Tuesday 20 July 2010

Day 6: Barbezieux to St Foy

Another long day finds us near St Foy in the Bergerac region. At lunch, after a steep forest climb, Mike claims to be king of the mountains, which led to feverish mechanical adjustments by James to sort out his slipping gears and chain. Mike and Jeff went swimming in a lake, popular with locals as an alternative beach resort. Poor James swims out to the other side of the lake after reports from Mike and Jeff that there is a nudist section beyond the pedalo's. On returning, James, who doesn't even like swimming, uses a word very similar to 'Bustards'. Jeff claims a disputed King of the Mountains climb after Mike gets off to walk with James whose chain is still slipping. Jeff rubs it in by attempting to record the uphill trudge of the old comrades on his blackberry, but the blogability of the clip is ruined by a tirade of highly personal/offensive/funny language from Mike and James.

On the way to the campsite we were finally attacked by a rabid dog, which Jeff dodged, left James to hit with his pump and Mike to stare down and kick. jeff has been traumatised by a dog attack in his youth, which every dog in France brings back by charging at us along the length of their gardens and chains. At one point we're climbing uphill and see a rhodesian ridgeback going nuts inside its fence and as we approach the gate...it's wide open. We all try a Mark Cavendish sprint uphill but the dog has a tag which gives it an electric shock if it tries to get past the entrance. Big relief all round.

We also visited a cave where we bought, after much debate, a bottle of fine wine for £3.

We finally arrived at the campsite at seven pm, and being unable to face Jeff's beanfeast, tried out campsite frites, fish, steak, apple pie and of course water.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device