Wild is the wind

After Bowie’s run in with the Mistral wind at his Bastille Day concert I had to face the infamous natural phenomenon head-on as I moved northwards up through France. Like a Rhône-stone cowboy - on a bike rather than a horse - I tackled the river Rhône using the beautiful, meandering ViaRhôna cycle route. Also known as Eurovelo 17, it runs for over 1000km from Montpellier in the south of France all the way to Lake Geneva in Switzerland. And I was going to follow it pretty much the whole wind-battered way…

80km north of Nimes is the mightily impressive Pont du Gard. After a four hour ride with the Mistral rearranging my cheeks into funny angles I arrived at the ancient Roman aqueduct bridge that was built between 40-60 AD. Even with it’s UNESCO Heritage status, not surprisingly, there was no Bowie, but below the 48 metre high, three-tiered arches, were umpteen million old fogies, zeppelin-sized clouds of flies and some moron with a shiny five head supping greedily from a bidon in a rather ugly manner.

The cyclist’s breakfast menu: three eggs, entire baguette, double banana drop, minor indigestion, acid reflux for 40 miles. And an apple for lunch to add a bit more belly gargling into the mix.

The long, deep stretches of smoothly paved tarmac were flanked by farmer’s fields and thickets of forest. Ideal for drying your cycling shorts and setting up camp for the night. After a day of lazy, zigzagging northwards, night swallowed me and I cooked up some tooth shattering al dente pasta to refuel.

The next morning it was onto the river Rhône itself. And what a revelation! Tiny lanes wove around isolated farmhouses, opalescent streams plinked and plonked under lily pads, moulting ferns shed fronds into the yonder and the Mistral plundered across distant farmland.

The river path twisted languidly past hilltop villages and autumn crops and past tumbledown ruins where I paused briefly to read a sign tacked to a collapsed barn. Using Google translate I discovered it was a plaque in memory of four children who’d tragically drowned in the floods of 1796.

Amongst the picture-postcard villages and the occasional dead snake, railway lines dissected the path and donkey’s briefly looked up at this sweaty cyclist before getting their noses back amongst the tasty grass.

The Mistral leant this corn field a bent out of shape appearance as I raced beside it and with winter on it’s way the sunflowers below bowed to their fate.

I pedalled on, fighting the Mistral and the ever-shorter autumn days. After a second day of eight hours in the saddle, and with dusk enveloping me, I found this little pear orchard which made another cosy spot for the night. Even if I did spend all night pooping it that a Breton farmer is going to poke a shotgun through my tent door and ask what the ‘ell I was doing camping on his land. To avoid any such skirmishes, I’d be up before the sun tomorrow. Well hopefully, this pasta I’m currently cooking in the dark whilst listening to Bowie’s Station to Station is taking a while to soften…