Fair Weather Bikers

In the past when camping people have actually un-pitched and moved their tents away from me during the night in because of my snoring, I believe Nig is slightly worse! I pity anybody who was within a couple of rooms of us that night as we both slept very soundly!

When I woke, Nig was still sleeping noisily. I had a shower and packed my gear. Nig was still asleep. I packed my bike and then took it to the local petrol station to fill up. When I returned Nig had just woke up, and was wondering where I was!

We had a really nice breakfast, then packed Nig's bike. While loading the bike, a French guy in a battered up Renault 5 kept driving up and down staring at the hotel. Finally he stopped and came upto us. He asked us if we spoke English to which we obviously said yes. Then he said 'Have you got a wibble-wobble' (we didn't quite catch the last word). We said 'Got a what?'. He then stared at us for a good 3 or 4 minutes, it seemed he expected us to read his mind or something. He finally asked us if we spoke Spanish to which we said no and he got in a huff and stormed off. We tried to call him back to help him but he was having none of it! The owner of the hotel came out, he spoke French, Spanish, and English. He tried in vain to help this poor misguided soul, but in the end he gave up and the French guy drove off looking unhappy - it was all very weird!

We went to the petrol station to fill Nig's bike and lube the chains, then set off over the mountain into France. The road up the mountain was very nice and the views at the top were stunning. It was quite cool that day and positively nippy on the top of the mountain - but we didn't mind - we were both refreshed and feeling good.

As we dropped down the other side into France, it got a lot warmer and we began to hit traffic. This was the first real traffic we had encountered since leaving Pamplona and it seemed like rush hour - though looking back it wasn't actually all that busy. Then as we reach the bottom of the mountain we encountered a long queue of traffic that stretched for as far as we could see.

We filtered up the queue - at first I was unsure as to what the attitude was towards filtering in France, but a lot of vehicles moved out of our way, so I took that to mean they didn't mind too much. Then we go to some traffic islands. We waited for a bit, but the traffic wasn't moving at all. There had been no oncoming traffic for ages - so I went for it and shot down the wrong side of the road until we passed the traffic island and then carried on filtering. It was naughty I know - but we didn't endanger anybody or get in anybodies way - so I wasn't really that bothered!

Finally we reached the front of the traffic - there were some road works. Something we noticed in France and Germany when encountering road-works; if the lights have just changed - turn your engine off - you are in for a LONG wait. They like to let a lot of traffic through between changes. Finally the lights changed and we were under-way again.

Our route for this day, as we had a lot of miles to do, involved using motorways to get to Toulouse and for a short distance away from Toulouse towards Millau. We could have chose a different route if we wanted, but in all honesty we had done so many passes, and twisty roads, we were actually looking forward to just sitting on the bikes and doing some miles - I honestly never thought I'd say that!

As soon as we joined the motorway our ride became very rapid and we got to Toulouse in no time. I'd set the GPS to avoid toll roads - so it took us off the motorway and through the city which was tedious but did save us some money. Another plus points for the GPS!

As we headed out of Toulouse we stopped at a cafe for some dinner. All the staff were very rude to us, with the exception of one nice friendly young waitress. We had chicken in pasta, which was very nice, and a coffee and left.

After another short stint on the motorway out of Toulouse we turned off heading towards the D999. This was a fantastic round - not as tight and twisty as the roads in the Pyrenees but fast and flowing. We followed this road all the way to Millau. At one point on this road a large buzzard swooped down just in front of my bike, grapped a mouse and took off as we drew along side. The bird saw us and tried to outrun us without climbing, so for a few seconds I was riding alongside this huge bird no more than 3 or 4 feet away. then it decided it couldn't outrun us so it dropped it's mouse and climbed, it was a very spectacular sight - but Nig told me later his heart had skipped a beat or two as he had flashbacks of his close encounter of with the bird heading into Ainsa!

The bridge appeared as we rounded a corner - it was huge. The pictures cannot possibly do it justice. We stopped for a few pictures at the side of the road and then headed for the visitor centre, but there wasn't a cafe there so we didn't stop long and just headed onto our camp-site.

The camp-site (Côté-Sud Campsite) was very nice and also very cheap - 8 euros each! Our pitch was in the trees by a river. We nipped out to the local supermarket for some food for that evening and breakfast in the morning and a few beers. It was very warm so we put the beers in the river to cool, while we washed our clothes in the washing machine on-site.

We chilled out by the tents for the rest of the night and drank our nice cool beer - it was a warm night and very pleasant indeed.