Day 14 Gujan-Mestras to Mimizan-Plage (86kms)

There are some days in cycle touring that are best forgotten. Today was one of them. Things went wrong from the beginning. I set out in the rain, then there was a head-wind, then hills, then my gears started playing up. The bike path followed a main road. It went up and down. Cars raced by, water spraying from the wheels.

I bypassed Arcachon (a major tourist attraction) and stopped at the Dune du Pilat. This was worth looking at. At three kilometres long and over a hundred metres high, it’s the tallest sand dune in Europe. It’s gradually moving landwards, pushing the forest back and covering houses and roads. The views from the top are vast, on the one side the Atlantic Ocean, on the other, well, pine forest.

The French tandem couple I had met a couple of days earlier were coming up the steps as I was going down. I had been feeling despondent and contemplating calling it a day and hopping on a train at Arcachon, my last chance to do so until Bayonne. But there they were, doing the same as me, heading for Spain, finding the wind and hills difficult, and it helped to know I had company. Our paths crossed again a couple of times later on and, as we found out later, we had shared many similar challenges that day.

I had discussed with them going off route briefly to avoid a very hilly bit of bike path. A short-cut on the road seemed a sensible alternative, shortened the route a little and shouldn’t be too busy. They had already reached the same conclusion. Well, that was according to the Michelin maps we both carried. The map was wrong. I ended up in the town I’d been trying to avoid in the first place. I realised later, several kilometres up and down hill, and one helpful local’s instructions later, that there was a new roundabout not yet shown on the map. Eventually I found the right road. It had no bike path or even a bike lane. The traffic was fast. The road went straight up hill. I had to push. Then it went down, then up again. And finally, a long spin down.

I came down to a lake shore. The bike path reappeared, then disappeared again just as quickly, underwater. There was water everywhere here. It was flat, and flooded. There was no way of avoiding it in parts. I was too scared to leave the path again in case I got lost, so through it I went, Le Petit Bleu up to the top of his wheels, me in over my shoes. This went on for a while, in and out of the boggy water. The tandem spun past on the road, bell ringing. Good idea, I thought and joined them. The bike path crossed under the road somewhere and I missed it and got lost again.

I arrived in Biscarosse in time for lunch, which was good as the boulangerie had mini-quiches and hot bread. But I had such difficulty finding the way out of there amongst the travaux and again in the next town where there were also travaux and the signs were non-existent. Twice, I ended up on busy roads with no bike lanes, huge vans and cars towing caravans sweeping past.

I was late because of all the earlier messing around. I had started at 8.30 and was still going at 5pm! The last 8kms should have been fine through the forest but even they were hilly and I was down to two gears. Then, just when you think you must be there, the signs into the town are wrong, and you follow the signs to the hotel and they’re designed for the one-way system that bikes don’t need to follow. I limped up to the hotel just as the chain came off for about the tenth time today.

The good things about today: I got here in the end; the amazing Dune du Pilat; the many pretty lakes I passed;  the tartelette aux abricots that I bought to lift my spirits; the road worker holding the stop/go sign who got into a conversation with me about where I’d come from and wished me well; the people who own this hotel, the Hotel de France, a bit the worse for wear, on the foreshore with what must have once been a magnificent view of the ocean, now built out by a large house.

Once again, they are the loveliest of people. I staggered through the door, exhausted, with dirty, wet shoes and grease-covered hands. Madame was not at all fazed; in fact, she sympathised.  I told her I needed a bike repair shop before I needed a room. She rang the réparateur straight away. Non, they couldn’t look at it now, they were closing, non, they wouldn’t be open till ten in the morning. She rang her husband. He used to ride bikes and might know what to do. There was no reply. He might be around the back, she said, let’s go and see. We went. Aha, she said, he’s in the garage. There were whirring and buzzing sounds coming from within. It looked hopeful.

He was as lovely as she was and only too happy to look at the bike, although it was clear that he hadn’t seen a gear system quite like mine before (three gears inside the back thingie; I have had to quickly learn the French words for technical bike stuff, hard when you don’t know the English ones!). But he fiddled and tweaked, oiled and spun and finally, voilà, he declared it fixed.

Meanwhile, Madame had carried my bags up the steep stairs and deposited them in my room. In so doing, she had spied my New Zealand flag. Are you really from New Zealand? she asked. Our son was there last year and loved it so much that he deliberately didn’t work as he wants to go back (you can’t go back ever if you’ve used up your one and only work visa). Please, Madame, put a dot on our map of the world that shows where our customers come from. There were red dots on Aberdeen, Rome, Quebec, Cairns and somewhere in Lithuania, but none on New Zealand. I put a large red dot on Nelson. I like being a pioneer. It’s the spirit in a lot of us Kiwis.

In fact, I reflected after a long, hot shower and a lie down, in the end, a lot went right today after all.