Week 5, Lyon to Montpellier, mixed emotions, detours and couch surfing. Total 2081 km’s

Week 5, Lyon to Montpellier, mixed emotions, detours and couch surfing. Total 2081 km’s, a mixed bag of emotions bringing highs and lows in many forms. I woke early on Monday morning, a public holiday in France and the streets of Lyon were eerily quiet, excited by the fact that the Global Wheeling Foundation was planting 100 trees in an RDP development outside Hermanus in the Western Cape that day. One last scan over the emails before I would be unplugged again for a while, I opened my inbox to be confronted by the worst kind of email, a friend had passed away before his time. His family was based in Grenoble, 140 km’s east of Lyon so I decided to head in that direction instead of my original and planned route south to Valence. A fairly late arrival in Grenoble after a long 140 km day in windy conditions to try track down his parents whom I’d never met before to pay my respects, I was greeted by snowcapped Alps and chilly conditions.

Leaving Grenoble on the Tuesday took some time but I was blessed with a gorgeous cycle path hugging the Isere river snaking back towards Valence where I had arranged accommodation with a young family for the evening through an online platform that puts hosts and long distance cyclists in touch, a bit like couch surfing but for cyclists. I arrived in Valence after dark that evening, 110 km in the saddle through some rather serious climbs on the edge of the Alps to be met by a bubbling young household of enthusiastic cyclists. We rambled about bike travel and all it’s in and outs, they had clocked up a few km’s through Europe themselves and we discussed different routes and options heading south.

Valence was short lived on my quest for the sun which was now becoming a bit more of a reality. I finally made it south of the frost which was met with jubilation as I woke just outside Bourg Saint Andeol, expecting the worst as I crawled out my tent to slightly more livable conditions, dew instead of frost. I had crossed over the Rhone river and was meandering through the Ardeche mountain range, heading south at a rather slow but steady pace.

Hugging the Rhone down through Pont Saint Esprit, I set up camp about 3 km’s out of Nimes. I was celebrating reaching the 2000 km mark and had picked up not one but two bottles of red wine, one for each thousand kilometers travelled a tradition I started in Rocroi in the north of France when I broke the 1000 km mark with one bottle, but a tradition I doubt will be carried over to the 3000 mark.

I spent a sunny day in Nimes, a gorgeous little city in the south, and one with the only fully functional matador arena in France. The Mediterranean was getting close, I could almost smell it in the air. The vegetation had changed to a much hardier type of lower lying bush appose to the taller wooded areas I had become accustom to in the north, camping was different in these conditions and finding suitable hiding places was becoming a bit trickier.

From Nimes I made the short journey south to Montpellier, my last of the french cities I would pass through on this journey, I was south of the frost but not out of the cold just yet, camping about 5km outside the city under a bridge to avoid paying for accommodation and travelling into the city during the days before retreating back to my secluded and less built up spot in the night.My final blog on French soil next one due from sunny Spain

Week 5, dedicated to Fabien, may your journey to the next place be a sound one, bon voyage brother.