Day 18
Tuesday 30.06.09 La Rochelle to Reminiac (Brittany) 165 miles
I’ve had a pain in my left hip, on and off, for a couple of days now but it seems to go away if I take an Ibruprofen tablet, I think it must be a muscle strain (I go to see the Doc when I get home to find out it was a Kidney stone!).
I forget to stop for breakfast – eat a pastry and bottle of water at 11.30 by the side of the road. I arrive at MOTORANIS (Bikers B&B I found on the internet) at 2.30. Ken, the owner, was quite surprised to see me as I hadn’t booked ahead and he didn’t have anyone else staying. However he sorted me out with a room and gave me a cold beer.
After a shower and a rest I go for a walk around the village, all 25 houses of it. Call in a local bar for a drink and then return for a quiet couple of hours before supper.
What with the hot weather and this dull ache in my side I don’t fancy camping anymore and decide to head for home tomorrow. It’s weird, last year I went home a couple of days early and blamed it on the rain, this time it’s the heat. But I think, in reality 3 weeks is a couple of days too long (I say this every year). Also it seems that every time I turn North I just want to keep going. Brittany will just have to wait for another time. I’ll be kicking myself in the winter tho ...
Ken says he will rustle up ‘a bit of ham and salad’ for supper. When I arrive at the table he has put on a great spread – Boiled potatoes, garlic mushrooms, ham and chorizo, tomato and onion salad, chopped beetroot and carrot rape, with bread and cheese for desert, all washed down with a couple of bottles of red wine.
I am only itemizing all this so you can see how well I was treated, especially as I had turned up out of the blue just this afternoon. So, Bed, Breakfast and Evening Meal with free tea and coffee, complimentary beer, price £42 all in.
Another 5 star stopover!