WOW - we hit the Canal des 2 Mers, Autumn, and 4000km. We are SUPREME LEGENDS!

Right Sportsfans, settle in.  It's been an amazing 11 days since we last posted, and today you have me (Serena) to yourselves, and I'm chilled here in Bordeaux writing to you with my new haircut and all the washing hanging around the room drying because we're on 2 full rest days - YEAH BABY! 

You can see the first pic posted there above, and it's all I can do to say WOW.  WOW. WOW. WOW.  We've hit Autumn.  And it is glorious.  Most of the riding we've done since we left Carcassonne has been on canals, and this is what most of that riding has looked like.  I don't know how to describe it to you, all I can say is that every now and then I was so moved by how beautiful it was I had to stop my bike, breathe it in, and now and then cry a little.  It was really really something.  And because it's now cold and a bit wet, there were hardly any other cyclists around so most of the time we had all of this to ourselves.  Just WOW.

The other big news is WE HIT 4000KM!!  Yep, we are AWESOME.  In fact, now we're lying back congratulating ourselves and speaking truth, we're closer to 4200km.  I can't believe it.  And here is a map to help you understand the journey...

All the blue icons are our trip since we started back in France two months ago, in Strasbourg.

And here's what it looks like since we began - the blue icons are our whole trip so far, starting in Lille to our current location of Bordeaux (but don't forget we trained through the Baltics, Poland, and Germany - we're not THAT awesome).

So, how are we doing?  We're doing pretty great.  We've eased up a bit on the daily kms because it's cold and been a bit rainy almost every day (but not rainy enough to not ride), and daylight hours aren't what they used to be, so we've been taking our time, and enjoying the riding (most of the time, when it wasn't blowing a bloody gale like the day we left Toulouse), the atmosphere, and of course the gorgeousness of it all.  We're no longer camping - it's too cold, and all the camp grounds are pretty much shut now, so we've been staying in good value hotels and Airbnbs, and we've discovered that with Autumn comes bargain prices, so sometimes we're paying less in wonderfully huge apartments with full kitchens and Netflix than we did in campgrounds in summer!  Woohoo!  This has allowed us to keep really warm and cosy, and nurture ourselves overnight so we can jump on the bikes all rugged up ready to go for another day. We are hoping though that over the next few weeks as we head south again, things might warm up a little like they were when we were in Provence.  Fingers crossed.

We also continue our love affair with the food.  Someone asked us if we only eat pastries, and of course the answer is YES.  Only kidding.  Sort of.  No, really, just kidding.  We're cooking a lot for ourselves now in the apartments, and it's been great.  We've also noticed a lot more asian food available down south so we've been enjoying that too (geez we miss good Thai food), but let's be honest, all that food is pretty boring to take pics of, while the pastries are just so fun to photograph, and they're what I want to remember, so there's more for you today. And to be frank, the French are GODS OF PASTRIES.

So, let's get to it.  This is what we've been up to since we last left you in Carcassonne....

Carcassonne to Castelnaudry - 45km

We said goodbye to the glorious castle, and our cute little apartment, and headed off, hoping it wasn't going to rain on us.  It did.  So, we found ourselves a cute little restaurant in a cute little village (of about 20 people who were all in the cute little restaurant), and had hand cut chips and a Tarte Tartin (though not technically a real one, but a DELICIOUS version nevertheless).  We continued on our merry way on pretty average rough and rocky bike paths along the Canal du Midi, what started as a pretty terrible ride ended up being so pretty but and hand-jarringly rocky.  We found our apartment of the night in the most magical of streets (even though the town itself wasn't so, well, magical).

Leaving on the bridge and waving goodbye to the castle

Our little saviour of a cute little restaurant in a cute little town

Tarte Tatin (well, a reimagining of one anyway - it was YUMMMM)

Our path after our snack lunch

Magical accommodation street.

Castelnaudry to Toulouse - 2km

Haha, it's really 65km, but it was raining, the path was CRAP, and we didn't want to spend a rest day in Castelnaudry so we took the train to Toulouse!  It was brilliant.  So pretty on the train, we ran into an Aussie at the train station (our first one in the whole trip so far), and then we rode 2km to our accommodation.  We booked a quirky hotel in a uni campus, just out of the old town of Toulouse but in all the cool, hip action.  It was fantastic, so good in fact we went straight down to reception and booked another night!  REST DAY!!!  We LOVED Toulouse - a youthful vibe, a beautiful old town with so much action and great food, everything was easy to walk to, Mike went to visit the AirBus plane museum while I went and checked out the Couvent Jacobins (the convent of the Jacobins), which was really beautiful, and I got lost in the spirit and beauty of the old convent and church.  Peacefully beautiful.  We wandered the city and noticed lots of coffee houses and tea houses, which you don't usually see in France, and when we asked one of the baristas about it, he said that they've been popping up over the last 15 years in the city - so we had coffee and banana bread one morning for breakfast, and it was so good, it made me a little nostalgic for home.

