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| Over 700Km's and still going strong! |
There seems to be endless canals
criss-crossing France, and can well understand why so many people have canal
boat holidays. Today we rode along the Oise Canal on one of the best paths we
have been on. It was sealed and really smooth and over 2 metres wide. Surprisingly
there were very few using the path, but there were a number of boats on the
canal, and quite a few pleasure boats. See on the map that the canal continues
on and joins the Seine near Paris.
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| His nibs checking out the lock. |
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| Life on a canal boat! |
We rode in the opposite direction,
and after about 20kms came to the village of Chauny and with temperatures in
the low 20’s it was really pleasant. We seem to be getting in to the habit of
timing our ride with a midway stop for lunch! While we were stopped checking
out the map to see which road we should take to find a café, a really nice guy carrying
a bag of baguettes smiled and spoke to us in French. With lots of sign language
and a few French words he realised we were looking for somewhere to eat, he
tried to explain to us where we should go but it seemed very complicated. The
next thing he gets in his little white Citroen van and indicates for us to
follow him. Off we went at a cracking pace with the battery on turbo and scooting
along roads, through several round-a-bouts, dodging traffic until he stops
outside a nice café, bar. By this stage Ian and I couldn’t stop laughing, a
truly French experience. He got out and we “chatted” and found out his name was
Alaine, he had a 9m campervan, was 69 and 4 children! He made our day.
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| Alaine, our wonderful guide around Chauny. |
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| The Mairie in Chauny |
Turned out to be a great place
for lunch as well, sitting outside and people watching. Enjoyed a well deserved
rose with our meal followed by a really good shot of coffee. Loving the French
coffee and their small cups of espresso are so good, strong without being
bitter.
With quite a strong headwind on
the ride home we put the bikes on Turbo and just cruised along. Have now
clocked up over 700km’s on our bikes, wish the bodies were showing some signs
of all this cycling, but guess it is the good food and maybe a few wines!!! Sat
outside this evening on the edge of the canal enjoying some really nice warm
weather. There are some rather swish boats parked opposite us and we enjoyed
watching as two very big launches manoeuvred their way into quite a small
river. There are no more spaces left for boats to tie up, this must be a
problem for boaties in the summer months.
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| Chatted with Jean-Michael |
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