by Yesterday evening I decided to stay here for the day. I woke with first sunlight this morning, the airbed I brought with me was incredibly comfortable if only about 10cm too short, so feeling totally rejuvenated I set about making coffee on the stove, thus came the first set-back, my incredibly ancient gas stove head refused to mate cleanly with my gas bottle thus the whole lot escaped over several minutes without any possibility to light it safely thus NO COFFEE. CRISIS! OK, I thought, let´s just hit the shower block, had a shower, cleaned up a bit and got back to the tent. Seized by an attack of activity I decided to saddle up and rolled off on the bike with light kit. I headed towards a view-point not too far away to have a look at where I am. Riding without all the stuff was a joy and needed getting used to, all the wallow was gone and needed to adjust the turn-in points accordingly but still, very fun roads here.
After looking at the view for a while I came back down to Ruoms (the local village near my tent), basically, Ruoms and Vallon are a bit like Moab in Utah as are small places totally dedicated to outdoor sports and activities. I parked at the post office in Ruoms and had a walkabout. The main drag is all cafes, touristy clothes shops with various food shops, actually quite fun to wander down, I went off the main drag and had a look at the old historical centre which was still totally asleep.
So, here I finally found a small cafe in a converted petrol station (I suppose) and had a cafe au lait with croissant and pain au chocolat. Marvellous. After that I headed back to the site and vegged out under the sunshadow, it was hot and the afternoon disappeared. So tomorrow I need to find a gas stove somewhere (Super U I suppose) en route. After the hassle yesterday with the routes on the navigator I have decided to set the navigator with end-point, one waypoint on the way and set to curvy roads and see what happens. The aim is to get to Conques which is the beginning of the area of south-west France known as Midi-Pyrenee so I shall be in the area. There is a huge temptation to go via Roquefort and just eat cheese for a day, after Conques I shall head towards the Pyrenees and Beaudean so plenty to see and do.
As an add-on to yesterday’s brief musings about self-introspection I should of course mention that writing is also a good way to do it and is, in some ways, the hybrid of yourself and maybe others.
So, am looking forward to tomorrow, will report in the afternoon/evening, I need to break camp tomorrow morning and somehow get it all on the bike again.