We knew Toulouse was cool as soon as we cycled past this on the way in...

Just a gorgeous city

Mike fulfilled his dream to see and walk through a Concord

While I sought a more reverent experience at the Couvent Jacobins

Toulouse to Montech - 49km

So, we packed ourselves up and, sadly, left Toulouse.  We were excited to see blue sky again, but were a little edgy about the wind that we'd woken up to, but were super excited to hit the road because after weeks of rocky gravelly canal bike paths, we knew we were hitting good quality sealed paths along the Canal de la Garonne which we'd now be following.  It turns out, we had good reason to be edgy about the wind.  BLOODY NORAH.  It was like a freaking cyclone - we had rain, we had wind gusts of 85km, we had trees blown down on our path, both my face and my jumper got gouged by a whipping blackberry branch, and Mike got bitten by some kind of flying beetle that blew his way.  It was just crazy, so crazy the five or six people we passed the whole day yelled out to us "bon courage", which means "good luck with something difficult"!  We took our time, and a few stops for rain, and we made it our cuter-than-cute room for the night atop a Montech family's home in the cutest village where we had whacky Thai food in the local Asian restaurant, and a wonderful brekkie spread the next morning.  God bless croissants.

Leaving our wonderful hotel in Toulouse ready for brilliant bike path (and terrible weather)

Gorgeous, even in the shit weather

We made it to Montech and this is across the street from our accommodation - so gorgeous

The view from our window...

Brekkie

Montech to Valence d'Agen - 41km

We woke up to no wind - woohooo!!  We still had some rain, but we had wonderfully smooth bike path and no projectiles, branches, or bugs being blown into our faces, legs, or bodies so you've got to be pretty happy about that.  Instead we crunched over millions of acorns, the leaves that were starting to fall, and still, the odd walnut, and followed the canal merrily.  One very cool thing about this day was we followed the canal over a river - yep, a bridge was built to house the canal over a big river - and we walked our bikes across as we looked in awe at a piece of engineering over 200 years old.  Wow. After the bridge we stopped in a little village for a snack (meaning pastry), and decided to wander around for a bit to wait for the sprinkling rain to stop, and we turned a corner and just gawked at what was in front of us - some 1000 year old church just sitting there next to cafes and little shops.  We were both gobsmacked.  We are continually flabbergasted by what you find around a corner in Europe.  After an exploration of the church, the rain had eased so off we went again, slowly but surely, with a baguette in our food bag, and on the lookout for a good place to stop for a spot of late lunch. We found it.  And then it started raining again.  But it takes more than a bit of rain to put Aussies off their lunch!  So after our cross cultural repast of baguette and Vegemite, we found our way to our little apartment for the night in another little town called Valence d'Agen.

Amazing canal running over a river.  Bloody fantastic.

Glorious riding. Autumn colours are appearing.

The cute village we stopped in for our snack...

and this incredible site...

And the day was topped of with a late cross-cultural lunch, by the canal and river, go Mike!

Heading into Valance d'Agen

The view from the front of our apartment

Valence d'Agen to Agen - 29km

This is where the Autumn colours really started to shine.  We were starting to head further north now, so the leaves were really falling, and the canals became truly magical.  We left Valence d'Agen via the local market square and had a wonderfully easy, though very chilly, ride to Agen where we found the quirkiest hotel with a huge room, a great brekkie, and so much warmth from the gal who worked there.

Leaving Valence

Break time on the road, and a FABULOUS french chocolate chip cookie we'd bought at the boulangerie next to our apartment in Valence.  Yum Yum.

Our cute hotel in Agen.

Agen to Damazan - 29km

It was cold.  It was beautiful.  What a day on a bike.  So much beauty around, and I'm not just talking about Mike. This is the kind of day bikes are made for.  So much richness of colour, so much texture, leaves floating around us as we rode, the quiet of the canal, nobody but us.  Pure magic.  And being Sunday, we were lucky to find a local pizza place open at lunch time and had one of the simplest yummiest pizzas we've ever had in France.  And great conversation with a local.  Aaaahhh cycling.  We found our way to our hotel-by-the-freeway (the only hotel in Damazan) for a warm bed and two minute noodles and salad for dinner (it was Sunday).

Another canal on a bridge over a river on a Sunday morning!

