|
Tuesday 18h June 2024 Day 5 - Boisemont It's been a long day! And wet, so not very many photos. Leaving Gisors Andrew's choice of route led up a nightmare cart track, all gravelly, rutted and up an achingly long, long... long hill, then down the other side which was just as hard to ride down. There was a lot of pushing involved. Also as we'd set off in the rain we had full wet weather gear on, making things sweaty and uncomfortable.
Eventually we joined up with the correct route, the Voie Verte, which was based on an old railway route running through a valley - no hills and a beautifully smooth, paved surface. The Nightmare Road had covered 5 miles and taken, oh I can't remember but it seemed like hours! The Voie Verte on the other hand lasted something like 12 miles or so and simply whispered past.
Somewhere along the way I unfortunately fell off. The track passed over a few small bridges all of which were surfaced with manky old planks. They were damp, mossy and slimy and, as I was to find out, the merest touch on the brakes had the front wheel sliding away and down I went. Ouch. Ah well, live and learn, eh, I'll be more careful with wooden bridges in future. Happily no permanent damage and my cracked helmet has survived unscathed for another day. We rejoined the road system eventually and naturally the heavens opened to celebrate that fact. Absolutely drenched! The rain cleared then restarted several times with us getting wetter and wetter each time... ah, what fun!
As we finally neared Boisemont, fairly well knackered by this time, there were some creative differences between Andrew and myself concerning our choice of route, ending with us both taking our preferred choice. Accordingly we both arrived separately. Another tremendous downpour started as I got there and it continued as I tried to find our hotel, the Villa Manoca. Google told me where it was... involving ascending a steep, truly horrific main road, with nose-to-tail stalled traffic and fumes filling your lungs while torrential rain pelted down over the sodden tarmac. It was far too scary to even contemplate ascending by bike... just suicidal! I cravenly cowered under a nearby tree for a few minutes then noticed there was a pedestrian path leading up the hill on the other side of the road. After crossing the road I wearily pushed the bike up the hill and escaped onto a residential road which allowed me to finally find my way to the hotel. Andrew was already there but I had to ring him up to ask if this was the right place as there was no sign outside, and no name, nothing to indicate it was a hotel. Anyway once inside we got out of our sodden clothes and the very nice French lady running the place (basically her house) put our clothes in the washing machine and washed, dried and folded them up for us! What a lovely lady - Fabienne is her name. She also drove us to a nearby town, Vaureal, so we could feed (at an Indian place, Shades, very nice - I had a veggy korma) and picked us up again after we'd eaten and had a couple of beers (at a bar called Paradox). All because she's a nice lady.
38 miles again today. | |||||||
 | |||||||
