Normally, any serious touring cyclist would never admit to accepting a ride. But since our ride was only 1k, and probably took 5 times longer than we could have cycled it, we’ll make an exception!
As we were cycling along the canal, Jon noticed that the boat about to enter the Lock was registered in San Francisco! We stopped to talk with the owners, Jim and Mary Niel – and they invited us on board to join them through the next lock.
So, we got to experience a tiny bit of the canal, from the “other” side. Jim and Mary have had their Dutch canal boat for 10 years, and spend 6 months each year traveling the canals of France and the Netherlands. They are currently on their way to Paris.
We thought we’d only be cycling along canals in southern France, we had no idea there were so many interconnecting canals all across Europe. We’ll be sharing more/better photos when we are back on a computer.
It was a wonderful surprise, and a fun couple – sharing their boat and journey with us.
In other news of the day, do you notice anything unusual about this picture?
This is the first day of the entire tour that the wind was calm all day. We also ended the day on some of the best paths yet, with information from a west-bound cyclist, that there is a lot more to come.
There was just one small shortcut we took which included single-track. Just a reminder of the “old” days on the Canal du Midi …
But it was while we were on this shortcut that we passed 2,000k and our odometer flipped over from 999.99 a second time.
This is further than our entire last tour from Vienna to Amsterdam, so we are now setting a new record.