Art of Travel: Paris to Madrid

Day Nine

At 08:24 on Thursday the 6th of June, with the risk of sounding like a broken record, its still chucking it down. Although its going to be fairly uninteresting sitting / lying in the tent all day I’m going to hang on in Quillan for another night, the logic being, it can’t possibly be still raining tomorrow. Yesterday’s ride was so miserable at least today I’ll be warm and dry. They certainly know how to put down a mighty down pour on a near biblical scale over here.

I’m looking forward to checking my e-mails, perhaps it will be possible in Barcelona? At the time of writing it is 16:40 and as it happens I didn’t spend the day confined to the tent. After breakfast and a lukewarm shower (I think I’d be stretch the daily budget that little extra if they could guarantee that small luxury of a hot shower, since the provision of a level(ish) pitch, a degree of security, a toilet, and a hot shower are my only demands of a campsite) I washed my “smalls” and read “Sophie’s world” until the rain eased off to a dribble then performed a bit of maintenance on the bike. The chain has been falling off occasionally when I shift gears so I adjusted them, cleaned and oiled the moving parts, placed a puncture repair patch on the inside of the tyre where a hole has formed and on the spot of the corresponding inner tube which has been exposed and slightly worn, and fitted new toe straps, on since the old ones had frayed to snapping point.

To check the alterations I took the bike for a spin along the D117 (the route I’ll be taking tomorrow) which follows the river “Aude” as it’s torrent cuts a magnificently gorge through the mountain’s rock face. I took a couple of snaps to but I don’t suppose they will do justice to the spectacle. On the way back I stopped by a wall looking directly down at the rapids where four people dressed in wetsuits, kayaking helmets, flippers, and holding what I can only describe as the front section of a kayak made of rubber with handles on the inside, rode the white water bouncing off the walls of rock on either side. Behind them a group of rock climbers negotiated a section of the mountain face which reminded me that it is something I have been meaning to do for a number of years.

Before dinner I rode three quarters of the way back up the six kilometre decent into Quillan from Foix to get a couple of photographs of the town from above before the rain took up where it left off, and the decent was so exhilarating I wanted to do it twice. Disappointingly it wasn’t as good as I had remembered. I suspect the previous day’s elation / relief on finally reaching Quillan after a long day in the saddle coloured my experience of the decent a tint of rose. Then again I suppose our experience of any given situation is always going to be in a state of flux to some degree depending on your emotional state of mind at a given moment in time.

 

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