Wednesday 23rd May. La Roche-sur-Yon (5) to Aigrefeuille-d’Aunis
(6)
57.8 miles 5hrs riding time. Average speed: 11.7mph Total: 269 miles.
I set off early this morning with Jane guiding me faultlessly out of La
Roche.
Last night I spent ages manually plotting a route into her with no ambiguities
or chance to ‘auto re-route’ me. If you give GPS an inch it
will take a mile – and then make you ride it! The D88 out of La Roche
was a quiet little road through nice rolling countryside but the road surface
was really rough making progress a knuckle-numbing experience. It’s
particularly noticeable on a bicycle that smooth tarmac can easily add an
extra 5mph to your average speed. However, tyre-drag from rough, degraded
tarmac can cost you 5mph the other way. I passed a couple of pretty lakes
at Chateau-Guibert before stopping for a morning coffee at Mareuil-sur-Lay.
The terrain levelled out as I entered the Marais Fou (marsh lands). An ornithologist
would have been in raptures, there were herons, large birds of prey circling
silently overhead and lots of other impressive feathery stuff I don’t
know the names of. I was treated to a frogs’ chorus too; I couldn’t
believe how loud they were croaking away, there must have been thousands
of them for mile after mile. At Champagné-les-Marais on the D25 I
unexpectedly stumbled across a cycle route across the marais. It was a hard-packed
gravel service road that ran south alongside the Canal de Champagné
for a mile or so before turning east to join the D10a at Pont-du-Brault.
The ‘twitchers’ would have been delighted again as alongside
it were a few raised nesting platforms inhabited by storks and their young.
I’d set off quite early today as I had quite a fair mileage to cover
but at one o’clock I realised that I’d already covered 45 miles,
so I slowed the pace down and did a bit of sightseeing. On approaching Aigrefeuille
on the D112 I noticed a signpost leading to Frace - a pretty recreation
lake with a visitor centre, footpaths and picnic tables. It was here that
I made a mistake. You’d think that at 49 years of age I’d have
learned that the sun burns. Anyway - it does, it did, and I am. I was expecting
my hotel, L'Abri Cotier D’Aigrefeuille to be a sleepy little establishment
in a village square. The village square is sleepy enough but the hotel has
been refurbished and seems to be quite a bustling little place. The hotel’s
restaurant has followed the trend and acquired a wood-burning oven and pizza
features highly on the menu. Hedging their bets though, they still have
a traditional French bistro menu which I perused while listening to Sade
on ‘le Smooth FM’. My main course was ‘something-de-boeuf?’
which was quite delicious; it’s actually a thin slice of steak rolled
around a filling of parsley and shallots. I’m rambling now…
I’m tired, and my face and
arms are sore – they’re burnt.
Canal de Champagné