DAY 25-31

So another delayed blog post, but with no internet connection for over a week its easy to see why. I'm in the best of moods as this week has gone like a dream. We've had hot weather all week, no major issues with the bike or body, and some of the best cycling conditions of my life.

The landscape of france has really changed over the last few days, we've mainly been cycling through The Rhone valley, en route to Montpellier, and its noticeable how much drier and arid the land has become, it really feels like you're in Northern Spain rather than France. The temperature reaches a toasty 28 degrees most days with no chance of rainfall.

I am struggling to remember most of the minor details of the last week or so, all I can really do is point out the 'highlights'. Six days is just a bit too long without an entry and I've only myself to blame, but when you're having so much fun its hard to beat yourself up about it.

We are now in the city of Nimes at a lovely hostel just on the outskirts. Our main reason for coming to the hostel was football. We've managed without a wash, a bed or electric for six days but we just can't go without a bit of football for that length of time. Our plan has worked exquisitely as last night we watched Tottenham get an unfortunate battering, and hopefully tonight Manu and the neanderthal Wayne rooney will get the same.

It must be said that the wild camping is getting better and better as time progresses, just 2 nights ago we pitched our tent next to the Gard ou Gardon river (shown below) and managed to have a cold, but wonderful swim. We managed to catch a few rays before night fall and sam captured it perfectly on camera. I mean look at those tan lines, ridiculous.


We continue to get caught out by the lazy french on sundays, they literally close everything down. We never really keep track of what day it is and were a bit baffled as to why nowhere was open. Then we realised it was a sunday and started to panic a bit regarding where we would find water. As the day went on we both ran out around mid afternoon and I drank a bit from a village water fountain (a low point). Luckily, we found a small bread shop where we could get a baguette, and just as we were leaving the woman noticed what we were doing and brought us out a big bag of crouissants, no charge. We also managed to get the sacred 6 litres of water that we so desperately required.

Another couple of pictures that need a bit of explanation are shown below. You might notice I'm wearing a Liverpool shirt. I obviously support Hull but this shirt has served two purposes; firstly, it was cheap (7 quid) and is as good as any cyling shirt on the market, and secondly, it annoys my dad. Just after this was taken it got very very hot and my ipod died on me. It was my fault as I was basically sticking it down my pants with no pockets to put it in, and the sweat had leaked into the ipod and blown it up. A bit annoying but quite funny. I think I actually prefer to just let my thoughts wander when on the bike and just take in my new surroundings. Some of these thoughts have led to the decision that I'm going to cycle back through the UK instead of getting picked up at Dover. It would be such a cool way to round off the trip; to reconnect with England and also meet up with a bunch of friends from 'ACE' along the way.

We reached a big milestone yesterday by passing the one thousand mile mark! I just noticed it on the cycle computer and got all excited. When I think about it, one thousand miles is a long way, and to do that just using a few muscles and a bit of steel is quite an achievement.

I must also share the lowest point of the trip, and possibly my entire life before this post ends, however. On our 4th day wild camping we'd finished a long day on the bike, having cycled just shy of 100km, and everything was sweaty and dirty. I had to venture into the woods to answer natures call, and whilst squatting like a dog to take a poo, the feet can accidently intrude on the location of the poo, and led to the lowest point of my life. Basically, I shat on my foot. With no hot shower or even running water to clean myself, I had to make do with baby wipes.

On that note, its time to conclude this weeks events. We're in Nimes for another night and planning on getting to the farm by the weekend. I wish we had longer to discover Nimes, its a really beautiful city with some well preserved classical buildings from the Roman Empire. We briefly met a couple of Americans last night who were here working with the church of Jesus Christ. It was strange to meet them, as I'm a firm atheist and believe religion is the root of all evil, but I really liked them. Meeting them reminded me of a famous quote by Steven Weinberg: "With or without religion, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion". I suppose this quote isn't really that applicable as they weren't fundamentalist terrorists, but still. They were nice and it was good to meet them, I just wish I could have chatted to them for longer about why they believe the Earth is 5,000 years old.

Thanks for a few comments last week, its nice to know who's following. According to my blog statistics I've had well over a thousand page views which baffled me, I only thought it was a handful of friends and family that were following, but keep them coming!