View from the St.Gaudens campsite to the Pyrenees

29th July - 28 miles from Carcassonne to Castelnaudary
Woke up to find it pouring with rain. It was forecast to rain all day but at about 3pm it was fairly clear so I left, heading roughly towards Toulouse. Unfortunately, my rest day had turned my legs in to blocks of lead and I had no strength in them at all. Managed 28 miles somehow, which is good for half a day cycling and camped for only 4€ in Castelnaudary.

30th July - 36 miles from Castelnaudry to Auterive
My legs were starting to recover so I took it easy in the morning, cycling only 18 miles to Villefranche which is where I left the road to Toulouse, cutting across the valleys towards Pau. Unfortunately this meanta lot of hills so although my legs were feeling better the hills took it all out of me again and I only managed another 18 miles before camping in Auterive, almost directly south of Toulouse. Although this is possibly the cheapest campsite in France at only 3€80 (about Ł2.50) it is also one of the worst. They only seemed to have one plot left and this was covered in gravel. Not great for getting tent pegs into. Also, the whole site seemed less of a campsite and more of a trailer park. All the other pitches were permanent ones with caravans nailed to the ground and gardens carefully plotted around them. Most had satellite dishes and many had huge chimneys attached to their sides.

I had a nice dinner next to the river but getting to sleep was a problem with a road going past the campsite behind me, "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" opposite, a dinner party on one side of me and a guy who farted a lot on the other.

31st July - 54 miles from Auterive to St.Gaudens
At last my legs had fully recovered and despite some more hills in the morning I managed 29 miles on the way to Cazeres where I stopped for lunch. I was feeling so good that I stopped for only about half an hour and carried on with some fantastic views on the way as the Pyrenees came in to sight. After 25 more miles, I arrived in St. Gaudens and had some fantastic views over the valley and mountains from the campsite (which had grassy ground and was much quieter).

1st August - Rest day in St.Gaudens due to rain
Frustratingly, it was raining very heavily when I woke up and continued to rain for most of the day. So apart from a brief trip into town for food and a chat with a guy called Geoffrey who was doing some cycling touring, I stayed in my tent all day. Lying (there isn't room to sit) in a tent all day by yourself is very boring. At my lowest ebb, I was trying to work out whether France or England has the most supermarket chains because I had noticed that France has a lot of them. If you can think of any more do let me know - I'm sure I've left an obvious one or two off.

France: Leclerc, Intermarche, Spar, Lidl, Atac, Netto, Monoprix, Aldi, Casino, Leader Price, Super U, Shopi, Geant, Champion.

England: Waitrose, Sainsbury's, Tesco, Co-Op, Safeway, Asda, Morrisons, Aldi, Somerfield.

ELECTRA GLIDE IN MONO


A sleepy town with a quaint nostalgic feel from a bygone era springs into life come the summer months when hoards of tourists speaking in a myriad of foreign tongues and hailing from destinations all over this beautiful Earth invade like a plague of locusts.

The 2010 census recorded a population of 891 in La Conner, nestling in Skagit County, where you can get the best home cooked breakfast this side of the mountains, and the local Sheriff must have the quietest job for miles around. And the streets are filled with expensive automobiles and mammoth Harley Davidson Electra glides most every afternoon and evening as the dudes unwind peacefully with a cold one in the plethora of traditionally cool bars that pepper the main drag.

It's 1950 to me and those bikers look so damned cool, like James Dean or Marlon Brando himself stepping off the pegs and removing their trendy shades. Or maybe I'm in the seventies with 'Electroglide in Blue' the motion picture that first had my adolesecent flesh lusting after a motorcycle. My mind is in overdrive. Do I love the bones of this town..... I'd love to be member 892 of this population.



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Photograph taken at 15.30pm on September 2nd 2011 off 1st street and the intersection with Morris Street in La Conner, Skagit County, Washington State.


Nikon D700 230mm 1/60s f/22.0 iso200

Nikkor AF 75-300mm. UV filter. Hand held. Nikon GP-1 GPS.


LATITUDE: N 48d 23m 30.86s
LONGITUDE: W 122d 29m 45.44s
ALTITUDE: 17.0m