Biking the Loire

This is Narnia. And Tolkien’s Shire. Sherwood Forest, and the grounds of Pemberley.

The sky is an even grade of grey from horizon to horizon. Something like rain. The ponchos – an insurance policy – are well and truly earning their 24 Euro cost. Poor Tony. This is not what he ordered. (Four days later, 150 kilometres away in a little stone hut, warm from hot showers and a bottle of Beaujolais, our wet clothes steaming on the heater, he confesses: “I thought your whole family would think I was a prick. ‘He made you do what, darling? On your honeymoon??!’”)

Little does he know this is perfect bike riding weather, and being bred of Blue Mountain stock, I am in my element.

South-west of Paris, the Loire valley region encompasses a chateau or twenty, thousands of kilometres of vineyard grapes and, of course, the final meandering half of the river Loire.

The plan is to ride west from (bustling yet bland) Tours to a little spot outside Saumur, taking in the valley’s famous cheeses and wines along our three or four day way. We are in no way trail blazers. Biking the Loire is a well organized, well frequented holiday choice. In your chosen starting town, somewhere on the river, you pick up a bike, a well marked map, maybe some supplies, and head off down one of many bike paths. And there you have it. The way is shown by friendly blue and green signs, and mostly we have our own road, occasionally shared with a tractor.

Were we here a little earlier in the year, we probably would have simply followed the throng of bikers heading out of town. But as it is, we are here in Autumn. The French are back at school, work, University. The party is well and truly over, and so, we have the paths and the river to ourselves.

Tony is a natural bike rider. He may have skipped a little dance of glee the day before we picked up the bikes. His role is chief navigator, leader, and pace setter. I parasitically sit in his draft, like a good little peloton. My role is chief greeter, observer and recorder. Everyone gets a Bonjour! and the few who do not respond are ‘tourists’. I notice (and comment on!) the corn husks, the butterflies, the hand shaped flower beds, the plump apricots, the ducks, the scarecrows…

I must be a pain in the bum to ride with.

The further we go though, the more clear it becomes that this is quite possibly the greatest idea we’ve (he’s) ever had.

The leaves are sketched with dry paint bristles, in all the colours we don’t have access to in Australia. Now I think I understand why Autumn is a season in its own right. Maybe even someone’s favourite.

And yet the scents are more concrete than the scenery. Wood fire. Wood stack. Rotting sunflower stalks. Bitter coffee ground soil. We enter each smell as distinctly as a patch of sunlight in the woods. Manure. Squashed berries. Mushrooms growing on tree stumps. The river. Can you paint with these?

We ride though banquet dregs. The forgotten end-of-season bounty. Apples, chestnuts, pears lie in the gutter. I imagine pantries are too full to bother collecting it. Tree boughs, still laden with fruit, are propped up so as not to tear themselves from the trunk under their own weight. Soon other signs mark our way - hand painted wooden signs: peche, abricot. The remnants of Summer, when people like us could provide a little extra income. Now the stalls are empty.

And so many things to collect! A carpet of acorns – green and plump, orange and dried, caps, leaves, whole and part. My sister and I would have had a ball if you had transported us here as little single digits. Because what’s better than one acorn, but 20? In a bucket. (The bucket suggests wealth, economy, trade, providing – all important themes in a childhood game of kings and queens.) A mint of coins and cash. This would have set us up for life.

There are miles of corn fields. Vineyards. Sunflowers. They bow their heads, school girls reprimanded by Mother Nature.

My mind is huge. Images rattle in the expanse, dying to be recorded. I feel very human. Lost in the senses. I am five fingers’ tips spread wide. The right hemisphere has taken over completely. I am not ‘woman’ or ‘wife’, ‘Australian’ or even ‘traveller’. I am so far from the breakfast buffet at the Chinon Best Western, and that conversation with the Subway franchise owner from Christchurch - “originally St Louis”. I think I have no language left. I am in and out. Pistons and fuel. Heat and cold. I am Saumur 35 – 32 – 28 – 25. I am visibility 100 – 50 – 20 – 10. I am puddles and fat drops.  I am ‘when it’s cold you stay indoors’. I am ‘cover your head’. I am Fuck That! I am sobbing and melting – oh no, that’s just the rain. And then the sweaty layers of clothing finally meet with the rain soaked layers, and I am SO WET!

We take refuge in the foyer of a church and eat yesterday’s peach.

Mountainous bliss is now miserable. I think the tipping point was when my shoes got wet. ‘Til then it was us against the elements, and we were doing fine. We end up hiring a car in Saumur to take us down the perilous freeways to the shower warmed stone hut. I know it’s not, but it feels like we’re cheating.

Though here at the other end of said freeways, amongst vineyards, salt roasted almonds and hand picked cherry tomatoes, I know we didn’t pike. We have simply earned the reward.

Tours – Villendry – Azay-le-Rideau – Brehemont – Chinon – Candes-St-Martin – Saumur – Agentay (La Loire à Vélo)

Post edit: PHOTOS