BrittanyBob

Definitely not a cycling day today - 20 mph northerly wind and chucking it down all day - the rain was decidedly not light!   I got wet and cold enough attaching Bob to the bike carrier on the van. This is when I realise that I couldn't do 'proper' cycle touring - the camping cyclists we saw in Poulfen carrying all their equipment will have had a miserable time, but maybe this is their idea of fun! Crossing the estuary at Brest on a high bridge wasn't going to be a good idea in the wind so we drove the long way round, not exactly in a rush to get to the next soggy campsite. We decided to drive down to the Crozon peninsula   which sticks out into the Atlantic (a great idea in this weather). I'm hoping it should be fabulous to cycle around tomorrow when the rain finally stops - the forecast is still windy but sunny woohoo  

An early start this morning to allegedly beat the storms - 15 mins later I was soaked! The scenery was lovely again with fields of artichokes, lettuces and onions in perfect straight lines.   I stayed dryish for a while but Madame Moo and I both knew what was coming.. Today's undulating ride involved 46 hard, soggy miles into a delightful headwind. I'm rather knackered after 4 days of cycling into a westerly headwind. The good news is we are now at the westernmost point and in theory I should have a tailwind from now on... The bad news is the weather forecast is horrible for tonight and tomorrow, so I'm currently sitting in a warm van eating my way through everything I can find and creating a cunning plan. This evening's view is rather less attractive than yesterday   I braved a brief walk, it's beautiful but somewhat bracing!    

It well and truly chucked it down last night so everything was decidedly damp this morning, oh the joys of camping! I eventually got going on the bike after a very leisurely breakfast and immediately had a very soggy bottom. I did a hilly detour to visit the prehistoric Cairn du Barnenez, dating back to 4500BC and one of the oldest monuments in the world. I puffed my way up to the entrance, asked for a ticket and was told by a typically officious Madame that the last ticket is sold at 12.00 and her ticket machine said it was 12.05. This is why the photo is from a field at the back of the monument...   I then pedalled off in the direction of Morlaix, going over, round and next to numerous bays, estuaries, rivers and ports - all rather lovely if a bit grey today     Bob finally got to model a patisserie - this is an almond croissant with an estimated, very yummy 10 million calories   After 45 rather lumpy and headwindy miles, I arrived at another stunning campsite and ...

Unfortunately the rain well and truly arrived and we woke to the delightful sound of it hammering on the van roof. After a very late breakfast, I decided to put my big girl pants on and get on with it. Grumpy Hubby says my brain has completely switched off and that might explain why I thought bib shorts were a good idea today. Trying to reattach a fastening under a soaking wet jersey and rain jacket after a pee stop just wasn't going to happen, so I sported a soggy tail for the rest of the ride. The rain stopped after about an hour but the descents were still rather treacherous which ruined the undulations fun a bit. 53.4 soggy, peaceful and surprisingly enjoyable miles today.   The ride went through lots of pretty villages, each of which had a beautiful church. The iPhone was a bit damp and sulky but I managed some photos despite the conditions.       This church had a photographic exhibition: Tonight's campsite is right on the beach so rather a ...

Apparently the Garmin thought it was time I did a long ride and took me 73.4 undulating, rural miles i.e. through the middle of beautiful nowhere   At the start it told me I would be doing 38 miles so obviously expects a crow to be involved - I may need to have a look at the settings (although I quite like the randomness!) The view for the day was mostly this:   It was so middle of nowhere that I didn't find an open patisserie and had to rely on cereal bars - boo. Fortunately the support crew found his happy place, a French supermarket, so this was my reward when I got to the campsite  Binic is a beautiful place and the sun has finally appeared, fortunately no sign of the expected yucky weather yet    

Rusty was decidedly unconvinced about a long sea crossing, but fortunately the sea behaved itself and we arrived relatively bright eyed and bushy tailed in beautiful St Malo at 8am. There was no sign of life anywhere so we decided to head to the campsite and hope they would let us in. Fortunately they did and even better, breakfast was on offer.   It's always a concern whether somewhere that you have such fond memories of will live up to expectations. We came to Dinard when the girlies were babies and had lovely holidays building sand castles, playing football on the beach and introducing them to yummy fish. I'm very happy to say that this place is still as special as it was then.     We walked around the cliff path where we used to precariously push a pushchair, Rusty clinging onto the rocks and refusing to look down.   Obviously the reward was a beer, followed by a long fishy lunch.   I had a strong urge to build a sandcastle but instead will now be playing wi...

Bob the bike is off on his travels again, this time a circumnavigation of Brittany via patisseries and poissoneries. The cunning plan is becoming increasingly unplanned as the support crew and I become increasingly relaxed about making it up as we go along, allegedly. The support crew is threatening to not tell me the location of the campsite destination which, given the technological ineptitude of the support crew, could be problematic. This is the vague plan but liable to be changed according to weather conditions, campsites and seafood munching.   The fabulous frogsters have put together cycling routes all around Brittany so I'm hoping my Garmin will find them.   The tree trunks are trained and tanned after the June heatwave but looking at the weather forecast, they may have to get used to battling into a soggy headwind woohoo. The journey starts with a pootle in the van down to Portsmouth, a rather long overnight ferry crossing to St Malo, then a croissant bingefe...