Wednesday July 20, 2011
Macon to Meyneu les Etangs
131.5 Km
7:03 In the saddle
Amanda writes:
Today started from more friends house. It started with a nice downhill. Blogging many days after this day is hard. I do remember the weather being all over the place. A one point we took cover under a tree for ten minutes to avoid the downpour. One hour later it was gorgeous sunshine.
We had a harder time finding camping and all agreed to push the mileage to find some camping. We were well fueled with food so it was no problem. We arrived to a campground that had a kids summer camp which was a bit noisy but no problem. We made a nice dinner at the site and slept well.
Andrew writes:
OMG! The summer camp for kids was awesome. First though, we bid a fond farewell to Simon and Manue in Macon and set off down the road. While Emmanuel seemed to think he knew where he was going, I think that he thought I was a good backup plan with my GPS. Not true. The GPS isn,t the be all / end all. For instance it said that there was camping 28km away; awesome, let’s go! When I hit the ‘Go’ button, it calculated a route and suddenly it was 58km away. Again though i am getting ahead of myself.
We rode in quiet backroads through Bresse and then came upon a village with a bunch of old buildings in it. There was a gate, market and church all from the 15th century. Old school! We ate lunch and also went to a cafe for some warm drinks.
Emmanuel informs me that during a siege,defenders would use hot water,not hot oil to defend the castle gates; oil was too expensive.
Tombstone on the floor of the church.
It looks a lot more surreal in person.
After lunch the ride was rolling hills, but we continued to make good time.
These sunflowers died in a recent 5 month long drought that ended when we arrived last week.
Back to the problem with the GPS – We were in a torrential downpour at the time, having just finished watching the Tour finish at a bar. We started going in one direction but when we realized how much backtracking we would do, we ended up going some where else. As a result, the ride ended up taking a lot longer than any of us had thought. There were some big, long hills towards the end but we kept on chugging along.
Nevertheless we show up at this campground, hungry and tired and the music coming from a small hall was super loud. Kids were screaming, there were no adults in sight..I was scared, truth be told. The camp itself was pretty awesome with playgrounds, waterslides and turkish toilets.
We finally were directed to a quieter part of the campground. It didn’t matter. The discotheque for tykes kept blaring tunes until after 11pm. I cooked a nice camp meal for everyone and we called it a night.
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Location:Macon to Meyneu les Etangs