Our alarm went off at the standard 7am after a good night sleep, with no interruptions, by the canal. Even though we had a picnic table and it was dry, we still weren’t ready until 8:50am. All the small chores of packing up camp take a while!
The day started rough, with the mottled towpath taking us through a nature area for the first 10km. My fenders got caked with mud and were making unhappy sounds. The rest of the ride was paved, fortunately, and by around 25km we stopped for morning coffee and pastries by a cute seaside town.
Another 25km brought us along wonderful paved bike paths and through vineyards to lunch time (3pm) at a Carrefour Hypermarket. Unlike in Norway, where we could just leave the bikes, here Viki stays with the bikes while I get groceries. Today we had baguette (only EUR 0.33) with heirloom tomatoes, our cheese from yesterday, and some Comte (a fancy French cheese that I didn’t find lived up to the hype).
The second half of the day was smooth sailing. Shortly after lunch we showered, using the water refill station of an RV campground. Further along the way we sampled some grapes from a vineyard that we passed, which were sweet and tasty. Viki was particularly excited to see flamingos in the water at one point. We finished up at 115km, near a town called Pignan (15km from Montpellier). It may be one of the worst campsites we’ve ever stayed in, just downstream from a wastewater treatment plant, with dogs from a dog kennel howling not far away, a bunch of tipped refuse in the near vicinity, an empty shotgun casing, and an actual gunshot shortly before bed. Luckily (or not, you’ll find out tomorrow), it’s secluded and private.
