Autumn turned up while I was asleep. This morning was misty and cold, and I had to warm my hands around my breakfast tea mug before they worked well enough to take down the tent. There’s an end-of-season feel: several campsites along the way shut early for the year because of rainy weather and dwindling visitors. Again, here, I was the only cycle-tenter: the other two dozen inmates are all in nice warm dry camper vans. Like with e-bikes, I’m wondering if for me getting one is a case of when not if.
Anyway, today was a short day, in essence the last one of the trip. With yet more wet weather in prospect, I’ve decided to go only as far as St Brisson, a mere thirty k away, then get the train tomorrow to my originally intended finish point of Nevers. There’s no official end to the Loire route, so I’m not missing out on any grand climax: indeed, there’s little sense of narrative or developement along the riverside. It’s one long succession of similarity. A pleasant and easy sameness, but a sameness nonetheless, that you can start or finish, or do in any order, without affecting the result.
There were some things to enjoy in Sully on my slow short day, the first being to ride over the Loire on the ped-bike bridge again. On the other side was a small bike museum dedicated to Helyett, a historic bicycle marque made locally in Gien which won several Tours de France until the brand’s demise in the 1960s.
I could then admire the castle from several new angles – last night I’d admired it from precisely one, in the Castle Pub opposite – and carry on along the south bank on the familiar sequence of empty lanes and unvehicled levée roads through woods.
It was cold and grey. I could only imagine what Keats would have got to rhyme with ‘gloves’ and ‘beanie’, both very necessary this chilly day. The village of Saint-Gondon brightened things up a bit: a local feature is the dozen or two old bicycles used as flower baskets. Most looked a bit rusty and forlorn today though; perhaps it’s best seen in spring.
I stopped in Gien for a snack from the only place open for food apart from bars and had a mediocre sandwich and an excellent custard flan. If it was a choice between that and the opposite, I was happy
Shortly beyond was my target: a much-praised bikes-only mini-campsite outside Saint-Brisson, below the village’s sturdy chateau. Oh: it, too, closed prematurely for the winter last night, unannounced on its website.
But my luck was in. The chirpy owner in the house whose garden and barns form the site let me stay for free, with the whole place to myself. The well-equipped kitchen, common room, drying space for damp tents, shower and toilet block, and upstairs cabin with sleeping platforms – all mine. There was even beer too, in the fridge, for a modest €2 a bottle.
So this was my final evening on the Loire: a gentle one of solitude, reliving my trip as I laboriously uploaded photos from camera and phone to laptop via dodgy USB cables.
Miles today: 18
Miles since Saint-Nazaire: 335