One Life ...

We are now staying with friends. One lives one side of the Rhone in the Ardeche and the other on the other side, in the Drome Region. We had originally planned to visit for a few days, however, due to the weather we have been here over 2 weeks! The day we arrived we had blue skies and sunshine, which lasted the first day! Since then we have had a lot of rain, thunder, lightning and hail. Our friends have very kindly said we can stay as long as we like. We have spent some time mending broken things eg. the bike repair kit bag, which virtually disintegrated and the sleeping mat, which we have now accepted cannot be fixed easily! We went to the Salon des Vin de France for a wine tasting event and tasted many wines from around France - some good, some not to our taste and not worth the high price. One sunny day we explored Valence. There are some very pretty parks and lots of historical buildings. We saw the Maison de Tete and a house where Napoleon used to live. We wandered the

THE ROUTE From Nevers we followed the Loire down to Decize. At the first little town a man on a barge was trying to lift a very heavy canopy on his boat. Darryl went to help and in return the man lent us his stand pump, as the little pump we have did not seem man enough to pump up our tyres. All tyres fully inflated we continued on our way. We found a supermarket with a large cycle parts section and purchased another pump. Hopefully this one will help inflate our tyres when needed! At Decize we had a decision to make. Do we go left or right? Both routes would end in the same place. We decided to turn right as this route followed the Canal Lateral A La Loire. The canal paths are very beautiful, tree lined with lovely little villages along the way with good places to camp and pick up food supplies. In the pretty little village of Gannay Sur Loire, having just enjoyed our picnic lunch, we noticed yet another puncture! Wheel off, tyre off and we found a thorn in the tyre! New inne