Aquitaine | ch3 - blog

(95km)

The first thing I noticed when I opened my eyes, was a very strong chemical type smell. Then I remembered the big paper factory I saw the day before as I was entering the town. I wanted to get away as soon as possible, but even if I was up for an early start, it was very humid during the night which meant wet tent and undried clothes. I had to wait about an hour for the sun to warm things up and let me pack my things.

Snail attack on my tent and the bike

After buying a few supplies, I headed back to the forest for another 40km on beautiful cycle tracks. The scenery was pretty much the same with yesterday. Dense pine forest and the occasional view of the sandy beaches. The only difference was the heat which today was unbearable, going up to 35.

Yet another cycle path within the forest

It was very hot at the time

At around midday, I was feeling way to hot, so I invaded a camp site to refill my bottles and throw some water on me on my face. I decided to go to the beach and look for something to eat, but out of my bad luck everything just closed. I find it a little strange that restaurants close at 2pm?

I moved on and on the way I ate all the fruits I bought in the morning plus my emergency almonds. The heat was still unbearable. I decided to leave the cycle track and go faster to the next town and about an hour later I found the relief of a pizza and a cold soft drink.

My plan was to get to Biarritz and maybe get the next day off to take the time and see the city. I passed through Hossegor which is another surfers town and look preaty cool, but I decided to make it to my destination. Unfortunatelly half way through I gave up because of the heat. I found a camp site and went straight in and kind of regreated not staying in the Hossegor, as where I am at the moment there are only a camp sites, a beach and buzzing mosquitos.

(84km)

I woke up and went up the dune one more time to admire the scenery. I find it hard to believe that I payed 7 euros for a camping in such a place, while I am certain that the one in the town of Arcachon would have been at least 12 for its useless swimming pool and petit dog hair salon.

: Up the dunes again early in the morning

I departed and almost instantly I found my self on a cycling path within the surrounding forest. I spend about 95% of todays cycling time on cycling paths, half of them within beautiful pine forests. The whole area of south west France is covered in very dense forests, so today about 50 kilometers of my trip was within them. The paths are never straight so I ended up cycling a lot more than taking the normal road, but it was well worth it. The feeling of cycling in such a vast forest for so many hours, was remarkable.

: The beginning of the cycle path

: Nice eh?

: More trees

: …in nice alignment

After some climbing of some hills I came to the next highlight of the day which was the lakes that are within these forests.They are very big and connected to the sea via canals, so they are full of boats and small resorts.

: One of the lakes

: Another lake

: Big forests means loads of wood

My day finished in Mimizan, which is yet another resort by the ocean. This one though, even if it doesn’t look old, it looks a lot cuter and looked after. I looked around for a restaurant to eat and in the end I jumped into a Greek tavern as I was graving some grilled meat. The moment I sat down and talked to the guy who was running it, I realized that he wasn’t Greek at all, so there goes my language practice for my repatriation. At least he played Zorbas once in the stereo.