Taking the waters in Lourdes!...

There is no escape from the rain today. The vultures seem to be grounded, but Red Kites are still soaring overhead.


We had intended to cycle over the Col d'Aubisque but the road is closed due to the unseasonably late snow. So we head in a loop to the north of the snow line, past swollen torrents and roaring weirs. The main road is awash with water so we take a quieter side road, and then an unsurfaced woodland track.
Stopping in Lourdes for our picnic lunch, soaked through to the skin, we shelter under shop awnings then are made very welcome in a cafe for a hot drink. Lourdes is full of tourists, large bland hotels and shops selling water from the shrine.


From here a very welcome smooth cycle path gradually winds up the river valley. The typical local shaggy sheep, each with a tinkling bell, look bedraggled in the flowery meadows.
Argeles-Gazost clings to the steep, forested mountain slopes. Our hotel, aptly named "Beau Site", is tucked away down a steep, cobbled road near the town square.
Marianne (Kirby's daughter) joins us for our 2 night stay here. Evening meal in the restaurant is 5 courses(!) shared with a supported cycle group from England, celebrating their last night and their success at nearing the summit of the Col du Tourmalet. They stopped a little short in the snow and -2 degs., to get a lift back in their van.

Location:Laruns to Argeles Gazost

Brebis country...

In between showers we wave goodbye to our hotelier and set off on narrow roads through fields of sheep and goats. Most of the farms produce cheese from goats or brebis (ewes). The little meadows are full of flowers. We are quickly stopping to take off rain gear as we overheat, only soon to shelter in a village bus stop to pile it all back on again in a heavy shower. It continues like that all day.
Overnight snow looks spectacular on very near mountain tops.


After many hairpin bends through a forest, picnic lunch is taken sheltering in an abandoned hut. A whizz down the valley follows the rushing mountain stream. There is no traffic.
Poor Tom gets a puncture just as we enter Laruns. The hotel is a traditional stone farm near the centre, with a barn for the bikes and very welcome powerful showers. The rooms have amazing views of the mountains at the end of the garden.


Arriving in the dry we just miss the next deluge. Madame books us into a little restaurant in the village square for dinner.

Location:Tardets-Sorholus to Laruns

Lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe.

We are staying at Tardets for 2 nights so looking forward to a circular ride without panniers. The morning's rain is as forecast so waiting for it to clear we buy lunch provisions at a little supermarche under the old stone colonnade and treat ourselves to Pain au Chocolate from the boulangerie. The full river is rushing through.


The sky brightens by midday so we head up through swiss style farms and hamlets, the road getting steeper and steeper and very narrow. No cars and stunning views, as the hairpins wind up to a col d'Arangaiz at 835m. Two English ladies, in wellies and on mountain bikes, are on the way down.
Cream coloured cows with big horns on the road are spooked, stampeding amongst us. Then heavy rain upsets them even more but we escape into an old basalt quarry to eat our lunch. Marilyn treats us to slabs of cake. I make natty waterproof socks from plastic bags. Getting cold we head back down where the sun reappears. Tomorrow we move on, and the forecast is for more showers!

Location:Tardets-Sorholus

Pilgrims Progress...

Descending to the market in the morning, we pass pilgrims trudging up the Santiago Way, big rucksacks displaying the shell symbol.
The old covered market has stalls selling local cheese, fruit, pâté and bread, everything we need for lunch. Meanwhile Kirby is at a bike shop purchasing a new saddle as his has collapsed!
It threatens to rain all day but only succeeds after we find a shelter for lunch. We have completed our first Col, (Osquich) only 500 m high but with fabulous views. As we pile on the waterproofs the sun soon reappears and we follow a river route into Tardes-Sorholus.
Marilyn has yet again booked such good lodgings - a traditional hotel in the corner of the charming central square. The patron could not be more helpful, housing our bikes in a big store and providing a fine 3 course dinner. The customers in his friendly bar are mainly local older chaps all wearing their berets (in doors?) and playing an impenetrable card game. They are amused to pose for photos.

