Day Eighteen - Le Teich

I felt very strong throughout the day and hit 100km. Unfortunately it then took another 30km to find a decent spot to wildcamp.

Day Seventeen - Vendays-Montalivet

Not much to report today. It started wth riding through marshland and then a couple of beach towns and pine forest.

I then caught a ferry and rode through 25km of more pine forest. I got turned away from my chosen campsite so I decided to go wild.

I had dinner at the beach and watched the sunset. I then rode a couple of km and entered the forest. Took a couple of turns and then pitched up the tent.

Night all.

Day Sixteen - Saint-Agnant

I was hoping to do a sem-relaxig 80km today but was, unfortunately, turned away from the full campsite at Rochefort and had to do an additional 17km to one further south.

Rochefort did seem very impressive based on the elements that I did see. I was looking forward to spendng the evening visiting the center but it wasn''t to be.

Instead I have a small farm campsite which is perfectly fine. They even got the tractor out and cut the grass for me. And I had a nice long chat with a fellow cycletourer from Germany who is going in the same direction as me.

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/23774

Day Fourteen - Bourgenay

Today we have the mystery of 'the missing pair of socks'. I have looked up and down but I can't find my missing second pair of spotty socks.

I am sure, as can be, that when I was sorting my washing last night I thought I would wash one pair of them, as I hadn't worn the other.

Fine, but where the hell are they now??

Maybe they got stolen by someone in the middle of the night whose has a sock fettish? That seems the mostly likely occurence.

I did about 30km of fine riding on great tracks through the pine forest. Went on for ever.

Wasted an hour trying to find a particular scruffy looking campsite called Moreaux. Had to give up in the end and move on. Supposed to have been a little island of calm and once owned by a doctor. Mystery.

Day Thirteen - Notre-Dame-de-Monts

A tough day - I had a bit of a mental breakdown. The milk I bought yesterday ended the day upturned and soaked a lot of things in my pannier. There was a large milky pool in the bottom.

I felt pretty crushed at discovering this. I had double-bagged the milk and, for example, double bagged my powerbank. But it got soaked anyway.

On arrival at this great municipal campsite in a large pine forest I spent a lot of time wiping and washing trying to clear up the mess.

One saving grace is that my sleeping bag was in the other pannier. This is my brand new expensive down bag and would have had to be thrown away. Phew.

So, learnings - Try even harder than ever to be careful with milk, never ever put it in the same side as sleeping bag.

I won't detail the saga of the dropped poncho that cost me 5km to recover - and don't ask me to explain further either!