Saturday 30 April 2011

Bike frog?


You are probably wondering why there is an image of a frog on a cycling blog. And I agree the connection is rather a tenuous one. I found it in our Liquid Amber tree this morning when I was pruning. I think it's a Motorbike Frog and we have heard them plenty of times in recent years. Their croak is like the sound a motorbike makes when changing through the gears. It's still there now, after several hours, and I hope it stays.

On a related subject, there is a view here in Australia that people should only plant native trees in order to make best use of the water and attract native birds etc., but we have had honeyeaters nesting in this tree for many years and now have resident frogs. This would not have happened with a young native tree as they offer little cover. Our peppermint tree, which is as old as the house (1935), does not get birds nesting in it unless the Boston Ivy gets a hold and they nest in the thick growth.

Anyway, I shall try and keep on topic when we get to France!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Wednesday 27 April 2011

Our route: Dordogne to Brittany

This map shows our tentative route through France as far as Brittany, where we will decide how to get to England, either by cycling along the Normandy coast and to the ferry port at the Hook of Holland, or by looping back down the west coast of France to Spain (Santander). We originally planned to purchase two Trek cycles in Australia, fly into Nice and head North but, after purchasing our bikes from a company in the Dordogne, our plans changed, particularly as we were able to get a cheap connecting flight from London to Bergerac for under 30 Euros.

Saturday 23 April 2011

Planning the trip

Hello everyone,
Julie and I are heading off to France on 22nd May and will be cycling around the country for around 4 months before heading for the UK. We will be using this blog to upload photos during the trip and comments on our travels. The bikes we will be using are Cannondale hybrids that we have purchased from a company in the Dordogne that we used last year when we cycled around the South West of France for a month. This time we will be heading East towards the Massif Central and then North to meet the Loire, which we will follow to Brittany. We would also like to watch the Tour de France pass by and so are planning to be somewhere along the route from Le Mans to Châteauroux (Stage 7 on 8 July), probably around Tours. They have not published the route, which will be available in June, so we will adjust our plans on the way. We are planning to travel light, with just one small backpack each, so we will have no checked baggage on our flights and will not be encumbered when we are touring round. My pack is a Lowe Alpine 30 litre and Julie's is 25. We used them last time and they weigh around 7kg when packed. We will be taking an iPad to upload photos from a digital camera, sections of the route which Julie has planned on Bikely and also a Garmin GPS, loaded with a detailed map of France, which proved useful last time when we were on some of the minor roads where it was easy to get lost.

The trip is now only four weeks away and we are both well into our training. This morning we attended an rpm class at the local sports centre and Julie has been going there for over a year. I have been walking to work and running home regularly and so am a bit behind her with my cycling abilities although reasonably fit, but should be fine for when we leave. We will be taking it easy at first and have some light days planned. Our flights from Australia end in Bergerac, where we stay for a couple of nights before catching a train to Le Buisson de Cadouin, where we meet Robert with the bikes. Then it's off we go!