Garry McGivern’s France bicycle tour, Thursday 22nd-July-2010. Nantes to Herbignac. 78 miles. The day got off to a bad start. Katrin was struggling to get on her bike and fell off trying. I think she may have been suffering from our ninety-mile ride yesterday, which is much more than we had originally planned. At the start of our ride, we agreed to cycle between eighty and one hundred kilometres a day. (Fifty to sixty miles) with me pushing for the higher mileage. So ninety miles was a rather long day. Luckily Katrin never hurt herself and laughed it off.
We only had a short ride this morning before we had to catch a ferry across to the other side of the Loire. We arrived at the jetty just as the ferry had left. But it was okay as it was only a twenty-minute turnaround. As we waited for the ferry to come back, we could see it struggling to come across. I just thought it was the current, but when it finally landed at the jetty, we discovered there was a problem. And they needed to fix it before returning. Thankfully whatever the problem was only took three-quarters of an hour to fix, and we were soon on the south bank of the Loire.
The End
We arrived at the end of the Loire valley at Saint-Brevin-Les-Pins at around midday, after Katin took us on a detour. I could see the “Pont Saint-Nazier” in the distance, which is at the end of the Loire. One minute it was on my left. The next minute it was on my right. I would have just cycled direct.
After getting our photo taken at the marker for the start of the Loire valley ride, we had to cross the “Pont Saint-Nazier”, which I was a little nervous for Katrin. But I needn’t have worried. I remembered what the bridge was like when I crossed it in 2008, very busy, narrow with a strong side wind. Katrin is a confident rider and was fine. We are now heading north westerly along the coast towards Brittany.
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