Chateaubriant all ends up !

Hi Sponsors, monster day today cracking 125 km going from 08:30 to 18:00 tonight with a quick coffee break at 13:00

The day started in the pouring rain as we left Les Herbiers so a full compliment of clothing was engaged. The first stop was the local Super U supermarket to stock up on essentials such as the Super U branded coke bottles which have knocked off the Haribo brand from top spot.

Stop Press - No super U coke bottles in stock. Had to settle for Bien Vue version which are a poor substitute but still have the required suger content so will have to do. And they do just as good a job as the expensive energy bars around

Anyway off we went in the rain up towards the Loire Valle and across the river. We stopped at St Laurent des Autels for a coffee which turned up in little more than a thimble. The coffee thing does seem a bit of a pointless exercise when is all over in a mouthful. I am sooooo looking forward to a decent Starbies

Anyway, we crossed the river Loire and more importantly, the rain had stopped although it was very grey and a bit of a head wind.

Every village we went through had a boulangerie and every one of them was closed until we reached Riaille at 16:00 when we finally got an open one. It is amazing how nice this stuff can taste, even sat outside the village public toilets on a day that had the colour turned down. Strawberry tart and croissant re-energised us so off we went again.

This was unknown territory for us now as we had already cracked 100 kms for the day but given camping was out, Hotels are easy to find so off to Chateaubriant we headed.




We got here just before 6 so it was a full day in the saddle and found a hotel imaginatively called the Hotel Chateaubriant



So that was two of the three sorted, I just needed to eat one to make the hat trick and guess what

Here it is !!




It tasted as good as it looks, shame the pudding was crap but cant have it all spose

Anyway, a quick observation before closing up for the day, Mrs B has decided to get a bit more in tune with the cycle tourists way of life and realised, somewhat belatedly, that this washing every night lark is not really feasible so we have a new routine.

We have day wear and evening wear and when items are "off duty" they are aired, the benefits of this are still unclear to me but I will go with it. When we do find washing facilities, evening wear gets promoted to day wear and original day wear is washed and then put into the evening wear cycle. Complicated I know but you are a clever lot so will figure it out.

Another related observation. When we packed to leave, we had a required pile of stuff and a desirables pile - the deodorant was in the desirables and didnt make the cut, with hindsight it should of been a requirement.

On that rather unpleasant thought, we leave you for the night

cya

A & G