Day 23 - Dax and Wasting Time

One of the worst things you can do is spend the saturday before easter sunday in the middle of nowhere and then, on easter sunday, not realise its easter sunday till after all the shops shut. This is especially bad when you are relying on said shops to supply you with sustenance for the days ahead.

Thankfully, even in France, where they love their sundays more than any other day, we were lucky to find a shop that was open past midday. We reached Dax, a good cycle ride from where we camped, just as the shops shut, and spent a while finding another place to eat. Finally we found the French equivalent of the Spar, open on Sundays and a bit on the expensive side, and Danny got us lunch and food eventual dinners. We cycled into Dax and had food in the main park, whilst I attempted to find our route that would take us out of rainy France and on into sunny, sunny Spain (I just had images of endless sun when I planned this route). First job was to get to Biarritz, which would hop us onto the only road open to us that would take us into Spain. For the need of packing as many cars into a tight space, they have to have not only a busy motorway (which we cannot go on), but also a busy main N road, and no room for anything else.

The plan was to get to San Sebastian that day, which was so optimistic as to not make any sense. As it was we didn't even make it to Biarritz thanks to some bad map reading from myself. I followed a road out of Dax that would take us alongside the river and then come off to follow the D12 south to the river coming out of Bayonne, which we could follow into Bayonne and then onto Biarritz and the border. As it was I followed the first river out of Dax slightly to far along this lovely little road, which just wouldn´t let us turn off to get onto the D12! Eventually I gave up on the hope that the road might get us far enough south anyway and we had to turn back, whereupon we finally found a road that took us west to where we wanted to go. Which is where I blew my back wheel.

Oh yes, and this was a puncture and a half as well. A huge gaping wide gash went across the bottom of my tyre. A quick fix was come across when Danny gaffered a strap from his tent bag to the inside of the tyre, which we hoped would get us far enough to buy us a new tyre (not something we could do for another two days, as easter monday was coming up). Finally we were on our way again, but with the rain setting in we wanted to stop before it got silly. We saw a sign for a campsite on a farm and hoped that it was already open. It wasn't, but we managed to find the farmer in charge and got a good rate for the night (no hot water, but showers are for weaklings anyway). We had trouble communicating for the purposes of the transaction of money and where to pitch our tent, but thankfully a translater was found in the form of the farmer's daughter (who was quite cute in a studious way) and everything was settled at 5 euros for the both of us - and it was my night to pay, "Yes!". He showed us the rather simple facilities, but then gave us the use of sheltered porch of one of his mobile homes, fully equipped with tables and chairs so we were as happy as cyclists who haven't eater dinner at a table for quite sometime.

It rained all night and next morning. Come on Spain!