We are in Pontorson about 10km south of Mont St Michel - in good spirits - and still speaking to each other - this must be a good sign.
We all met up on Monday evening in Poole and stayed at in old naval buddy's house. Some had an uneventful journey, others who came by train, John, had an interesting time. His train was cancaled due to a broken train so had to go to a different station, despite having a gps machine a phone with google maps and a background of map reading what should have been a 25 minute journey at most was nearly 2 hours - excuses - it was all hot air!!!
We left at 0500 to catch the Condor ferry - no problems and a very flat crossing to Guernsey and a couple of hours stop over. We were having coffee and John asked the very pleasant waitress what do you call someone who comes from Guernsey expecting a reply like 'Guernseyian' but she said A Donkey and she said it was better than coming from Jersey who are called Crappos. Learn something new when you least expect it.
We arrived in St Malo and after a few false starts ended up in a very busy campsite overlooking the harbour and old town.
Wednesday morning the adventure started - on the road by 0840, down to the old quarter and off - along the sea front with fantastic views of St Malo. We cracked along the coast roller coasting from bay to bay until Cancale - oyster capital of this coast and probably France. A little shack by the beach sold a dozen for €5 - we were just about to order when the seller sliced open his hand while opening the oysters for the folk ahead of - we slid across to the next vendor - fresh oysters with lemon - fantastic!
We could see Mont St Michele 20 miles across the bay and off we pedalled - flat warm and pleasant under cloudy skys. Pontorson and a very good campsite. We notched up over 60km on the first day - we were all wilting towards the end but LMF has been left in England and the motto 'show no weakness' was to the fore.
Today was a there and back ride to the Mont along a cycle path from the campsite along the river - twas good until we arrived at the parking area when we fought with another 100 or so folk to get on the shuttle bus. When arrived at St Michele we join a few thousand who got there before us. They reckon 4million visit each year phew!,
We leave the coast tomorrow and head south. John's bike needed a mechanic - the guy from the hire shop here at the campsite was terrific and my bike needed abit of sorting. We are all fixed now and rareing to go.
Dist - 96 km
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