Valence d'Agen to Le Mas d'Agenais

October 21, 2021

Luckily for us, it rained very little last night. We awoke to a dry tent, and just as importantly, a dry picnic table. We ate at sunrise and managed to get rolling just before 9am.

On the trail, it wasn't too cold, and winds were calm. It didn't warm up until early afternoon, but the wind started blowing by late morning, and the direction was not in our favor. Given the distance we had to travel, we were going to have to put in a full day of work.

There isn't much happening on this stretch of the route except for the city of Argen, and a few haltes nautiques: places for boaters to tie up, eat, shower, etc. There was a bit of traffic on the canal, and plenty of boats tied up at these stops.

Just past Argen there was another one of those canal-over-the-river dealies. This one was very long. I rode half of it, then walked it after getting bogged down by pedestrian traffic.

I think the highlight of the day was when we both independently realized that the headwind wasn't going away, so maybe we could focus our attention on the beauty around us instead. Sunyoung snapped this photo:

This was my entry in the competition:

We each went through different periods of fatigue and hunger, and they rarely lined up. We ended up making a lot of short stops, with one or the other of us snacking on bread, cheese, and vegetables.

Four kilometers short of our free camping destination, at Lagruére, the trail suddenly ends at a halte nautique. There's a wooden barrier and no signage. The obvious way to continue is to turn right and continue on this little road that parallels the canal. I wait for Sunyoung to catch up to me. "Is this it?" she asks. "Do you see a campground?" I reply. "Yeah, right there!" Sure enough, there's a set of hedge rows neatly laid out to the right of me. I had completely missed it.

I double-checked the map. This wasn't it, but it was a sure thing, so we decided that we should camp here. The door to the halte Nautique was open. The lady inside said she was just leaving, and yes, we could camp there, but all the facilities would be closed, including water and restrooms. I'd have given it a go, but Sunyoung vetoed me.

We continued to Le Mas-d'Agenais. I saw that the campground was perched at the top of a hill, so I checked with Sunyoung to make sure she wanted to ride up there. She was fine with it. When we got to the little canal bridge to enter the village, there was a brand new sign showing the way to the campground. Very encouraging! We get halfway up the steep hill to the village and saw this:

Very encouraging! We got to the campground and saw this:

Not at all encouraging! We decided to sit at one of the two tables there, cook dinner, and hastily put together a backup plan. Why I didn't already have one, I'm not sure. I usually do.

While the food cooks, we take turns checking out the view from the nearby wall:

Back to the backup plan. I check for campgrounds. Nothing nearby. I check for hotels. Nothing. I check for chambres d'hotes. Nothing that looks promising. I check Booking.com. They have something in town, but there's something off about it. Sunyoung thought I should go for it anyway. I then realized that I forgot to check Airbnb. They also have something, it also feels a little bit sketchy, but less so than the other option, so we pull the trigger. An hour later (after dinner, and a call to the host, who was surprised that we had a confirmation for tonight) we're sitting pretty.

These absentee-owner places make me suspicious, but desperate times call for desperate measures

It's actually a good fit for us. We can roll the bikes right in!

So that was our moment of improvising for the day. I'd rather that it not be at the end of the day. Camping in France in October is a real crapshoot, and if I haven't gotten that into my thick head yet, I suppose I never will.

Tomorrow's campground, which will absolutely be our last of the trip, claims to be open, but we're going to call them just to make sure. Until then, we're going to have a lovely sleep in this little village, and a fun coast back down to the towpath in the morning.

Today's ride: 80 km (50 miles)
Total: 2,750 km (1,708 miles)

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