Thursday June 23, 2022, 51 km (32 miles) – Total so far: 5,679 km (3,529 miles)

We left our lovely little camp and were on the road by 8.30am. The reason we managed to get away so early in was because we skipped coffee.

The morning was cool but still about 25 degrees, but soon warmed up to mid-30s.

Most of the day was smooth flat cycle paths, a lot of it beside the river. We barely had to check we were going the right way!

We passed at lot of cyclists going the other way and they all called out ‘Bonjour’ so we were constantly Bonjouring people all day. Then we came across the non-bonjouring crowd. No matter who we bonjoured they just ignored us. They were definitely not French!

Anyway, I wrote a song as we cycled along and it’s called Bonjour. I’ll sing it for you sometime, maybe on a vlog.

We stopped at a little town for espresso and had a little break. I’m finding I’m becoming less dependent on coffee so that is good.

As we continued our cycle I spotted a magnificent chateau on our right. We took a little detour down to it and it was impressive.

A river ran alongside the chateau and we stopped on the bridge to watch a lady paddle past on her paddle board, her dog in the front trying to jump off. We stopped at the Chateau cafe and topped up on Orangina. I think my coffee addiction has been replaced with Orangina, which is a lightly carbonated orange drink. Delicious.

We had planned to stop at a campground just 30 kms away, but we got there at midday and decided to ride a further 20km to the next camp. It’s now only a 15 kms cycle ride to Tours where we will hunker down in an air conditioned hotel as it’s going to be 40 plus degrees over the next two days. Tours is supposed to be a nice city so it makes sense.

We stopped at our camp at 3.30pm and are waiting to see where the sun goes before we set up our tent as we got it completely wrong the night before.

You can follow our cycle adventure on YouTube here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAP03_iOV9QrtahRxRPBTVB9ZTNOmdizn