Wednesday October 10th - Ardeche

If I had to do any section of the trip again, it would be the Ardeche Gorges.

Unlike some of the more spontaneous sightseeing, I had planned to visit the Gorges from the outset, and over the last few days had been making sure my route was aimed towards the northern end.

The TV weather forecast told me it would be rainy on Wednesday, and I wasn't impressed, as I'd been hoping for good weather along the Gorges. Fortunately, the rain held out until the evening and the day was quite sunny with only a little cloud.

A couple of miles before Vallon Pont d'Arc, I noticed what could only be a disembodied fox tail at the side of the road. Not really wanting to know the story there, I carried on. Unfortunately, a mile or two later I encountered a disemtailed fox body. I wanted to know even less.

I saw a pair of recumbent touring cyclists coming the other way near Vallon and waved frantically, what with seeing another touring cyclist being such a rare event. They waved frantically in reply.

The gorges were more stunning than I could have imagined, and harder too.

The hardest bit was climbing the Serre de Tourre, a double-arrow (9-13%) on the map, nothing out of the ordinary by English standards, but the ascent was much longer than the map suggested. I met a fellow cyclist at the top, unladen on a mountain bike, and saw him at various points throughout the ride. It is a long road with few junctions, and frequent stop-off / look-out points, and I found myself playing tag with various travellers, both motorised and non-motorised, seeing them over and over along the length of the journey.

The best parts were Pont d'Arc and the stunning views from Belvederes de la Haute Corniche.

Pont d'Arc is a natural arch carved through the rock by the force of the river straightening itself out If you remember oxbow lake formation from school geography lessons, it's like that but the lake part has been drained and is now covered in vineyards). Belvederes de la Haute Corniche, many miles further downstream, is a set of high viewpoints over a deep bend in the river.



St. Martin was the first town after the gorges. I stopped at the first restaurant I saw and ordered a salade nicoise for lunch. Next thing I knew I had been swept up in a conversation with the people on the next table, and was actually speaking and understanding French to a greater extent than "une carafe d'eau, s'il vous plait" or "avez vous une chambre pour ce soir?". It was pretty cool, and probably down to a combination of them speaking nice and slowly and clearly for the English person, and my ears having got a bit more tuned in to the language.

They were a middle-aged couple from Toulon, on holiday in the area. Again, I think they were quite frequent visitors. I told them about my journey and for the first time somebody was more surprised at the distance I'd covered than that which I intended to do. Marseille wasn't far now, they assured me, and were so impressed with my pedalling efforts that they insisted on paying for my lunch. They recommended that I visit Avignon, and mentioned that Corsica was very mountainous, "harder than the Alps" apparently. I said that maybe I'd just sit around and eat ice cream once I got to Corsica. The waitress brought out a leaflet detailing all the exciting sights to see in Provence, and this would prove useful in days to come.

I camped in St. Martin, again another ghost town and very hard ground on which to pitch a tent. That evening I came up with my greatest invention yet (there haven't been many), the Buff Head-torch. Getting tired of holding my mini-torch (it is only about 1cm diameter) in my hand or between my teeth when reading, I came up with a new function for my multifunctional head garment, placing it around my head Rambo-style and tucking the torch up against my forehead. I found it was possible to angle the torch so it was always pointing at where I was looking. Looked silly but worked great.

Tuesday October 9th - whee!

After Monday's climbing, it was time for a lot of down.

It was a cold night up at 1100m, I had to pull my sleeping bag right around me and was very reluctant to get out of it the next morning.

I left and followed the Espezonnette to Lanarce, where the pain au chocolats were perfect. They were big, suitably flaky on the outside, fresh on the inside and made with good chocolate.

There was little choice but to get back onto the N102 for a bit, unless I wanted to go many miles out of the way. It looked bad on the map, as the turning off the road was at the top of Col de la Chavade and I am very averse to big climbs on big roads, but the road was quiet and the climb quite gentle. I turned off the road, and so began the real climbs for the day.

The road reached 1435m at the top of Col du Pendu, my maximum altitude for the trip. A small group of wind turbines gently rotated at the top, the only ones I had seen on the trip, and I passed a Nordic ski station.

After dropping back down to 1100m, I passed the official "line between the waters of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean". This was a pretty momentous point, and meant that from then onwards I would be meeting tributaries of the Rhone, which flows into the Mediterranean, rather than the Loire which flows into the Atlantic.

