18th September (sunny and hot) 12 km

Last night was positively tropical compared to the night before – it’s amazing how you can get such vast contrasts.  Consequently, despite the hard, bumpy ground, Jimmy slept well in his last night in the tent.  Other than having to get up to go to the loo, getting disoriented and tripping over someone’s guy rope that is.

It’s taking a while to get light now too and when I got up at 7am, it was still pretty dark.  I went to the communal lounge to post yesterday’s blog and while I was working in the gloom, I saw a small movement on the floor.  I thought it was a mouse, but when I shone my phone on it, saw it was in fact a speckled frog and instead of leaping, he was moving his back legs independently of each other in a rather ungraceful crawl.  Unfortunately my phone camera wasn’t up to the task of photographing him and I only have a very grainy image.

Back to the tent and Pete went off to the supermarket while I made a cup of tea.  When he returned, we noticed next door’s camping couple dismantling their tent – well, rather she dismantled it while he strutted around talking to his support crew.  The same thing went on when they pulled in last night – him talking to anyone who would listen, while she put the tent up on her own.  They seemed to have two guys in a car with them who brought a big chilly bin of food.  Although why they needed a support crew when they had everything but the kitchen sink on their bikes is beyond me.

So that was the entertainment over breakfast.  We were the last to leave the cyclists enclosure as we couldn’t book into our air bnb until 2pm and we only had 12 km to go.  So we had a cruisy ride along the Loire, past a big gypsy camp as we entered what appeared to be the seedier end of town.  Big ugly apartment blocks dotted the landscape but we were just grateful for a well defined cycle path with little traffic interfering with our passage.  

Well it mat have taken 457 years to finish it, but it was worth the effort.

It got a bit trickier as we neared the centre of town and then we decided to divert to go and look at the cathedral we could see gleaming in the sunlight not too far away.  It is partly built of some kind of white stone but it’s a real shame the impact of this was lost by other buildings being built too close to it, trees being planted at one end and a huge amusement park hiding another side.  Seriously guys, what are you thinking?

The Chateau des ducs de Bretagne in the centre of Nantes

Wasn't sure who we could trust with my phone, so time for the selfie stick again.

There was free entry into the chateau grounds which we took full advantage of

The square outside the front of the cathedral was surrounded by lovely old apartments.

These chateau walls mean business!

This was definitely the more attractive side of town however and we happily killed an hour here until it was time to ride to the air bnb.  On the way however, we literally rode into the middle of some sort of refugee camp.  No idea where these people were from, definitely an African country, perhaps Somalia or Nigeria.  Tent after tent crammed together in a space between two car parking lots with lots of groups of people loitering about and litter everywhere.  Wow, what an eye opener.  Got out of there toute sweet and headed on to the air bnb.

Jimmy waves goodbye to us on our way to
the supermarket.  I am on the footpath out
front - no front gardens here!

Well a picture paints a thousand words as the saying goes, but in this case, the pictures they had on the air bnb website, hid a thousand words.  It was very basic, but then what can you expect for $70 a night.  Not really the salubrious end to Jimmy’s tour we should have planned.  Never mind, we just had to remind ourselves it was better than a tent.

Pete and I cycled to the nearby supermarket where he stayed outside to watch the bikes due to the dodgy characters hanging around outside.  Cycled back with our booty (ten croissants for $3.80NZ), ate lunch and then I cycled Jimmy’s bike back to the hire shop while Jimmy and Pete caught a tram down to the centre of town.  We all met by the castle and then arranged to meet Elizabeth and Phillip as their royal highnesses had just arrived in town, and where else would you arrange to meet?  Actually, this was Pete’s cousin and her boyfriend who accompanied us on our first short leg of this journey into Chester.  They had spontaneously decided to do a bit of cycle touring themselves so we met up and wandered round looking for a place to have dinner.

Decided on a crepe restaurant which was very small and intimate and friendly.  Delicious food and it was a lovely end to this part of the tour.

Pete  here: So, tomorrow we have to get Dad down to the train station in town on a tram, whilst we ride down there, fully laden, then hopefully manage to get him a ticket to Olten, in Switzerland, via Paris. All sounds easy, except that the ticket office was closed today…why would you do that ?….so consequently, it could be packed tomorrow. Dad has to be on the 11.20am train to get the connections all the way through. Keeping fingers crossed.

Jimmy bids his hire bike farewell - all is forgiven now as at
least it got him to the end.  And it did have a really good seat.

Ju and I have definitely decided that the bigger cities are not for us, but then, we knew that thirty years ago. The tram ride home was interesting. Our carriage was divided into two groups…white and black. Definite lines drawn. Couldn’t get over the amount of drunk guys on the tram at 9.00pm. Not just drunk, but still drinking from cans and quite intimidating. The walk from our stop was fine and soon we were at the apartment (and I use the term very loosely) packing for tomorrow and a new adventure for us all.

Dad, you have done so well. You gave me nightmares most nights, recalling the day’s ride, but you handled the tour wonderfully well and I couldn’t be prouder. You have a great, safe visit to Switzerland and the next time we see you will be in Barcelona. Our tour of the Loire is finished. Now we head south-west to pick up the coast and maybe some swimming. Not sure about camp sites, but we’ll wait and see.