Day 4 - Wednesday 15th September, 2010
Pont de l'Arche > La Bonneville-sur-Iton (via Evreux)
31.9 miles
3:08 moving time, 10.1 mph moving ave
Wake up at 3am to the sound of the rain lashing down against the tent. It's quite hard. I know it sounds worse than it really is from inside the tent, but it's never been tested in the rain, so, still slightly delirious and half asleep, I have a quick look round with the torch to check it's holding up OK. All seems dry. Find the earplugs, insert them, and crash straight back out.
Woke up again at sunrise, and exited to find clearing skies, but a little cool. Everything was soaked so made a coffee and waited for John. Since it had stopped raining, we decided to leave the tents in the hope they'd dry off a bit, and headed into town to get breakfast. Not bothering with morning showers any more - it seems to make more sense to just shower at the end of the ride, and then just wash in the morning. All the gear's sweaty anyway, and we'll be sweating profusely as soon as we get on the bikes, so it's one less time-consuming hassle to worry about. More people are around this morning, and in the light the town's really quite pretty and it looks like there's a lot of historic interest - if we had time to have a look around - which we don't. The owner of the little cafe says no croissants, but suggests we buy from the boulangerie, and eat them at back at the cafe - which is what we do. Plus we order a couple of coffees. Its quite busy with the locals chatting about the day, smoking, and buying lottery tickets etc. The owner asks about our trip, and he gives us a tourist leaflet about Pont de l'Arche and explains that it's very historic - a Medieval town. Its nice that he's so passionate about the place he lives in. We get the familiar look of surprise, empathy, and foolishness when we say where we're heading.
Woke up again at sunrise, and exited to find clearing skies, but a little cool. Everything was soaked so made a coffee and waited for John. Since it had stopped raining, we decided to leave the tents in the hope they'd dry off a bit, and headed into town to get breakfast. Not bothering with morning showers any more - it seems to make more sense to just shower at the end of the ride, and then just wash in the morning. All the gear's sweaty anyway, and we'll be sweating profusely as soon as we get on the bikes, so it's one less time-consuming hassle to worry about. More people are around this morning, and in the light the town's really quite pretty and it looks like there's a lot of historic interest - if we had time to have a look around - which we don't. The owner of the little cafe says no croissants, but suggests we buy from the boulangerie, and eat them at back at the cafe - which is what we do. Plus we order a couple of coffees. Its quite busy with the locals chatting about the day, smoking, and buying lottery tickets etc. The owner asks about our trip, and he gives us a tourist leaflet about Pont de l'Arche and explains that it's very historic - a Medieval town. Its nice that he's so passionate about the place he lives in. We get the familiar look of surprise, empathy, and foolishness when we say where we're heading.
Stocked up on more bread and pastries, we head back to camp, and start the process of packing down. It seems to take forever (because it does take forever); letting air out of mat, getting it rolled up and getting it and the sleeping back back in thier bag, then packing up clothes and getting the panniers sorted out. The tent has to come down (which when wet takes even longer as you have to wipe it dry as much as possible), and get packed away. Then, it's what to wear to match the weather - jacket or no jacket. Thermal layer? Not sure so keep a few things handy. Then everything gets attached to the bike. Plus I'm videoing the trip so the camera needs re-attaching and all the batteries put together in an easy reach place. All the electronics fired up, we stagger out of the campsite after what seems like an eternity. Today is a very late start.
In what now seems to be the daily routine for the start of the day, we go straight into a huge, long, hill through the forest. Jackets on as there's still a bit of rain, but it's variable, so when the sun comes out it gets hot quickly. Generally rainy for a few hours as we head towards Louviers. A few climbs and a bit of a headwind today. Louviers is bigger than we expect and when we pull round a side street we find even more to the place, and pull into a cafe for lunch in a nice square. I get a fantastic tarte tatin. I'm not a pig, honest, I've just got a fast metabolism. Or it's calories for the cycling. Or both.
Can't quite remember where this was....
We press on to Evreux, with more headwind and now the scenery is starting to widen out a bit.
The outskirts of Evreux aren't too nice (no surprise there, we're getting the feeling we'll know all about the outskirts of towns by the end of the trip), but there are prettier bits once we get into the town proper. Quick tourist office stop (after circling around a few times to find it) for campsite info, and some supplies. Yup, bread and cheese.
The nearest (and only real option) campsite's 12 miles west of track which we really don't want to do but we figure today is another 'behind schedule day' and we can make up for it tomorrow. So we take the plunge and head towards the camp. Since it's off track we make a quick call to make sure it's open.
Getting closer to the site, we take an off-road short-cut. It's so steep and rocky - with loose stones - that I nearly come off my bike and with the new pedals a bit stiffer than I'm used to I only just about clip out in time to save myself. Heart racing, I get off and walk the rest of it, sliding all the way. Lovely place to walk the dog or something - right in the forest - but not too clever on a fully loaded bike. Still it saved us some time and we were soon in the village of La Bonneville-Sur-Iton where the campsite was.
La Bonneville-Sur-Iton is really pretty, but as it turns out the campsite's more 'near it' than 'in it'. To add insult to injury it was actually just a bit further along on the road we detoured off in the first place. So a huge haul back up through the village gets us back where we left the main road, and sure enough a mile or less further on is the campsite.
After a chat with the friendly owners - who seemed somewhat confused about the price, but finally remembered all the extras they needed to charge us for - we headed in to find a spot. A bit more manicured and unnatural, with lots of permanent caravans, this wasn't the nicest site aesthetically, but it was well looked after and there was power in the pitch next door - and we took advantage of every socket to charge all the gear up.
A now similar picture - camp!
John comes back from the shower block having invented an ingenious time-saving system of hand-washing clothes while showering, which I immediately copy when I shower. Once again the facilities are clean and the water's hot, but from my limited experience so far, the French campsites do seem to be designed without much comfort in mind, even though it would be relatively simple and cheap to fix. So far, there's been nowhere to put your clean or dirty clothes while you shower. Whatever limited shelf space there is seems to be practically in the shower with you so it all gets wet. Then there's nowhere to stand to dry without standing in water - so how do you dry your feet and put your socks on? And the building's cold! When washing clothes in the official place, there's not even a spinner to wring them out - just a sink with a tap. If I ever get the chance to design a campsite, I'd do it so differently. Walking back to the tent, for the first time I feel a bit envious of the people relaxing in their caravans/campervans. It's also a wake-up call that for all it's freedoms, cycle-camping is actually quite hard work and a lot more effort than we expected.
Nowhere nearby to get food, and we weren't cycling back down to the village again, so we made an effort with the supplies we had. This meant sitting on a plastic sheet in near pitch black, while we cooked and ate, which while interesting wasn't really comfortable, and the heavy mini-stool I'd hauled along (or rather 'borrowed' from my wife's camera bag) didn't make things much better. After a bit of chatting and planning for the route ahead, with nothing left to do we cleared up, and hit the sack early for some journalling/blogging/phone calls.
A la restaurant. Al fresco dining.
It was a slightly unsatisfyingly short day today, so we need to do better tomorrow.
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