Now today is some national holiday and we can tell you that just about every bloke in France is fishing on the canal. How to we know that, because we said 'Bonjour' to all of them. There was hundreds of people fishing from the banks of the canal for kilometres of our ride, my 'Bonjour' was just about worn out by lunch time.
Every space was filled with cars
It hard to imagine but at times we've been bored of the canal path??
Nort-sur-Erdre market day
Went into Nort-sur-Erdre looking for either some accommodation or a map but as today is some big national holiday not even the hotels are open. A group of locals helped us but they could only confirm that today of all days is very bad because everybody stops work to celebrate. Ah well back to the canal so that added 7km to our trip but it was nice to meet some locals, and they showed immense concern and offered all sorts of help.
Our first chateaux
We rode on down the canal path seeing lots of places we could rough camp and we then a lock gate with picnic tables we could pitch the tent near. It's always nice to be near picnic tables as I get a bit sick of sitting on the ground (must be getting old). As we parked our bikes we saw a boat going through the lock so we went to watch. As we walked toward them I heard them speak English and I couldnt help but call out "Ah someone who speaks English, excellent!!" They turned out to be two English couples who have come over to hire a canal boat for a week. We helped them through the lock as the men had sent the ladies ashore to operate the winches and I couldnt stand back so we turned handles, held lines and had a great laugh. They even offered to put our bikes on board and let us join them for awhile......pity they were going the wrong way.
We said farewell to our nautical friends and as they mentioned the next lock gate had showers and a toilet we decided to continue and come back if there was nowhere to camp. There were showers but we didn't feel right using them and decided we didn't stink 'too' much and back tracked and found a nice spot right next to a table.
Our rough camp
Sandy made a very yummy vegie and pasta soup which we ate then moved to the tent as the mozzies were the biggest I've seen. They didnt bite us but we didnt want to risk it as I they were big enough that there might be a risk of loss of cousciousness from blood loss from one bite.
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