Day 22 - Creon 94 kms - "Bored' -oh - No" !

There was an early morning knock at our door. With H still in his jim jams and in the middle of breakfast we opened the door to see our two partners fully kitted out and raring to go ! "Don't look at me said Noel" Rick's been up since dawn and once he's up I cant do anything about it " !

With the pressure now on Henley he put on some more toast and promptly blew the fuse for our apartment. Once power was restored we quickened our toast jam buttering process and even peeled the bananas quicker but generally did everything else at our normal Sloth like speed !

It wasn't long though before we set off from our reasonable value beachside apartments entering our customary morning ballet routine (4 bicycles going in 4 different directions) before Rick finally had his navigational device correctly calibrated !

With the drizzle finally ending, our ride to Bordeaux was a delight on a superbly surfaced rail trail where we easily kept up a 25km / hr speed.

Within no time we pulled off at St Helene at the 35 km mark finding one of the smallest Boulangeries on tour before jumping back on our trail heading back into the outskirts of Bordeaux

The arrow straight rail trail to Bordeaux 

It was here with self in front that Noel (junior cub reporter and not likely to be promoted) suggested that I rode through two consecutive red lights failing to give way to non existant cars approaching the intersection ! Noel was clearly mistaking me for someone else !

Entering Bordeaux we gave Henley a go at front and like the true champion he is he didn't let us down losing himself within 10 minutes and us following as well !

Employing an MH370 grid lattern search we finally found him up ahead having cycled on not noticing that we'd stopped conveniently ignoring Noels yells at him to stop ... ahh just like the good old days !

With Henley now relegated to the rear Rick took over for the ride through this big city dodging busy traffic, constant road repairs and roads in terrible condition !

Following Rick like our lives depended on it (and they did !) we made our way finally over the massive Garone river after first taking a break for lunch at a city park.

Bordeaux city centre

The Garone river at 602 kms long empties into the Atlantic Ocean. In the distance looking back towards Bordeaux we could make out a visiting cruise ship as well as some lovely looking buildings !

Finally having cycled out of Bordeaux we took coffee to celebrate. Over powered by the stench of people smoking at the cafe we moved on quickly but not before we'd received the adulation of a number of drinkers who could not believe that so called oldies were doing this sort of bike trip !

Henley proudly stated that he was 70 and then further impressed the guys by stepping straight out on to the road narrowly missing a bus .. "I could imagine the guys thinking that we were pretty crazy hombres" !

With Rick in control we finally moved into the countryside and joined up with the fabulous Roger Laperbie bike path. This beautiful bike path runs on an old rail line through lovely countryside and honors the 1937 TDF winner Roger Laperbie !

Yep that's exactly where we are ! 

A French intruder joins our peloton ! 

We cycled the remaining distance to Creon complaining about the 70 metres of climbing we had to do while trying to throw off a local French road cyclist who'd somehow joined on to our peloton !

Arriving at Creon we found our Hotel not yet open so settled for a nearby McDonalds for coffee and ice cream. Noel had to drag out his stake and put on his bag of onions as he crossed the McDonalds threshold given his dislike of the franchise !

While I was able to order directly from the girl behind the counter the boys tried without success to use the automated touch screen ordering service - "where's your grandchild when you need them I thought !

Finally booked in and relaxing its time to look forward to the next stage of our adventure as we head further across the beautiful Dordogne Region !

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