Wednesday July 13, 2022, 60 km (37 miles) – Total so far: 1,367 km (849 miles)

It was a stunning day cycling through a gorge with a river running through it, hills looming on either side. It’s starting to feel like Switzerland with the scenery and chalet style houses. We even heard cows with bells! Switzerland is about 40 kms to our right and if we keep up our Current pace of 60kms per day we should be in Basel in a couple of days.

We stopped at a town called Besançon for lunch. We were going to look around the town but both felt really claustrophobic. It didn’t help that we had to push our bikes through road works with jack hammers hammering away. But we found a small shop and grabbed a couple of salads and ate them by the river.

I suggested staying in the town, but the weather has been so nice for cycling we’re keen to keep moving.

What we saw of the town was impressive with a citadel high on the hill. All I could think was, I hope we don’t have to cycle up there. Thankfully we didn’t as there was a long tunnel leading us out of town.

We arrived at the town of Baume-les-Dames where there is supposed to be camping according to our Cycle route map, but it was not showing up on either Google or the Garmin. When we got to the turn off where the camping was supposed to be and studied our maps, Google and the Garmin. There weren’t any camping signs pointing us off, so we figured it must no longer be there. Our maps are quite old and we’ve had it before where the campgrounds no longer exist.

No problem we thought, there are a couple of hotels in town. I navigated us to a chamber d’ote nearby but they were full. So I found a hotel only 1.2 kms away so we navigated to that. But the maps didn’t mention the giant hill we had to climb to get there!

It was 5pm, we were hot and tired, neither of us able to make a decision. So we thought our only option was to push our bike up this steep hill to the hotel. It could easily have been in Wellington, it was such hard work. Walk a few steps, stop, breathe, repeat. We cursed our way up the hill, eventually reaching the top before realising we had to go down again!

We took it easy on the downhill, both exhausted by this stage. We found the hotel but the front doors were locked. I found the chef in the restaurant at the back as asked if he had a room.

‘Oui,’ he said and we both collapsed in relief on the seats of the outdoor restaurant.

Five minutes later he came out and said, ‘sorry we are full.’ Our euphoria deflated like a balloon, wondering what we do know.

‘Are there any more hotels?’ Mike asked.

‘There is one, 6 kms up this road. Want me to call for you?’

We looked at the main road leading up a steep hill, trucks barrelling past and thought there is no way in hell we’d be riding up there in the state we were in. I decided to ask if there was camping, knowing there wasn’t but trying my luck.

‘Oui, just 2 kms from here.’

He showed us on a map and it’s in the same place as our map. So why the heck does Google not know about it! Geez, it knows what time I go to the toilet in the morning, surely it would know where the campgrounds are!

Both feeling relieved but very annoyed, we followed the main road back down to the river thankful that we didn’t have to go back up that steep hill. It was 7pm by the time we found the campsite and after a shower we felt much better.

This town had a decent supermarket but we were too tired to stop and shop so we cooked macaroni with a poivre sauce and dipped our baguette in it . It was actually really nice.

You can follow our journey on YouTube here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAP03_iOV9QrtahRxRPBTVB9ZTNOmdiznv