Where's Bertie? He's sitting on a farm a couple of kilometres away from, and up above, the settlement of Saint-Wandrille-Rançon. It costs €6 to stay here (incl water and waste and 50c tourist tax each). Electricity is an extra €2. A toilet and shower are available for a further charge. Exact location: 49.54069, 0.76702.
Weather: Sunshine, with just a few fluffy clouds coming and going through the afternoon.
I was up before daylight had arrived, stuffing a couple of bananas, and pouring a cup of tea, down my throat, in preparation for a long run.
I'd downloaded a route from wikiloc.com, which turned out not to be entirely feasible (without crawling under a fence and through a quarry, which is apparently where the person who recorded it had gone), so quite a few brief stops were had for route planning and navigation. More stops were had to quickly grab a few snaps of my surroundings:
A different lake from the ones visited over the last couple of days. The bird life in this snap is deceptive: those ducks are all decoys. I noticed when I spotted the first flock that they were all facing the same direction. It was only when I got to the second flock that I realised that none of them was moving.
The limestone cliffs alongside the river. I must have spent about an hour and a half of the outing on the tarmac of this particular road, during which time no more than half a dozen cars passed me.
I perhaps should have gone a little further than I did, but the last several miles were more of a struggle than I've encountered in any recent long run, so I was happy to call it a day as I hit the 15 mile mark.
Meanwhile, Mick had been out for a shorter run, involving three laps of some local roads, with the added excitement of rescuing a goat with its head stuck in a fence on his second lap (it had been stuck on the first lap, but he gave it an extra lap to be sure that it was stuck, which it turned out to be - quite decidedly so).
So tired was I upon returning to Bertie that sitting down for the rest of the day held great appeal. Thus, it took a bit of will power after food-shower-food, to walk up the road to the post office, so as to avail myself of their wifi for a bit of downloading, whilst Mick walked up to the boulangerie for some goodies:
Finally, at around 1pm, we left Jumièges and shortly afterwards the SatNav had one of its abberations ("you want to go somewhere that's 2km away on the main road? Let me take you a 4.5km route on some tiny roads to get there". Unfortunately, I spotted what it was doing just a few seconds too late to stop Mick from making the turn, although we did return to the main road as soon as we could). That first destination was a supermarket, as our food supplies had reached the point where, although we wouldn't have gone hungry, the combinations would have been ... interesting.
It was then only a few kilometres further to our night-stop, involving some tiny lanes that would have had us questioning their suitability for Bertie, if it hadn't been for the knowledge that the Aire at this farm has got lots of good reviews - more than would be likely if access was an issue.
The farm's young border collie met us upon arrival, repeatedly putting muddy pawprints all over my jeans. Harrumph. But, other than their dog needing a bit of training, it is nice spot...
The view through Bertie's windscreen this afternoon, shortly after the cows escape into the field in front of us and had to be chased back by the farmers.
...albeit sufficiently out of the way that we have modified out intention of spending 2 nights here to just the one.
Weather: Sunshine, with just a few fluffy clouds coming and going through the afternoon.
I was up before daylight had arrived, stuffing a couple of bananas, and pouring a cup of tea, down my throat, in preparation for a long run.
I'd downloaded a route from wikiloc.com, which turned out not to be entirely feasible (without crawling under a fence and through a quarry, which is apparently where the person who recorded it had gone), so quite a few brief stops were had for route planning and navigation. More stops were had to quickly grab a few snaps of my surroundings:
A different lake from the ones visited over the last couple of days. The bird life in this snap is deceptive: those ducks are all decoys. I noticed when I spotted the first flock that they were all facing the same direction. It was only when I got to the second flock that I realised that none of them was moving.
The limestone cliffs alongside the river. I must have spent about an hour and a half of the outing on the tarmac of this particular road, during which time no more than half a dozen cars passed me.
I perhaps should have gone a little further than I did, but the last several miles were more of a struggle than I've encountered in any recent long run, so I was happy to call it a day as I hit the 15 mile mark.
Meanwhile, Mick had been out for a shorter run, involving three laps of some local roads, with the added excitement of rescuing a goat with its head stuck in a fence on his second lap (it had been stuck on the first lap, but he gave it an extra lap to be sure that it was stuck, which it turned out to be - quite decidedly so).
So tired was I upon returning to Bertie that sitting down for the rest of the day held great appeal. Thus, it took a bit of will power after food-shower-food, to walk up the road to the post office, so as to avail myself of their wifi for a bit of downloading, whilst Mick walked up to the boulangerie for some goodies:
Finally, at around 1pm, we left Jumièges and shortly afterwards the SatNav had one of its abberations ("you want to go somewhere that's 2km away on the main road? Let me take you a 4.5km route on some tiny roads to get there". Unfortunately, I spotted what it was doing just a few seconds too late to stop Mick from making the turn, although we did return to the main road as soon as we could). That first destination was a supermarket, as our food supplies had reached the point where, although we wouldn't have gone hungry, the combinations would have been ... interesting.
It was then only a few kilometres further to our night-stop, involving some tiny lanes that would have had us questioning their suitability for Bertie, if it hadn't been for the knowledge that the Aire at this farm has got lots of good reviews - more than would be likely if access was an issue.
The farm's young border collie met us upon arrival, repeatedly putting muddy pawprints all over my jeans. Harrumph. But, other than their dog needing a bit of training, it is nice spot...
The view through Bertie's windscreen this afternoon, shortly after the cows escape into the field in front of us and had to be chased back by the farmers.
...albeit sufficiently out of the way that we have modified out intention of spending 2 nights here to just the one.
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