David's Day 7: Hawkward

David's day 7:

The bird above the tents decided to give the definitive lecture on repetitive tweeting at about 5am and thus we had to postpone some nap time until late into the morning. A day when I could have easily had sleep for breakfast, made apparent by Chris being out of his tent before me.

The first thing I saw this morning. Too hot for the rain cover.

Steve and Peggy wished us well and soon disappeared for the walking section of their active holiday. After packing up for the last time as the dynamic duo of cycle touring, we made it to the canal but not before picking the most indirect and mountainous way possible to travel two miles.

Given a whole 10 second timer to think of a pose and this is what you get.

Here we are then. Words were said, tears were held back, bit of a bro hug then off our separate ways. Chris heading West to Brest, me heading East to... Redon.

Double selfie.

The canal was one of two ways to get to the town of Gouarec, infamous for its bread dispensing wall robot, and we'd previously gone via the train route. That was straight and direct, the canal differed in just two ways. Though level it is a wiggly, wiggly river and I'm sure I did many more miles than before. Noticing my inability to stop on steep gradients from before, I had a pop at adjusting my disc brakes.

Then: what was that noise? Rustling in the reeds the other side of the river. Could it be an otter or dark lord Saumon? Turned out to be a dog who was definitely not with any kind of human. It seemed to be having trouble scaling the high riverbanks so I parked the bike and hastened over the lock gates to answer it's call for aid.



Turns out it was perfectly capable of getting in and out and did it several more times when I got there. Then another approached who wasn't so annoyed that I'd interrupted it's tomfoolery with good intentions. They seemed like they knew eachother, must be local as there definitely wasn't anyone else around.



Other than some expectedly nice scenery, the only other curiosity was the kayak ramps down a series of locks. I saw some boatpeople (sailors?) use them and heard the themepark-esque screams over the third episode of Star wars for radio.





Gouarec not only provided me a top of of my dwindling water but also a shop full of British exports. Chris you would have liked this place. Not being a particularly vegetarian friendly country (take snails as an indication of how far the French'll go not to eat their greens) it's been challenging to keep the protein levels up. I was drawn to the 'Quorn™' sticker in the window and the English couple in there delivered with some hearty, if overpriced, Quam™. I also went back to the bread wall-bot despite the actual bakery being open this time.

Good thing I've kept that mcflurry spoon!

Riding back to the 'camp vu de lac' my route was blocked by a fallen bit of tree. As going round it almost locked my front wheel in the direction of the water, I decided to do something about it. Hmm.. tried dragging, too big and elastic. Then I remembered!




Voila le pocket saw. Hello. My name is Davigo Montoya. you have killed my momentum, prepare to die! Three choice cuts to the branches, about the size of my wrist, vanquished the foe. After cleaning it up and doing a thoroughly professional job (I was a gardener you know), I walked back to my bike and just that moment round the corner came four aging cyclists who all flew down the now unobstructed path. It seems when you have done something right, people aren't sure you've done anything at all.

Before - this makes it look deceptively small. That was taller than me.

After - take that random occurrence.

The rest was much the same, I went up the same steeeep winding road that suckerpunched me and Chris five days ago. It took enough out of me to make me wonder if Chris only existed in my mind, fight club style (spoiler alert). I would have been paying double at campsites for no reason.



I did ride close to a hawk perched on a eye-level branch, I've an affinity since doing the hawk walk on day 3 and wearing my new ASICS gel-windhawks. I braked semi successfully to see if I could approach him/her for a portrait but a pigeon leapt upon this moment of distraction. It made a break for it. The hawk pursued, frustrated that I had made it look away.

This time I took the correct road to the campsite after being punished so sternly last time. Unfortunately the eccentric campsite attendant was not on duty so I didn't get to tell him where I'd been since the last time.

Oh and I saw a cat.

I've now gots a nice little spot away from the fray where I'm eating a footlong quam sandwich. Chris what've you been up to?