We've been analysing trends in road kill as we pedal:
DATA
Several cats
One brown and white rat (large)
One baby wild boar
Lots of birds
Few hedgehogs
Rabbits
Squirrel (red)
Two foxes, side by side in gutter
Strange cat-like animal with hands!
(No badgers tho (do they have them?))
ANALYSIS
We reckon the larger amount of birds c.f. the UK could be because there's less cars. The odd, fast, Frenchman whipping along a country road might take them by surprise.
Generally the mix was similar to UK, except for the lack of badgers.
We're puzzled tho by the cat like thing with hands. We should have stopped to look in more detail but we didn't. jc thinks it was monkey. (Hunts did go rather quiet for a while.)
Bergerac was lovely, if somewhat overly full of British. We didn't actually intend to go there tho. Jackies rather taken over the navigating. I'm not sure of the name of her destination but when we found ourselves on the Bergerac ring road (with her looking confused) we decided that, as it was 5 pm, we'd better go into town. jc was just relieved that we hadn't gone in around in one big circle back to where we'd started. (You may note that our progress does seem to lurch east then west - we seem to be heading more for the Atlantic than the Med at present. C'est la vie!
And Mr Jangut, I have noted, and tend to agree, with your comments on this matter - I must take control.
Today was actually a lot harder than planned (for both of us). (Surprising after such a good day yesterday.) The reasons, with hindsight are obvious:
The route we chose was a lot hillier than expected - a long string of hilltop villages strung out along very small lanes
Over 30C. All sun. No wind. No clouds
Nouvelle cuisine (v small portions) last night, rather than our normal carb load
A few too many wines last night
Feeling the affects of yesterday's 'charge'
It turned out to be a difficult day in the saddle with water leaking out as fast a we were gulping it down.
My front tyre blew out. But a low speed.
Eventually got to the banks of the mighty Garonne river by around 4pm at a place called Marmande. We were hot and grimy and rather dehydrated (again) but somewhat pleased with ourselves: the big hills are all behind us! The town of Marmande has surely seen better days. Henry IX invaded it about 1420 and not that much seems to have happened since (especially painting and decorating). It'll do for the night.
We'll head east tomorrow, along the Garonne,and will reach the fantastic city of Toulouse by Saturday evening.
This country's bigger than I thought: All this travelling makes me feel like I'm turning into John Legge.
No rest day yet. Will we ever get one?