The path was generally pretty good, bit gravelly in places but flat and direct. Lots of locks to mark the route, and regular signs with distances. We met a fellow British cycle tourist called Jay, who we cycled with into the maze that it Rennes! The cycle path seems to cross the outer ring road but all signs disappeared. Inevitably we went the opposite direction to the campsite and got well and truly lost. Also, one of the trailer tyres was punctured and clipping the curb caused the trailer to flip for the first time. No damage done though. Eventually we found the municipal camp site and set up in the last of the light. A couple of tins of cassoulet and a hot shower later we were ready for bed after a long day of cycling.
As we didn't see much more than Rennes ringroad the day before we decided to stay an extra night to do some sightseeing. We meandered into the city centre and took a few snaps, headed for the bibliotheque and did a bit of research for Workaway placements. Rennes seems a pretty nice place, lots of fancy shops and lots of bicycles.
We braved the city centre of Rennes the following morning to get back on the cycle path, took us a while to find it! The path continues along the side of the canal, the surface wasn't quite as good as the voie verte that lead us into Rennes but it was quite quiet and we pootled along. We had been warned about a very rough section about 9km out of Rennes, and it was very narrow, very bumpy and there were lots of brambles, but we managed to stay on the bike thanks to Rob's “just keep pedalling” approach. Feeling pretty relieved we hadn't fallen in the canal after the rough section we were pretty disappointed that we had dismount and detach the trailer for the next two gates. We had been aiming for Redon but our legs wouldn't allow us to go much further than 50km so we stopped in a little town called Guipry for the night.
The following day it was sunny and we made our way back onto the canal path again aiming for Redon. However, not long in to the day we stopped to repair a punctured trailer tyre and noticed the front tyre had gone too. This delayed us a bit but we pressed on to Redon, where the campsite we were aiming for turned out to be closed. Back on the road and 10km later we ended up in Reiux, where the campsite also appeared to be closed for the season but we were too tired to care and pitched up anyway.
A bumpy journey from Reiux to Blain, in more ways than one. A short on road section out of Reiux lead us back onto the canal side towpath, which wasn't quite as smooth as we had hoped. A few hours in and we heard an almighty bang as our rear tyre exploded. Thankfully it was warm and sunny, so the following two hours we spent attempting to repair and then replace inner tubes wasn't too grim. The tyre wall had shredded again so our repairs lasted about ten minutes before there was another explosion, at this point we decided the best thing to do was to push the bike and pull the trailer the 7km to the nearest campsite in Blain. Of course this happened on a Saturday evening so there was no chance of us getting a new tyre until Monday at the earliest.
By the time we arrived at the campsite we were pretty tired and hungry so weren't quite sure if the people in medieval costumes were real or not. (They were real, there was a medieval festival happening up the road).
A wander round town lead us to the local kebab shop where we had an incredible dinner!
The lack of open shops on Sunday meant we just had to eat out again...what a shame. Pretty fantastic pizza. Back at camp we met another cycle tourist, Gary, and had a good chat about all things bike! Sorted the tyre the following day, got our washing done and regrouped! Bacon and cheese croissants for breakfast meant we made good time along the canal path, and following Gary's excellent instructions we arrived at the municipal campsite in Nantes. A huge campsite in the city, with super hot showers!
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