125km of 2689km so far…

As I was leaving Saint Giles from the south side, I realized there was a factory behind the nice village. That was just a small sample of what I was about see during the day.

Heading south-east, I took a smaller road which looked a little more interesting on the map. Indeed it was a good choice, as for about a couple of hours I was cycling next to the natural reserve of Vaccares. It hosts many different type if birds, fishes as well as many other animals. Because of the numerous ponds around the area, I had to cycle with the mouth closed. Every now and then I would go through a cloud of bugs and about a dozen of them would be stuck on my cloths. Other than that, I really enjoyed that part of the ride, as the road was very quite and the surroundings very beautiful.

I had a 60cm sandwich for lunch in Salin De Giraud, where I didn’t find anything interesting to photograph, apart from the welcoming sign which said that it is a sister town with the Greek island Kalymnos.

After lunch, the scenery changed dramaticly. The natural reserve was replaced by big factories, refineries and ship yards. That’s what I was seeing around me for the next 4 hours, but at least there were not any big tracks and lorries overtaking me.

I got to Port de Bouc at around 4pm and as the city had a camp site, I was thinking whether to stay or move on. As I was going around the city looking for an ice cream, I realized I was still within an industrial zone. The tourist office was closed and even if I was uncertain if the next towns had camp sites, I decided to risk it and get out of this cancerous place.

Looking the three towns on the map, the first one was the smallest and the most isolated on the west. As I had to go up and down many hills to get there and I was getting a little tired, I decided to skip the first one and go straight to the two bigger ones that are merged together. When I got there a guy in a shop told me there is indeed a camping, but unfortunately when I got there they told me it was only for caravans and the tent camping was in the first town I skipped. Very dissapointed, I had to do the last 10km again, before I could pitch my tent and cook something to eat.