4th September (drizzle at first then sunny and hot) 35 km

Awake at 7.30am, despite our late night.  Got last night’s blog done while we had good wifi and Jimmy joined us for breakfast at 8.30am.  Ate the last of our food and packed up all our belongings.  There’s always something sad about leaving a place – but also exciting, not to mention a little nerve wracking.  Making sure you don’t forget anything, ensuring you’re on time to catch your plane, bus, or in our case, train.

I’d booked our hotel because it was conveniently situated across from the train station we were leaving from.  So first thing was to see if our bikes were still there.  We pushed the intercom button on the garage door and happily, somebody answered and let us in to claim our bikes.  Nobody came down so we couldn’t thank anybody, but we were extremely grateful for this kindness shown to us as big cities can seem very hostile and anonymous.  It made things so much more convenient for us, not to mention, cheaper.

We like to think we paid this kindness forward when we saw a young French girl, sitting on her suitcase outside the train station and gave her our four remaining Metro tickets that we never got a chance to use.  She was very happy to take them off our hands before we wheeled our bikes into the station, bought our tickets for Orleans and then sat in the waiting room for an hour, writing the blog and having a chat.

At 11.40 we went and boarded the train after checking which carriage the bikes should go on (which was adjacent to the 1^st class carriage) and where we should sit (not in the first class carriage), so we chose the next one along.  We had to remove all the luggage from the bikes and tip them on their back wheels to fit them in the luggage area and we were a little worried that when the train stopped at Orleans, we might not get enough time to jump out of our carriage, race down to 1^st class and grab all the bikes and the luggage before the train departed again.  However, the kindly gentlemen who showed us where to stow the bikes, was also the ticket collector and asked us what stop we were getting off at so that he could inform the driver. 

We were very pleased with our second class carriage as it was divided into private compartments of eight seats each and we had an entire compartment to ourselves.  The seats were also extremely comfortable and we all nodded off for a time.  Pete decided to use the loo and Jimmy and I cracked up as he waltzed past our compartment on his way back and went to go in the next one.  Jimmy went to the loo next and of course it was then the train arrived at Orleans!  We were slightly panicked but luckily he was out in time and we all hotfooted it down to get the bikes.  Got them off very efficiently I thought, but noticed they were just waiting for us when we turned around and signalled they were good to go.

When we left Paris, it had been making a very poor effort at trying to rain.  Now the cloud was gone and the sun was out in full force and we were faced with a 3km walk into town seeing as Jimmy didn’t have a bike yet.  We started off with Jimmy balancing his bag on top of my bike, but it was so hot we realised this was madness.  Orleans has some very modern looking trams that were coming past the train station on a regular basis so we decided to buy Jimmy a ticket for the tram and arranged to meet at the tram stop in town.  Made sure the phones all worked before we gave him his ticket and set off for town.

The city of Orleans - on the right you can
see one of their sleek golden trams.

We followed the tram tracks and kept pace with the tram pretty much the whole way, sometimes overtaking it and sometimes it overtaking us.  So we arrived at the pre-determined stop the same time as Jimmy and waited for him to get off.  However, he was sitting in the middle of the compartment and the tram by now was packed and with his two bags, he didn’t have a hope of getting out of the tram during the ten seconds that the doors were open.  So the doors shut again and the tram rolled away with Jimmy stuck inside.  I had visions of Pete and me chasing that tram all over the countryside but fortunately it was just across the Loire river until it reached it’s next stop and Jimmy was able to get off.

For all of us it all meant a longer trek in the sun to the bike shop.  It was now 27C so when we got into town, we were grateful for any shade the tall old buildings offered us.

Pete here: So back over the bridge that we’d high-tailed it over chasing Dad, this time, on foot, with the sun by now very hot. Into Orleans, which seemed very quaint, but we had no time by now as the day was rapidly pushing on and we needed to get this bike hired. Julia was having a few problems locating the place, but finally we found it down a small side street….and it was closed. A notice on the door however read that they would be back at 3.30pm, it was now, 2.45pm so lunch was in order. Just around the corner was a kebab joint and 17 euros fed and watered us and it was just the job. Some young guys seeing that there weren’t enough seats at our table, gave up theirs to move to another table so we could sit together. 

Jimmy tries out a rental bike for size

 At 3.30pm on the dot, full as a bull, we meandered to the cycle shop and met Tom, who was English, not French and who has been living in Orleans for a year with his girlfriend and working at the cycle shop for six months. He was a nice guy and between us we set Dad up with a step through bike. There was no way he could use a high bar bike with panniers. Dad at eighty five is amazing, but after riding with him for the last year, all that gear on the bike would totally upset his balance, as it was Ju and I were very worried if he would manage this bike.  On one of the trial runs without any panniers, Dad returned with blood running down his shin after cornering too sharply and falling onto the cobbles.  But he was determined to do this.

Ready to go!

The time came for us to hit the road and after faffing about looking for a supermarket for, what seemed like forever, we hit the Loire Valley trail. Now fully loaded on his bike, after transferring all his gear out of two carrier bags, Dad hit the road. The first part out of Orleans was alongside the road on your own cycle path, then as you head into the country you are using lanes only frequented by home owners, until for the final twenty kms, we were riding on dykes through farmland and alongside this beautiful flowing river.

Dad was coming to terms with the whole, new bike, fully laden, foreign roads, riding on the wrong side thing, really well. There were a couple of instances when we had to cross bridges with other motorists and I know he was extremely nervous, but he did so well. At 8pm, we rolled into a campground at Beaugency. Set up both tents, by which time Dad was absolutely shagged and without a drink or anything to eat, he climbed inside his tent and that’s the last we saw of him for the day. Ju and I ate something with a cup of coffee before pulling up the covers on a tiring day for us all. Dad did very well today and I can understand why he’s so tired tonight. He had enough new experiences in one day to last most people a year….so well done Dad, day one out of the way.

Doing well......

Nice flat surfaces, hardly any traffic - a cyclist's dream

Ju points out the campground across the river - Jimmy wonders when he'll get a cup of tea!  Admittedly, 30km on
the first day was a bit much.