After somehow surviving the night (4 men in one room !) where Rick like any good Real Estate Mogul had swallowed up 9/10 ths of the available space and H 9/10ths of the available fresh air, we said goodbye to our excellent hosts and headed off on a mild morning with a 26c forecast coming our way !
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| Departure time ! |
The word must have got out that we had 2 free days coming up in Malaucene as the pocket rocket (Noel) set off at an alarmingly quick speed obviously aiming to get the day over and done with before morning tea !
The plan might have worked until Noel in the lead overshot a designated "Columbus Coxhill" turning point causing me to race after Noel to bring him back. While standing on one side of the road Noel traded insults (with my help) with Rick and Kevin on the other who questioned "Vasco's" navigational skill ! Noel eventually laid down the law by saying " if anyone else wants to navigate they can go for it"!
As normal Rick ignored the threat allowing Noel to navigate us through Saint Quentin La Potterie (guess what their main industry is !) down impossibly narrow streets where anyone stepping out of their front door was likely to wipe us all out !
Through the town and with "Vasco" now calmed down we made our way to somewhere near Pouzilhac and went in search of a baguette in a small village. After taking 30 mins to find anything we succeeded when the owner of a small cafe kindly store owner offering to make us some basic ham & chese baguettes suggesting that there was little to be found down the line
Sure enough we went through some pretty isolated and arid type country landscape before taking lunch in Saint Laurent des Arbes complete with an expertly found ice cream fron a nearby cafe.
Now the traffic started to pick up as we got closer to the main roads going into and out of Avignon. Making good progress we had another unplanned stop when Henley had to make an urgent dash to an open field beside a vineyard. Without being too graphic let's just say that i'd recommend not buying any wine from the Avignon Region for a few years - Uranium has a better half life than what Henley left behind !
With the group on the go again we crossed the mighty Rhone picking up a main road or two arriving at Jonquieres where we ordered 3 Cafe Au Laits and H for the 50th time 1 Grand Creme to be finally told (he always ignores us) that they were one and the same thing !
Leaving Jonquieres we picked up a great rail trail cycling for another 5+ kms before the hardest part of the day the final 14 km climb to Malaucene.
Even from this distance the mighty Mount of Mont Ventoux and its moonscape summit (caused by deforestation from ship builders 200 years back) was clearly visible against the bright blue skyline.
Our last 10kms included some really sharp pinches with H really beginning to struggle based on the level of obscenities coming from him. Rallying in Le Barroux our final 6kms on main roads was not as steep as the previous climb with a final welcome descent in busy traffic into Malaucene - another big day with yet another 1,000 + metres of climbing !
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| Mont Ventoux in the distance ! |
Wanting to collapse into our appartment we realised that a code was required to get our key. Our initial call to the owner was not answered (only by a French recording) requiring us to grab a friendly Irish couple who's husband spoke french. The owner finally came on the line speaking English telling me that she'd sent the code to me by phone (not my current number) and by email (sent today) !!
Finally inside we raced to grab our own appartement rooms, Rick and Kev scoring palatial double bedded bedrooms, whike i scored the cupboard and Noel the kitchen area which doubled as a 4th bed if or when he could stop us all from watching TV !
With time of the essence we tracked down the nearby local supermarket to buy food for our appartment with Henley doing his road kill impersonation saying that he was too stuffed to move but could we please buy up everything in the shop !
Finally we could relax and head out to dinner and consider whether we were up for have a crack at Mont Ventoux over the next day or so
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