Location:St Jean Pied de Port to Tardets Sorholus

Into the Pyrenees...

Our feet got a soaking returning along the flooded cycle path from birding, Tom then hit a bollard so hard he flattened it! However nothing could ruin the enjoyable day!
Not a cloud in the sky next morning as we provisioned at a local super market, then followed a riverside cycle path, busy with Sunday joggers. Past meadows, timber framed farms and a distant view of the Pyrenees. Coffee in a pretty village, then a single width farm lane undulating through woods,under the gaze of Red Kites, Black Kites and Vultures.
We had a celebratory beer in the old, cobbled centre of St Jean Pied de Port.


Then a final steep up hill to the gite with a stunning view over a mountain scene. Dinner (including basque pudding - like bakewell tart) was served on a terrace to complete a beautiful day! Over the meal and several flasks of red wine, Marilyn told us their grand daughter calls a Roger , "Old Rog"!

Location:Bayonne to St Jean Pied de Port

"Spirit of Britain"

We do not have to book out til midday Friday, which was just as well as it is slashing down. We run across to the George pub, meeting up with the 2 Ks and a rather damp Roger and Marilyn. After lunch only a 1 mile pedal to the European Bike Express bus, parked under a road bridge to give us some protection from the rain as the bikes are loaded onto the big trailer. Jenny and Tom are already ensconced.
A couple more stops to pick up a few more passengers, then Dover in time to catch an earlier than planned ferry at 4 40.


A smooth crossing into more rain. Further south, the bus stops a couple of times to let off cyclists who pedal off in the dark and rain! Most of the passengers are blokes with white hair. Kirby is enthralled by Keith's anecdotes.


After a surprisingly comfy sleep we wake at dawn near Bayonne and at last it stops raining. We pile out, sort out the bikes and take a cycle path along the estuary to a well run youth hostel to get rid of our luggage.
5 of us birders set off to the Marais bird reserve to the north, first enjoying a 3 course lunch to make up for missing breakfast. The other 3 explore Biarritz.
The birding is brilliant, Hoopoe, Black kite & black redstart.

Location:Gravesend to Bayonne

Starting our travels...

Kirby, Mike & I on the quay this morning to ride with the sparse BikeBus to the station, where we wave them goodbye and say hello to Keith.
British Rail only allowed us to reserve 2 bikes on the train so the train manager objects to there being 4. Whilst 2 of us distract him the other 2 put all 4 bikes on. The train makes it as far as Pinhoe (still in Exeter) before breaking down! It then limps late towards Salisbury where a replacement train awaits. Herculian task of transferring bikes and panniers from one overcrowded train to another.


Change trains at Waterloo on to a local train that stops at so many stations, taking an hour to cover 20 miles. We leap out in Gravesend into pouring rain, negotiate the town centre potholes, drop K and K at their nearby Premier Inn and cycle a couple of miles to ours. We are allowed to keep our bikes in the room.
Now we catch a bus back to the station to take a train to London Bridge by 6.30. A lovely evening catching up with son Chris and girlfriend Jess, in the very busy "Old Thameside" restaurant, before yet again visiting all the stations to Gravesend! Too tired to wait for a bus we jump in a taxi.

Location:Exeter to Gravesend

Team spirit?

