Saturday:  01.10. 2016        Parentis en Born  -  Moliets et maa     ( 91 and a quarter kms)

The promised thunder storms arrived during the night but, except for the odd flash and significant crashes, I slept through the lot. Having reconciled myself to a wet start, I was not to be disappointed. Tele meteo had assured me that by the afternoon, improvements could be expected. Humph! How wrong were they!

My very wet and dripping route this morning was going to take me, I thought, to within a whisker of the large Biscarrosse lakes. It did, but as with so much of this route, sights of water, be it fresh or salty, was so often obscured by trees, sand dunes or, occasionally, by housing.

By the time I got to Peurnaout, I was ready for breakfast and stopped at the boulangerie where excited locals were in competition as to who could speak the loudest and fastest. It was all very cordial and that extended to my welcome as well. I took a coffee and croissante  out to the small but covered table outside and enjoyed the banter.

This was Saturday but it would seem that even the fanatics would prefer the duvet to running, biking or, indeed any form of physical exercise. Only a handful of people with enthusiastic dogs had braved the elements.

These elements had commenced with an innocuous drizzle, which my sixth sense warned me was a forerunner of what was to come. Absolutely correct. In the time that it took me to retrieve and don my rain jacket, the rain was coming down in stair rods. It beat a rhythm on my helmet and covered my specs with raindrops rendering me all but blind. I hoped for a short sharp shower, but an hour later the storm was still dogging my pedalling and I was beginning to take this wetness personally. There comes a point when it is impossible to become any wetter and it was at this point that I came across a group of three bodies (live ones). Two of the trio, were young women in running gear (very, very wet running gear) and one was a middle-aged man under a brolly! Significantly us three women were being pounded by water and our gentleman friend remained firmly attached to, and underneath the shelter of his brolly. It appeared that the girls were lost and looking to find themselves. They hoped that my map might help. After much intense discussion, les girls followed my route with one of them riding a bike and the other running and then apparently changing over. Triathlon training!

It was still raining when I reached Leon which, my book assured me, had some accommodation but it was wrong. I took to the road calculating that any hotel would be on a road and not on a cycle track. I was correct and at Moliets there was indeed a hotel prepared to offer me a room, despite my very soggy condition. The restaurant was closed but the pizzeria next door was open and provided a really delicious pizza.

This is my last stop before meeting Alan tomorrow at the end of my first solo ride.