Fair Weather Bikers

We woke fairly early and had a nice relaxing morning. We cooked up the bacon we'd bought the previous day for sandwiches in nice French bread and leisurely packed the bikes. The weather was superb.

Unfortunately during the night, Nig had discovered his air bed definitely had a puncture; it had gone down quite a bit during the night in in Ainsa, but in Millau it completely deflated well before morning - so we were on a mission to find Nig another bed before the day was out.

We set off and headed for the Millau Viaduct. We initially went to the viewing area for some photo's and then headed over the bridge. It was around 3.80 euros each for us to cross the bridge, we took it steady going across and enjoyed the amazing view. Then we stopped just over the bridge and Nig took a couple of pictures of the bikes with the bridge in the background.

We continued on the motorway for a little while before I decided it'd be far more interresting to head across country, so I pulled off at the 'Le Caylar' junction and told the GPS to find the way to our planned destination that day, Crest. via a place called Ales.

We followed the route the GPS had planned. Before long it directed us to turn off the main road and onto more rural roads, and they got more and more rural. They never got quite to the level of the dirt road in Spain, but there were times they were worryingly close! It was very interresting though, and we went through several very small and picturesque villages

Up to this point the landscape had been mainly fields with the odd farm building, and was largely flat. Then the road dropped a little and went around a corner. We were astounded. Though we didn't realise it, we had been very high up, and were suddenly presented with a stunning landscape of mountains as far as we could see. We were on the top of a mountain and our road wound it's way down the side of the mountain we were on and then carried on through the valley between the other mountains. We couldn't believe our luck!

We stopped for a few photo's then continued on the amazing road, it went on for quite a few miles and the views were never anything short of stunning. I have found on since returning that we were skirting the edge of the Cévennes National Park - this is a region I will definitely visit again and explore in more detail.

We stopped for lunch in a small town a little before we got to Ales. While we were finishing our lunch, we saw a scruffy looking man loitering around the bikes. He looked around and saw us looking at him so came wondering over. It turned out he was from Holland and used to be a waiter, but, if he was to be believed, liked walking about and didn't like to stop in one place too long - hence why he was in the south of France. We asked him how long he'd been here and he said 10 years! So much for not liking being in one place too long. He said he lived in a squat just around the corner. He told us a bird had pooped on him the previous day and showed us it - nice! Then he got a cig of Nig and we decided to leave.

It was a short ride to Ales, then we headed east towards the A7 to take us north to Crest. The roads were a mixture of nice flowing country roads in between the various towns and large villages. The French drivers kept us on our toes during this section - they all seemed fairly determined to have us off the bikes. Both me and Nig locked our front wheels on separate occasions avoiding the mad French drivers.

We saw signs for our camp-site just outside of Crest, and followed them down a long narrow road. The camp-site had a long drive leading up to the reception. I saw the sign for the camp-site and did think it was quite suggestive, then we headed up the drive only to see a naked woman walking down towards us. Then it dawned on me - I had booked us into a Naturist Campsite! I looked in my mirror at Nig and he had a stunned look on his face, I couldn't stop laughing. We reach the top of the drive, I got my side-stand down and then rolled off the bike - tears streaming down my face! We looked around and saw lots of naked people by the pool and relaxing around the site. Then two more naked woman walked passed us - I was barely controlling my laughter but that set me off again. I have since looked at the website of the camp-site (Val Drôme Soleil) and really don't know how I didn't notice it was a Naturist camp-site as it states it quite clearly on the home page!

We decided not to stay at the camp-site, there was no way I was going to sit around in the buff with Nig! Luckily we had seen signs for another camp-site (Gervanne Camping) not far away so we headed for that. They were very busy but did manage to squeeze us in.

We pitched up and then went to the local shop to get a drink - it had been very warm all day and we hadn't really drank enough. It soon become clear that Nig wasn't functioning very well. We returned to the tents and Nig decided to have a lie down in his tent.

It was around 4:30pm at this time, so I decided to leave Nig in his tent to pop into Crest to try and find him a new bed as we'd had no luck finding one during the day, and sort out our evening meal and breakfast. The town was a bit of a nightmare to navigate around and I got lost a couple of times. I was also suffering quite a lot that day with wind. I was sat a some traffic lights trying to find a supermarket, and decided to let rip. Feeling a lot better, and glanced over my left shoulder only to see a French woman on a bicycle sat alongside the rear of my bike! She looked at me with a very strange look on her face - I only know a few French words and thought this was as good a time as any to use one. I said 'Bonjour' and then luckily the lights changed and I shot off!

Shortly after that I did find an excellent supermarket that sold just about everything. I got Nig an air bed, some tinned pasta and meat with some bread for that evening and more bread with sausages for breakfast. By this time I was very hot and just wanted off the bike so I couldn't get back to the site soon enough.

By the time I got back, it had cooled down a little, and Nig was feeling much better after his kip. We had a few beers at the on-site bar then returned to the tents for the food - which tasted amazing though this was probably due to the beer! We finished off the evening sat by the tents soaking up the lovely weather and surroundings.