Villeneuve les Bezieres – Palavas les Flot

Day 12, Thursday, 5 July.  Villeneuve les Bezieres – Palavas les Flot.  72kms

Clem and Lesley had caught the train yesterday front Carcassone, choosing to have a few days in Avignon.

Once again Phill, Chris, Steve and Linda had an early get away – only because we wake up early.  No one else has even surfaced by the time we leave our campsites.

We had a storm overnight, thunder and lightning, quite a bit of rain and just as we set off a huge clap of thunder  let us know who was boss. 

We had been camped next to a young Austrian couple who were on a three month odyssey from their home town.  They had sold their unit, bought some bikes, then kitted themselves out to tent through Europe.  A very interesting couple.

The campgrounds are starting to get crowded and expensive as the European/British holidays have started.

We started riding on the canal path, which turned into a minor dirt road on which Chris got bogged.  Bogged on a bicycle = mud between the wheel and mudguard.  Once we extracted Chris, we pushed on to Agde where we all felt like a second breakfast.  Called into a bar and had the typical French breakfast of pain (bread), jam and coffee.

We then turned the corner and markets opened up in front us.  Chris and Linda had a quick browse, bought a few things, mindful of the fact that we have to carry everything on the bikes.

The canals in this area were very pretty and had lots of flowers around the ecluses (locks).

Then we rode towards Sete on the road which was noisy and fairly busy, even though it was described as a secondary road.  After some lunch we decide we should take a short cut along the Canal du Midi.  Unfortunately the overnight rain had created a lot of mud on the path, which led to all of us being “bogged”.  A very frustrating 20kms having to stop and unclog our mudguards frequently. This was quite frustrating as we would have arrived at Palavas Les Flot much earlier if we had stayed on the road. After much chasing around for a camp ground we finally found one at about 5pm.

We spent quite a bit of time washing the bikes and ourselves before we set up as we were splattered by the clayey mud along the canal.

We decided to dine at the restaurant in the park which was run by two ladies who did not speak English. After much discussion between them and ourselves we had all selected what we were going to eat. Next thing,  we were being  approached by a security guard (these guys are quite a common occurrence at the bigger van parks we have been staying in). We thought we were in deep trouble when he said to us ‘I am here to help are you having trouble ordering your dinner?’ We asked him did he speak English and he said yes, I am Spanish, and speak English!! Perfect, he confirmed that what we had chosen was what we were hoping to eat. Bonus. We were offered a complimentary coffee with our meal, which rounded off a lovely evening. We headed to bed and were disturbed in the middle of the night by a couple of noisy campers nearby, so at 3.30am Linda sang out shush!! And that was the last we heard of them!!  We then had a quiet sleep until the day dawned.