Day 14 - Out of Tours

Made a big mistake in the morning for this day. Cycling into Tours, I was leading the way to get to the little supermarket where we were going to buy lunch, and Danny was following me. I made a quick jump across the junction, but didn´t realise that Danny hadn´t followed me. I cycled onto the supermarket, and waited for Danny. It took us 1 hour to find each other, and when we did Danny was not pleased about the whole escapade. Fair enough I guess. Whoops.

Finally got lunch and it was Danny´s turn to map read for us. We followed the river west for what seemed like hours, but we were unsure if we were on the right road. Finally we saw some signs we recognised and got onto the road south to Azay-le-rideau, L´lle-Bouchard, Richelieu, which we reached at about 5pm. Our goal was St. Cyr, where there was a campsite. It seemed like a long way south now. We picked up supplies in Richelieu and headed over the quickest route possible. Up and over country lanes, through tiny villages and rode hard with the dying sun giving us impetous. Without any water we needed to get to the campsite otherwise we would find ourselves hungry and cold that evening. Before long we found ourselves cycling in the dark, our back lights were on and we both brought out our new front led torches so we could see the road. Danny led with his more powerful head torch, while I followed gripping mine uncomfortably in my hands.

We had a small encounter with a group of french men in a white car, which was odd and probably quite dangerous. As we were cycling down into a small town, a white car came up beside me and kept moving from side to side, pushing me toward the further toward the kerb, it then did the same to Danny. It then stopped right in front of Danny and a french bloke leaned out the car door and started talking to Danny. We both said we didn´t understand, and it was difficult to read from his bodylanguage what he was trying to say. It might have been "We are really sorry for our bad driving", or it might have been "Give us all your cash". Difficult to say. It was kinda of a uneasy moment for both of us, and we don´t like cycling in the dark now because of it.

The road down to La Tricherie, where we were going to cross the river, was steep and it had become difficult for me to apply my brakes fully. It was at this point that my brakes failed completely. I wasn´t really getting any stoppage from either of them, and my ability to stop was quite, quite gone. Danny suggested that I put my foot down to help slow my descent, which I did for what seemed like forever. It was so painful on my legs, and it didn´t really help much but it was the only thing I could do. At the time it felt really really dangerous, and in retrospect, it was even worse than that. Night cycling is not the faint hearted.

Finally the hill ended, but it still took me great effort to slow in time to stop at the junction. Thankfully it wasn´t far to the campsite and I was badly in need of getting there. We crossed the bridge and saw the signs that we were looking for. We cycled past this odd building complex, and in the dark it was difficult tell if this was the campsite or not. We cycled in to find out; the lights were on and people were home. We could see people through the glass windows, but this was definately not looking like the campsite. Anyway, I went up to the door and a pretty, young french woman, who spoke very little english, eventually managed to tell us that the campsite was shut. Danny was not pleased. I redeemed myself however, by asking, in French, if we could fill our water bottles up. They kindly allowed us to fill them up and we said our goodbyes.

Oh well, another night sleeping rough. At least its cheap. We did a little reconnaisance of the campsite, which was nicely situated in a little activities park. The campsite was very erie though, it was completely dark, except for the reception that had a long dark corridor behind a glass door that was wierdly lit with faint green lights. Looked like something out of the X-files. We pitched our tents behind a little hill away from the road and Danny cooked a well deserved meal for us. Food, food, food.