#49 Across Brittany • www.eBiketraveller.site

I cycle inland through the lush green hills across Brittany from the south to the north-east; first following the ‘Canal de Nantes à Brest’ then at Gouarec hiving off onto a hilly cycle path that I more-or-less followed all the way to Morlaix and the Channel Coast at Roscoff.

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Friday 10 August 2018. Saint Etienne-de-Montluc · Josselin |132 km|

I’d camped at St Étienne-de-Montluc after getting lost several times in the maze of polders around Couëron. Only one battery had charged during the night (the other charger lead had fallen off its battery early on), so I waited until around 10.30 to charge-up the other one. Annoyingly, it takes just as long to charge one battery as it does to charge two – I have two chargers and can charge them both at the same time in parallel from one power outlet. This delay allowed the tent to dry out at least, and I also got to buy all those pukka provisions in town that I mentioned in the previous post.

I followed B roads as far as Bougard Blain before hitting the Canal de Nantes à Brest, and then it was all flat picturesque cycling alongside the canal for the next 105 km until I began to run low on battery again just past the pretty tourist town of Josselin, where I stopped.

I stayed overnight at a private campground called Domaine de Kerrelly, costing €15. I was still scoffing on my provisions from St Etienne, so didn’t need to venture out that evening even though the campground had its own restaurant. It had been a cool day and there was a slight head-breeze.

Here’s where I picked up the canal, at lock number 13 near Bougard

Bougard lock 13: Some tourist craft still use the canal…

….but it is quite derelict and weed-grown in places

Most of the canal towpath had a compacted gravel surface. Typical signage to mark the trail is shown in the photos below, but it wasn’t always quite that simple!

At the confluence of several canals in the sizable town of Redon I happened upon a cycling Australian couple, Elizabeth and John from the Sunshine Coast, who, with their map app, put me straight for the immediate route I needed to follow to continue on up north. I’d been trying to figure it out for nearly half an hour before they came along, and the correct way turned out to be in the least likely direction (a minor road to the right in the photo below) so I never would have found it!

Liz and John and their bikes in Redon. My bike hogging the limelight in front

Typical cycle path along the canal, about 1½ hours (30m) past Redon

This busy adventure playground is just before Saint-Vincent-Sur-Oust (as the sign says)

Picturesque lock near Saint-Vincent-Sur-Oust

More picture-perfect scenery along the canal on the way to Josselin

Coming into Josselin

The imposing Chateau Josselin; original bits dating from the 11th century

Saturday 11 August 2018. Camping de Kerelly · Huelgoat |152 km|

I got away from the Kerelly campground with a good start at 9am and had an easy ride of it again alongside the Canal as far as Pontivy, where I left the canal to head north (instead of north-west towards Brest), and ventured into hilly terrain.

Nearing the end of my journey alongside the canal now..

I stopped for lunch, and a bit of a charge-up, at the excellent and cheap (€13 for the daily menu!) Michelin-starred restaurant of Auberge de Guerlédan in the village of Caurel, and then ploughed on, making quite a few navigational errors in trying to get away from the lake-side resort precinct of Lake Guerlédan with it’s very hilly terrain, and used up a lot of battery – I should have stayed longer than an hour charging-up at the restaurant. But anyway, I eventually found an old rail trail and kept right on for quite a few kilometers, before somehow losing it again.

Then Ziggy’s GPS seriously let me down just as I was getting close to my day’s destination of Huelgoat (pronounced “Well-gwat”). I only had about 7 km to go but, with the battery by now running almost on empty, I decided I’d better take a short-cut that promised to save 3 km, and that the GPS clearly indicated was a bike track. But it was wrong, and directed me instead down into a blind gully with an abandoned mine at the bottom (a silver-lead-zinc mine I’d say from the mullock heaps), with no way back except to haul it out (heavily-loaded) up a steep and narrow ravine – nearly broke my back it did – before popping out of the gully in the back end of Huelgoat township, with the battery completely out of juice for the last couple of kilometres.

I arrived in Huelgoat (“Well-gwat” remember?) at nightfall, far too late for any shops to be open, but luckily my friendly camp neighbours in the council camping ground, Germans Ralph and Angelique from Stuttgart, shared beer and wine with me, and I still had some of my gourmet goodies left over from St Etienne-de-Montluc, and we passed a merry conversational evening together.

Bike path seriously compromised… it got a lot worse (no pics unfortunately, you’ll have to take my word for it)

Sunday 12 August 2018. Huelgoat · Roscoff · Plougasnou |117 km|

I rode the short distance (31 km) down to Morlaix, a town that is mostly recognized by the huge railway viaduct over the top of it, but for me it will forever be remembered for an entirely different reason. I got locked in a public toilet!

I was dying for a pee and went into the fancy stainless steel number they had in the town square under the viaduct, shut the door and…complete darkness! Did my business in the dark anyway, but then couldn’t get out again – no light, and no obvious latch or switch or anything to try. And I’d left my fully-loaded bike with all my possessions – including wallet and passport – just sitting outside, while there I was, hammering and shouting away for a good 20 minutes trying to get someone’s attention to escape.

A passing family of 3 – Algerians maybe, I suspect? – must have heard my shouting and pressed the button to release the door from the outside, because it did suddenly slide open and I was out! I don’t even know for sure if it was them that let me out because they were by then busy crossing the street and hadn’t hung around for thanks.

Downtown Morlaix, dominated by the railway overpass. The public loo that held me captive for 20 minutes is under the trees and has the blue sign

Somewhat chastened by this unnerving experience, I rode on in steady rain all morning to Roscoff, intending to catch the ferry that evening across to Rosslaire, Ireland, to join up with my daughter Molly at her mum’s home about 50 km from the ferry terminal. Slight problem though: when I got to the very fancy Roscoff passenger terminal, there was only one ticket office open and that was for the Plymouth ferry – the next one to Ireland wasn’t due until Friday, still 5 days away. So much for the advertised weekly Sunday departures during summer!

This put me into a bit of a dilemma, and, disheartened, in the end I decided not to wait around for 5 days but rather to head back east across Bretagne and Normandie instead, and hence on back towards Maastricht and Aachen, where I could at least get my still-ailing bike attended to once and for all.

So I headed back to Morlaix, in patchy but easing rain now, and, once there, decided to plough on to Plougasnou (“Ploo-gas-noo”). I had travelled a total of only 117 km this day but the batteries were already completely dead flat coming into Plougasnou so I began frantically hunting around for a suitable campsite. All reasonable places were full and the only place I could get into in the end was a truly awful unmown yard in a suburban block – no dinner, and it rained all night.