I climbed back up to 1370m, and just past the top, on a lookout platform over the vast valley into which I was about to begin my descent, I met a German couple with bicycles, who were headed in the other direction. They were mostly unladen, and were day-tripping from a fixed base. They spoke good English, and told me that they came to the Ardeche region every year to go cycling and walking, for which I can hardly blame them. This year, however, they were both on sabbaticals from work and were planning on travelling with their bikes in Cuba and South America (Chile, Argentina, Patagonia) - I was very jealous of their great plans. I did not forget that it is only polite, when meeting a person of the German persuasion, to congratulate them on their country's excellent eiscafes.

The descent was amazing. Miles and miles and miles of downhill, losing about 8-900m in altitude, a chilling drop along proper hairpin mountain passes, some of which were unfenced, narrow and slightly terrifying. I travelled for miles through pine forests and ripe chestnut trees, along and down the valley, at the bottom of which lay my first Mediterranean tributary, the Beaume.

The road levelled out, and I stopped in a picnic area near Valgorge for my lunch, sharing the bench with a small lizard. The bread, butter and cheese were lovely but then I ruined what had so far been a great day by tragically snapping my spork in two. After that, there were a couple of small hills to get over, but after the big descent my legs had forgotten how to pedal.

Passing through Largentiere, I then met the Ligne river and eventually the Ardeche, which is where things started to get really spectacular. The road ran along a wide gorge, with pale limestone cliffs ascending on either side. At one point the road ran through a short tunnel built into the cliff, the outer side of which had been carved into a succession of pillars and "windows". It turned out to be a small taste of what tomorrow would have to offer.

I stopped at Ruoms, which was a bit of a ghost town, few places were open and most were "closed until April". I stayed at a hotel of slightly dubious decor and reluctantly ate at the restaurant downstairs because there wasn't much else around, however the food turned out to be excellent. I retired to my room and watched French Supernanny.

1435m is not very high. If you want to read about some cycling at real altitude, check out Occupied Territories, Peter Quaife's account of riding in Tibet this summer. Most of it happens at around 5000m.

Monday October 8th - up

This was the day of uphill - I started at about 500m and reached a maximum of 1330m near the end of the day, with lots of ups and downs in between. Mostly ups.

After a couple of days of more interesting and rocky landscapes, today was a return to farmland, which was pleasant enough but nothing special. If it had been a nicer day, it may have been easier to appreciate the far-reaching views on the climb out of Langeac, but as it was it was too cloudy, hazy and dull a day to get much out of it.

I passed through lots of very small, shabby and quite poor-looking villages and small towns. It was Monday, so nothing was open and I failed to acquire my daily pain au chocolat. I ran out of "snacky cakes" (biscuits, cakes, etc that I munch on for energy) and started to get a bit hungry. At Bains I found an open "restaurant" with a very limited menu and had a horrible slimy croque monsieur, which at least kept my belly quiet for a couple of hours. It was a bit like being in Spain but with no grocery shops open.

I finally found a 8-a-huit at Landos, which of course didn't live up to its name but was due to open in fifteen minutes time. I waited around and called dgym to kill some time. I wanted to go to the toilet but refrained from using the public WC as it was dark, cobwebby and smelled rather horrible. I don't normally mind French public toilets but this one looked and smelled bad. When the 8 a huit opened I spent a good half hour delighting in the joys of an open grocery shop and stocking up on chocolate bars, jaffa cakes, fruit and dinner items.

I carried on to St. Paul de Tartas where supposedly a campsite was open, but found no sign of a campsite even existing. It was getting late in the day, so not wanting to waste any time, I turned back and headed for the other option, Lavillatte.

I crossed into the Ardeche department, and things started to get lovely again. Pine forests led me up to an altitude of 1330m and then onto the N102 (there wasn't much choice of roads). I turned off the main road a couple of miles later and as the sun got lower in the sky, a lovely little foresty hairpin descent led me down through Lavillatte and to the campsite, which was next to the Espezonnette river (again, a distant tributary of the Loire).

With little time to spare before dark, I tapped into my magic multitasking powers and discovered that, conveniently, putting up the tent and boiling a pan of water take about the same amount of time.

It was a cold night (I estimated I was still at at least 1100m) and, despite there being many caravans on the site, there was no sign of life from any of them.