Monday - rest day

We have no idea how Cadel went. TV reception we couldn’t get late in the afternoon, nor wifi. We will find out in good time. In fact , there are so many other good things happening, we don’t go out of our way to find out.

Overnight was interesting. When John got up to get a drink in the early hours of the morning, he noticed the fridge was not working. Turns out the gas had run out. Had to fix that in the cold and dark. Then the WC warning light came on. 5 more uses the book says. We discovered the hard way that you get 3.

We had a gorgeous view, but had to find a ‘service place’, or as John calls them, a dump’n’go. Found one only a few kms away. We have a better idea on how to track them down now.

Then had breakfast overlooking the hills of Beaujolias.

Thought we had found a brilliant location to stay for the night. We drove the few km to this village, only to discover the circus already had it.

So we parked in a village and went for a ride. Riding around this area is sensational. The lush greens, the variety of colours and vegetation. The sunflowers.



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The streams flowing with lots of water. All so different to what we normally encounter at home. The impact on our visual senses almost bordered on overload. We had trouble keeping our eyes on the road. At least riding on the right hand side of the road has now become second nature for us. We also found a great bike path.

There were lots of families walking, riding, rollerblading. The ride just provided wonderful sights and views at every twist and turn.

After about 30km we then dropped in to a cave for a quick wine tasting. Amazing. You had to walk downstairs into this underground room.
The area is renowned for its reds, but we tried one of their whites. It is amazing how one little piece of information can impress someone else. The lady serving the drinks was quite impressed when John took a sip of the white and asked ‘chardonnay?’. Little did she know that John had done some research before the visit, and about the only thing he knew was that white wines in the area were were made from Chardonnay grapes.

On our way out, some men were looking at us and our bikes. Narelle’s Jersey was from one of the local rides in Brisbane and had the word Australia on it. ‘Diabetes Australia’ to be precise. The gentlemen enquired as to whether we were Australian. Produly we said ‘Oui’. Once they realised we were aussies and into cycling they invited us , actually insisted, back to the cave for some drinks.

Turns out one of them is a Belgian former professional cyclist who won Paris-Roubaix (cycling afficianodos will understand).
The other gentlemen is an avid collector of cycling memorabilia, in addition to being well known in the French cycling scene. And he makes wine, and I am not sure if there is anything he can’t do.

Turns out they knew where we had parked our campervan, as they were staying just around the corner. Anyway, John got invited to ride with Roger on Tuesday. And Narelle and John got invited back to Paulo’s place for pre-lunch drinks the next day.

Then we rode home 20km or so. Interesting, especially after we lost track of how many glasses of beaujolias our new friends plied us with.

Once home, there was a local play/production/whatever across the road from where we parked. Fascinating.


We slept well, although John was wondering how this ride was going to go.....
There was a lot of red wine flowing at the time, and our new friends could not speak much English, and we can’t really speak French. John was not really sure what he had got himself in for.

We weren’t worried about sleeping in. We had parked next to a church with a very large bell that rang on the hour.