Armed with a family sized baguette we made a dash for it early. We had forty plus miles to cycle and would need to stop for quite a while at lunchtime because of the heat. A welcome shaded path for the first few miles on route to the medieval town of La Charite-Sur-Loire where the temperature was already a whopping 37c.
It was going to be a hot one! Even the normally basking lizards sought out shade. Shopping done and restorative jaffa cakes eaten with a determined mindset we carried on soon finding ourselves up on the levee in full sun with very few pockets of shade.
Oh no, this was a repeat of yesterday afternoon when after miles and miles of liquorice tarmac softening in the heat we finally found shelter with a man who was worried where his wife might be. Under a tree a few miles back with no intention of moving was the answer. We'd passed her a while ago. Sometime later when we felt ready to set off again she appeared. Who wears platform clogs to cycle in? Inappropriate footwear at the highest level, and she wasn't even Dutch! Our afternoon went from bad to worse. Angela made a bad call, suggesting we follow a marker sign rather than the map which resulted in us cycling on undulating roads in full sun with the temperature nudging 40c. At last back on course by the canal we both felt very unwell. Drink. Drink. Drink. By six o'clock we had somehow reached Nevers. This was our third time of staying at the campsite and it would be our last. The two female members of staff were rude and uncaring. John asked for us to be squeezed onto a pitch in the shade. No chance. We should have arrived earlier! Believe us, we'd have loved to. If we waited two hours our pitch would be on the shade as the sun would be down. We waited and a French couple decided it suited them. Tempers frayed, the French staff obviously anti English became confrontational. We'd had enough. Could we carry on with this trip what with the heat and the animosity?
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