Our next outing was to be a team effort. The plan was for 4 of us Mike, Sue, Kirby and Wolf to get the train on Sunday morning from Exeter St Davids to Barnstaple, and cycle back, using the Tarka Trail along the north section. The team spirit is soon found to be lacking as we cannot even agree on which train to catch, with M and S preferring the 8.39, in the hope of avoiding later rain, but K and W deciding this was too early. So we set off (team A) an hour before the other two (team B). We are supposed to proceed slowly so they could catch us up. However, the light occasional showers turn out to be cold persistent drizzle, so to warm up we whizz along the windy estuary cycle path from Barnstaple to Bideford, whilst team B get tangled up in a charity run. Team A shelter under one of the many railway bridges to drink a flask of coffee,




with Team B taking the luxury option of a warm cafe, slowing them even more.
So we carry on, in two separate parties, along the tarmaced quiet trail, over the wide Torridge River and tributaries. Under trees we spot a notice informing us this is a "biodiversity reserve"- what used to be known as a"wood" in my youth! Bluebells, primroses and pungent wild garlic crowd the verges. Leaving the path as the tarmac turns into a muddy track, we take the road through tiny Petrockstowe, then Jabocstowe. I spot some handsome welsh Balwen sheep.




The drizzle finally stops at 1.00 as we skirt Hatherleigh, so we halt at an ancient metal seat to eat our sandwiches. The rain almost immediately restarts. We wolf (sorry Wolf) down the sandwiches, and thoroughly chilled, head for Okehampton. On a blind corner a speeding Merc forces me to fling on the brakes. I skid and fall off into the bank. A few bruises, but more importantly, no damage to the bike or my nice new purple helmet.
We can't understand what the long queues of cars are doing in Okehampton, clogging the centre. Enquiries reveal the Ten Tors Challenge has just finished so all the parents have turned up to collect their soggy teenagers. We settle in the warm lounge at the White Hart Hotel, to await team B. After 1/2 an hour they bowl up. Wolf joins Mike in a reviving pint of Guinness. Kirby and I stick to coffee.
At last united, we climb out of Okehampton on an unmade track, with some good views despite the drizzle, then through our favourite moorland village of Belstone




before hammering back down the old A30, but not too fast to notice the newly-bloomed early purple orchids in the verges. Soon entering Exeter at the Twisted Oak pub, past Sainsburys, under the railway to the canal and back to Trewsweir. 64 miles on the clock, and all still on speaking terms. Result!
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Location:Tarka trial

Practice run

Bank holiday Monday looked like a good day to try out a route circling Dartmoor.The forecast was for uninterrupted sunshine and there would be little commercial traffic. It was a surprise, therefore, to set out at 8.00 in thick fog! This lingered even on the top of Haldon Hill, finally escaping it at Chudleigh.
The path alongside the A38 to Ashburton is familiar as a regular meet up place with the Teign Valley Pedal Bashers. After this through Buckfastleigh, Ivybridge and the lanes up to the pretty village of Cornwood .
Dartmoor classic views at Lee Moor, where late tiny lambs wander out onto the tarmac! Then swooping down to cross the river at Shaugh Prior, where the little carpark is busy. We indulge in a "99" from the ice cream van, providing the energy to pull up a tiny steep road, coming out by the rail cycle path from Plympton. A final really steep pull up to Clearbrook, and on to the moor proper. Since our last visit a new tarmac cycle path has been put in alongside Drake's Leat and the golf course, a lovely safe way into Yelverton.
Next the village of Walkhampton and the picturesque old bridge at Huckworthy.




We are avoiding Tavistock, skirting to the east. At Peter Tavy a national cycle route sign tempts us, but turns into a stony steep path across fields. We should have stuck to the road! Gorgeous views now of Brentor church on it's pinnacle ahead as we wind through sleepy Mary Tavy to Lydford. At the Bearslake inn, we eat their last piece of chocolate-cherry flapjack and four packets of crisps, washed down with cold beer.
Behind the pub a track leads up onto the Granite Way,with the easy gradients of an old rail line and fabulous sweeping views, especially from the Meldon viaduct.
There is little traffic in Okehampton, though a bit of a climb out on tired legs, before sweeping all the way back on the old A30 past Whiddon Down, through Tedburn St Mary, and mainly downhill to Ide. Back at Trews Weir, the mileometers register 96 miles.

Location:Dartmoor