Huelgoat

Today we set off for Huelgoat, much loved stamping ground of the SBCC. Luckily, Pete and Keith informed us that today was a public holiday in France, Assumption Day, and everything would be ferme, so we made sure that we had supplies for the evening meal and we were furnished with a packed lunch for the journey. After a mostly downhill run to Rostrenen on the canal we joined the voie verte, which is an off road cycle track on a disused railway line, which would take us all the way to Huelgoat. This is ideal when hauling camping gear because it does away with all the hills. En route, I got talking to a young man who was cycling along with a group of friends, doing a round trip circuit of Brittany on the voie verte from St Malo and back. He was living in Paris but was originally from Rennes, and had spent a year at Exeter University doing European Studies and History which he counted as the best time of his life - any time when you are a student is the best time I commented to general agreement. It was great to see a group of young people cycling around in the sunshine from place to place without a care and a map scribbled on the back of an envelope. When they broke off to go in a different direction they all stood by the side of the road and clapped myself and S on our way in Le Tour style - we were wearing our patriotic colours!

I have shown S the sights of Huelgoat: the champignon and the roche tremblant. I will have you know, witnessed by S, that I made the rock move . . . below you can see a series of pictures respectively of me offering coaching advice to S regarding rock rocking (so to speak) but she had no success despite all the training over the last few weeks - clearly a more stringent regime is in order.