After a full day in Uzes, and preparing to leave this morning, the hotelier notes I’ve neglected to fill my water. She collects my bottles and returns with them full, along with a paper sack containing four small oranges and a variety of dried fruit and nuts. A nice surprise, and a fine lunch paired with a sandwich, which I fetch before leaving town. A benefit to bicycle travel is sights that are only accessible to most parties for some of the day. When I arrived at the Pont du Gard, an impressive first century Roman aqueduct, there was no one. When I left, there was no one. A busy road lay ahead, but to my left, a dirt double track with a small sign bearing the name of a village I’d need to pass through. The road climbed steeper than predicted, but through the air, the smell of thyme, sage, and moments of withered lavender’s cinnamon sweetness. Though the only purple flower to be found was the rare wild orchid. At the top of the climb, hunting platforms, but no hunters today. Stopped for a moment I hear the jingle of hound bells, then barking, and two shots. I decide to move along. In the valley below, a rustle in a clearing under an oak tree, I’ve startled a family of boar By lunch I had reached the river Rhône. Unwrapping the sandwich, I sat watching cormorants gather in a tree, a behavior in which I’d never known them to engage. While not a handsome bird, I’ve grown found of their eccentricities, and enjoyed seeing them sun their wings along the canals of Phoenix. Though on a grey day like this, they aren’t having much luck at that.
To the Roman engineer in charge of these things: I must insist you return and fix your bridge. It has fallen into disrepair and is ill suited for bicycles. Further, the track approaching it is muddy and my shoes are quite slippery. Aside from the “pont romaine”, the route was well considered. Concerns of traffic along the D4, through the Gorge Hérault, were unfounded. The gorge, and the medieval village of St Guilhem le Désert, were empty. I encountered perhaps a dozen cars in my first forty kilometers. Concerns of the weather, from my advisors, were also unfounded. A cyclist warned of the wicked winds of Hérault, and the baker said it looked like rain. Weather forecasts are the randonneur’s paradox. We want to see them, such that we prepare appropriately. But looking risks not liking what we see, and dissuading us from starting altogether. Not an option today anyhow. I allotted two hours to “café time”, a category that encompasses cafes, photography, and sitting on stone walls contemplating other stone walls. I had one hundred and twenty five kilometers to cover and, depending on one’s perspective, squandered or deeply appreciated half of it within the first twenty kilometers. The Col de La Cardonille was reached along the only busy road of the day Lunch, the plat du jour requested sight unseen, was a rich, sweet crock of stewed beef, mushrooms, confit onions, and fried lardons. At my request the proprietor noted down the name as “Carbonade Flamande”
