want to stay out of the way of the main red roads. We exited the centre ville quite easily, but soon found ourselves on a big nasty ring-road, but little sense of where the hell we where. We followed it round, but got caught up in busy junctions and instead followed a parallel cycle-path. This turned out to be not so parallel and we got a bit lost again. Finally we found a bus stop with a map and tried to make sense of where we were and where we wanted to be. We then got lost a bit more, found the road we wanted, then discovered it was the wrong road and then finally cycled back into Le Mans a bit to get the right road and then ... we were out. All in all, it took about 2 hours. Not a good use of our time.

The weather was very wierd, and we were struck with heavy rain, followed by the most beautiful weather we had had yet. Then the rain would strike again, and so on and so forth. Danny was map reading this time and took a wrong left turn down a tiny c-road that eventually wound up in this most amazing forest. Long straight roads sheltered on each side by long straight trees sparcely spaced with very little undergrowth. We found a map and also found a few campsites nearby so, Danny in lead, we attempted to find our way out of the forest. It was a beautiful day at this point, no rain, and the cycling was fantastic. At one point, in the distance, we saw what could only be described as a wall of road rising into the sky, or so it looked like. Actually it was a huge dip, almost like an enlarged skate-board half-pipe in the road. The way down was so fast, but I was not able to cycle up the opposite side as it was far too steep. Danny, strong-legged man that he is, managed with barely so much as a grimace.

The first town we came to was completely lacking in campsites, but we found another map of the Loir region and took down the names of a few places that had campsites nearby. The first place was shut, but we were still greeted by a black-lion of a dog, a huge beast.

Apparently dogs get riled by the sound the spoke makes (we cannot hear it because we don't noises at such a high pitch) - we've met lots of crazy dogs on this trip. A lot.

At the second place, La Chatre sur Loir, Danny ventured into an open bar to ask for some matches and managed to discover that the campsite was in fact shut. As we set off to see it with our own eyes, the bolt snapped clean off that was holding my rear carrier and rear mudguard over my rear wheel. With no chance of any more cycling for me we decided that our best bet was to settle down outside the closed campsite, which was away from the main road, and sleep it on the cheap for the night. All the water we saved was used to make a damn fine chilli con carne and rice, and after setting up my tent in the near dark we settled down for a cold, rainy, and very windy night. A storm was coming.