After finishing last night we walked down across the sandbank to have our first paddle in the Loire.
Before retiring for the night.
Had a hobbit start to the day. Breakfast of an apricot and a nectarine as we broke camp. Then 9km down the road we stopped for 2nd breakfast at St Florent le Veil.
This town was the centre of the war in Vendée in the 1700's. Still a fishing port we saw a few fishermen both on the shore and in their boats. We set off again down the Loire and noticed the agriculture had changed from mostly crops of wheat, corn and sunflowers to cattle. We could also smell the difference. We stopped another 10km on for morning tea at Liré which was a detour off the Loire a velo trail up a steep hill. Well worth the effort for the view and the cheap coffee/hot chocolate only 2.80€ for both plus €1.50 for David's chocolate eclair. The lady serving in the patisserie asked where we were from she was very surprised when I told her Australia and just as surprised when we said we were doing the whole Loire a Velo route. She was Japanese and only spoke a little English but we managed to communicate O.K.
We rode on to what was supposed to be our overnight stop at Oudon and had another great value 11€ 4 course lunch with wine and skipping the coffee. This time we knew the entree buffet was the entree so didn't eat too much. The main we had steak and frites with salad followed by cheese and a desert Buffett. David had 2 serves! We rode up to see the 14th century tower and had a rest under its walls before heading over the river and up 1km to Champtoceaux with its magnificent view over the Loire.
We had a walk through the town which was a walled medieval city and has a few of its watch towers still in place.
Excellent free wheel back down to river level and through more grazing lad and on towards where we were expecting to stay at St Simon. We ended up passing the point on our map where the campground in both St Simon and Mauves sur Loire were supposed to be so ended up doing a 20km round trip back to one we had passed in La Varenne. Put the ten up, had dinner and wrote up the blog before retiring to watch Evil Roy Slade.
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