Ride to the Garonne Canal – just to whet your appetites!

Less than three weeks to go, folks!

I had my longest ride so far this year – 132 km. Passing through Seyches (belltower/arched entrance to the village, next to the church), I arrived at the canal (La Gaulette Lock) and sought out the two B&Bs near Lagruère where we shall be staying. One was quite tricky to find, so I’m glad I made the effort. Note the diseased trees; there was hardly one that was not affected. A shame! Note also the British narrow boats – brought by low loader, I guess, unless one of them featured in the book ‘Narrow Dog to Carcassonne.’ Suspension bridge over the River Garonne, to La Réole (oldest town hall in France, built by Richard the LH) and La Réole itself on the river, reminiscent of Chateau Gontier 2 years ago. I don’t know if we’ll have time to go there – maybe the faster of us might manage a diversion! (but that lets me out!) I may have remarked somewhere else that from Arcachon to Bazas we will be riding bits of greenway which will one day be all joined up under a departmental road number, D804 (at least in the Gironde). Now I see that the Garonne Canal towpath also has a number, D809! In all, I covered 36 km of the canal – all tarmacked, of course.

And now an apology. A spreadsheet I sent out after I found those two B&Bs contains two errors. The distance from Lagruère to Agen is not 73 km as stated, but only 43 km, making Day 2 our shortest. That’s the good news! More good news is that there is no error overall, as far as I am aware. It follows, however, that there is a mistake elsewhere: in fact, Agen to Toulouse will be in the region of 109 km, not 81 km. Sorry about that, but not a huge distance to do, given the terrain and the wind (we hope!) On that subject, the wind today was blowing from the SE – we can do without that, thanks!!! (but it wasn’t strong) It was also quite hot today: 26 C was predicted and I’d guess it reached that!