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Day 1 - Cherbourg to Saint Groux
06:28 and we were off the ferry and going. In the dark - I hate that - arriving in a foreign country in the dark and finding your way out of a port - bad enough in daylight. However, as usual, the GPS guided us and we were soon on our way down the N13 towards Valognes; then the D2 and D7 to Coutances and Avranches. All fairly boring stuff apart from a few squiggles just south of Gavray, which, as the road surface was damp and greasy, we weren't inclined to push. It was also a little cool with an air temperature in the low 50's, waistcoat and heated grips were switched on. What I hadn't realised was that Daryl hadn't put his jacket liner in and, since he didn't have the benefit of an electrically heated waistcoat, was starting to feel a little uncomfortable to say the least
Day 1
Daryl had told me that his main riding companion, with whom he has done a few tours, likes to stop every hour. I, unfortunately, and it has been noted by others that travel with me either on bike or in car, like to keep going, only stopping when forced to by pain, hunger, a full bladder or lack of fuel . Thus we covered 115 miles before we stopped for breakfast at 08:50 in Dompierre du Chemin [N48.26676 W1.14300]
40 minutes later we were on the road again. Fuel stop 30 minutes later and then onwards Laval, Angers and Loudun. Again very mundane roads apart from a few little bends on the D30 before Laval. 129 miles later we stopped for lunch at 12:27 in a Routier just on the southern outskirts of Angliers [N46.93936 E0.11486].
Lunch only took 30 minutes (unusual for France) and we were back on the road heading towards Poitiers. As we approached Poitiers the large black cloud to the west seemed to be set on an intercept. It was. Just south of Poitiers the heavens opened and a downpour of tropical proportions ensued. Daryl had forgotten to do up his jacket properly and I saw him slow pull over and stop with no opportunity for me to do the same (he was wishing for 2-way comms at this point). I thought he had stopped to put on his waterproof trousers so I just continued slowly waiting for him to appear in my mirrors again. Since the visibility had dropped to about 50 yards I was beginning to get a little concerned when he finally appeared behind me.
Still in heavy rain we peeled off the N10 at Vivonne for a fuel stop. It was Sunday and the supermarket filling station was closed. We tried again at Couhé but this time there was a credit card machine that wouldn't accept any English credit cards. Since we had done 170 miles miles at this point I was getting slightly anxious as I expected I would be going onto reserve fairly soon. After chatting to a French driver at the filling station it transpired that there was another, manned, filling station about 25 miles further on just past Ruffec [N45.98544 E0.20045]. In fact my fuel warning light didn't come on so I could have gone yet another 25 miles if necessary.
Fuelled up and feeling drier and more confident we sped on the final 10 miles to the hotel at Saint Groux just to the northwest of Mansle.
Les Trois Saules [N45.89680 E0.16890] is a 2-star Logis just by the edge of a small river and offers basic but comfortable and spacious accommodation. Unfortunately, as it was Sunday night the menu was a little limited but it was a pleasant enough meal. Daryl found, whilst walking by the river under the immense weeping willows, that the mosquitoes had voracious appetites so they also had a meal. The parking was a little precarious as the gravel was over a bed of softish earth - I had a sidestand pad with me but we found a piece of a broken flower pot to put under the Blackbird's stand. Daryl also had a problem with his alarm that would spontaneously trip :-(
We had travelled our first 330 miles.
Index | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | References