Day 10, Tuesday, 3 July. Castlenaudry – Carcassone – 42kms
After another early start we rode along the roads rather
than the canal, we arrived at our camping ground about 10.30. We did some household duties and Chris was
very proud of herself realizing that the dryer shouldn’t have wash powder put
in it. We came across a new system where
the machine provided its own detergent.
The old town of Carcassone is a UNESCO listed world heritage
site which has 2500 yrs of history. The
“new town”, which surrounds it is relatively recent, being built in the 18th
and 19th century. The old
town is a walled city which was built on the top of a hill in about the 11th
century. Its walls are 2m thick, however
even this was not enough to protect the town.
Cannon balls which weighed about 110 kgs were able to penetrate these
walls.
There is a huge need to look past the commercialism inside
the walls of the old city. It is very tourist oriented, but taking a tour to
have the history explained was worthwhile.
The afternoon was spent wandering around the old city, we
then returned to the campsite to watch the end of the days riding in the Tour
de France and watched Cadel Evans come in sixth for the day.
Day 11, Wednesday, 4
July. Carcassone – Villeneuve Les
Bezieres – 103kms
An up hill and down dale day. Another early start to beat the heat. We rode on the road for about 20kms, then
decided to take the Canal path again.
That was a bit of a mistake as the path turned out to be single track
mountain biking on the flat!
We (literally) ran into a group of Aussies coming the other
way and their leader – a boy about ten – managed to run Chris into the
bushes. No damaged done, except that the
kid was mortified at having caused the incident. After about another hour of being jolted all
over we decided the road was amuch better option, even though it was hot and
busy. Generally the drivers are very
polite and give us a wide berth.
Sometimes the cars coming in the other direction are not so lucky,
although they all seem to know what is going on.
After thinking that we only had 75 kms to do today we ended
up doing 102kms.
There was some beautiful scenery along the way and a few of
the smaller villages which we could see from the road looked delightful.
The campground is beside a canal and quite pleasant. Summer holidays have commenced here, so the
camping prices have risen accordingly.
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