Slept under the pines that night with no flysheet, waking with the brightening sky, tent rolled and packed ere the cockerel crow.
Most of the ride was alongside a rocky coastline and the tourist hordes thinned out nicely with the lack of sandy beach. Riding was better – pretty flat countryside with sea and lakes to swim in, nicely devoid of tourist throngs.
Towards the end of the day, riding in the fields I passed an old man pushing his bike (which looked as old as him) and stopped to enquire if he was ok and saw that his back wheel was flat. He spoke no English and I no French but I mimed “pump” and offered to help get him going again, oui oui. Turned out we needed to repair a puncture and not being able to remove his back wheel we did it on the bike somewhat awkwardly, but do it we did, and he was back on his bike and off to wherever he was off to. My first puncture repair job since I left the UK and a good deed for day to boot. Bon voyage Miseur!
For some reason I thought I´d have a look at Warmshowers to see if there were any hosts about and sure enough found one not far away. Sent a whatsapp and got a quick reply to say I should come over, so I made my way to Coraline´s place near Luçon and clocked my first 100km day.
Arrived in the evening and was made to feel very welcome. The family had a large piece of ground on which they were growing vegetables and she had picked courgettes and peppers earlier that day and was about to make ratatouille. She put me to work peeling and chopping and soon we had the a sweet ratatouille on the go. We had dinner later that evening and I went to sleep well fed.
In the morning the family had all gone and I was alone on the property. I fed the goat some beans and slowly got my things together. I jumped on the canal running along their property and headed north towards Luçon where I stayed a couple of nights, resting a day in Luçon, a beautiful little market town.
