Word Of Mouse

Ancenis was beautiful: our first sighting of the majestic Loire, flowing wide and stately between sand banks on either side. We stayed here for two days of rest and recuperation, cooking unfeasibly large amounts of food on our small trangia stove and getting energy for the next bit. Ancenis had a wonderful street-market where we bought a heap of fresh veg, tasty cheese and the best find of all, farm-made locally produced yoghurt: just like we remembered from childhood, thick, solid, creamy and yellow. The supermarket version is (literally) a pale imitation.

From Ancenis we crossed the river and had a straightforward ride to Des Ponts de Ce, near Angers. The weather was increasingly hot and we were thankful for having set off in the relative cool of the early morning. The Loire by Velo cycletrack was for once clearly marked and easy to follow. We arrived at Des Ponts in the late afternoon. (On the way into town we followed a man on a bike who seemed to have strapped all his possessions to the back: a huge rolled up mattress wobbled precariously on one side, and a large stereo system dangled down the other lashed on by a piece of string. Heart in mouth, I watched him navigate (successfully) a roundabout at about walking pace. Suddenly we were very glad to have invested in our two small sleeping bags). After the usual ritual of tent up, shower and wash clothes for next day had been observed, took a stroll along the waterfront towards one of the bridges. The elegant stone bridge glowed in the evening light and as I took a photo of Ali sitting on the wall, a French woman gardening in the house opposite offered to take one of us together. We got chatting, she painstakingly correcting our French with charm and laughter. She told us that Angers is twinned with a town in the West Midlands beginning with W: it turned out to be Wigan....

Next day: we rode onwards to Chinon, on the recommendation of John Burns. Another early start. Soon after starting we saw a figure ahead that turned out to be an elderly and very suntanned man on a bike, obviously cycle touring, pedalling steadily. We overtook him with a cheery and courteous "Bonjour" in the wake of a cloud of fast French racing cyclists. What we didn't realise was that we would subsequently overtake him again, and again, and again.... each time we stopped somewhere, for lunch, for a wee, a drink, he would somehow pass us (though we never saw it happen) and sure enough, as we hit the road again there would be this figure shimmering in the distant heat haze, and sure enough, there he would be, still pedalling steadily onwards. The final time we passed him he said "Oh god, is it you two AGAIN?".

The other thing we saw that day was a HUGE SNAKE lying beside the road. I pointed it out, in a spirit of sharing sightings of interesting things. Ali almost fell of the back she jumped so hard. She swears it moved. I think it was dead, but I couldn't swear to it: but it was very big. Grey-green on top, paler underneath, no obvious markings. Probably a grass snake.

It was very hard work getting to Chinon, not because of hills but just the heat. We ran out of steam about three km short of the campsite and had to have an emergency feeding frenzy of bread and honey before we could continue. When we finally made it Chinon turned out to be as advertised, very beautiful, full of old medieval cobbled streets and with an atmospheric ruined chateau overlooking the town from the top of the hill.

From Chinon, we left the Loire and rode along the course of one of its tributaries, the Vienne, eventually forking left on to one of its tributaries in turn, the Creuse. We stopped the night at Descartes, the birthplace of the eponymous philosopher, and had just enough energy for a beer and orange juice in town before collapsing in the camp site for the evening. As usual in these riverside campsites, there were a lot of mosquitoes. The night time was alive with the sounds of frogs in the river. After a period of silence, one frog would tentatively voice an opinion (probably on the nature of free will, or the origin of knowledge...) A few others would chip in and air their views, increasingly stridently, and before long the whole river would be full of froggy voices debating furiously. After a while some form of concensus would be reached, and silence would again descend. Until the next time.