The beauty was breath taking, 29km of this...

Lunch.  Yum.

Damazan to La Réole - 49km

I can't rave any more about the beauty of canals - you must be dying of boredom by now.  Just know we started the day with morning tea only 9km in!  FABULOUS apple cake with a hint of orange blossom water by the canal, then a day of more magical riding.  No more words are needed on that. When we arrived in La Réole we found a beautiful but spooky village - we got talking with a local, who was actually Dutch who'd lived in the town for 20 years, after he saw us sitting outside the boulangerie eating our pastries in the rain so knew we weren't French!  He told us a bit of the history, and showed us around to get a fuller picture and understanding of the village - it turns out to be a great story of growth, rebuilding, and investment in the buildings and people of La Réole.  We were lucky to find a fab apartment for the night with all the comforts of home, and a risotto for dinner from the kitchen.

Morning tea.  Unbelievably good.

La Réole

And this is what we do after riding - chill.  That's my feet in front, and Mike's to the right.

La Réole to Creon - 51km

We're now off the canals and it's HILL TIME!  Yep, 20km of ups and downs.  We haven't seen these sorts of hills since we left Finland, so it was both fun to be back on big hills, and at times pretty sucky because they were relentless.  The one big upside in the hills, of course, was how FREAKING BEAUTIFUL it was!  Even the vineyards have turned Autumn colours and it was stunning.  We enjoyed a well deserved morning tea at a bakery a the little village along the way (pretty average I'm sad to say, it doesn't happen often in France, but I actually had leftovers on my plate), then hit the road again - this time knowing we were on sealed bike path all the way to Creon - it was a glorious Rail Trail!  Woohooo!!  And yes, it was easier than the first 18km of the day, but boy those long long slight uphills got to me by the end of it and I was KNACKERED as we rode into Creon to another freeway hotel with a stop at one of France's best bakery's of 2025!  YUM YUM!

Giant sablé in the very average cafe in Sauveterre - sablé is French shortbread and literally means "sand" because of it's sandy texture.

I've never seen purple roses before - so though the pastries were average in Sauveterre, the roses were gorgeous.

I was pretty knackered as we were heeding to the end of the day and had to stop.  This is where I stopped.  We had hit the famous Bordeaux vineyards and were riding through the middle of them. 

 Finally - after a tough day on the knees with all those hills we landed in Creon and on our way to our sumptuous 5 star hotel, we stopped at this amazing place for treats, and saw this giant brioche - never seen anything like it!

And this is what was stopped to the back of the bike to devour at our sumptuous 5 star hotel...

Our sumptuous 5 star hotel

Creon to Bordeaux - 30km

Woohoo - our final ride into Bordeaux was a glorious slow 18km downhill on the rail trail...glorious.  Though we had to get our bikes over a fallen tree again - that storm from a few days ago really did some local damage.  We headed off through the Wednesday morning market in Creon, and hit the road. We stopped at a cafe after 9km for a coffee and croissant, because we could, and because the cafe, in one of the old train stations, had so much buzz around it we had to be part of it.  A new pinball machine arrived as I was ordering, and most of the clientele were chic older men in cool glasses and berets having a good ol' Wednesday morning gas bag.  After our little pit stop, we jumped back on the bikes for the ride into Bordeaux. After our glorious 18km sloping downhill we then hit reality, and 12km of pretty crap path into Bordeaux, although seeing the side of the building below put a huge smile on my face as we made the last few km into town, over a huge quirky bridge and to our apart-hotel for a few days of chilling.  We have been exploring town and have found it to be just beautiful with so much life, a sense of youth and vitality mixed with the history and pride of great wine, great food, and timeless architecture.  Loving Bordeaux.  And Mike is loving the famous little pastry from Bordeaux called a canalé - crispy on the outside and a delicate custard inside - I'm not a huge fan, but Mike loves anything custardy so he's in heaven.

Our cute train station stop just to hang with the vibe of the locals

This abandoned building hit us as we arrived into Bordeaux along the River Garonne...so funny, loving the sense of humour...

On the cool bridge in Bordeaux - so happy to be here

Breakfast at our local bakery...one of the best almond croissants I've had in France.

Saint Louis charge in the charming area of Chartrons in Bordeaux

The Grosse Cloche (big bell)

Now, we have another day here in Bordeaux to explore more, eat more, and do a few more boring chores, and we'll spend some time today working out where to next, because, Sportsfans, we're not exactly sure where we go from here - woohoo!  So, stay tuned for more adventures of the Big Bike Year.  

And for those of you who have managed to stay this long, here are some cute videos from this leg of the trip...enjoy!