It rained heavily all night, stopping around 08:00
As the sun comes up the trees along the canal are bathed in low light creating, through the soft mist, a scene worthy of a fine watercolour painting. Ali rushes out to get a photo but gets her jeans caught on a bungee hook by the door, by the time she has released it the moment has passed without being caught on camera [or the scene...]
We use the service point, next to an old machinery house. These buildings always look the same: a few courses of stone base then big, slab sided walls pierced with tall, cast iron framed windows and a pitched slate roof.
Narrow lanes lead us back to the main road but after only a few miles we encounter a long ‘deviation’ for roadworks around Rouans. The country roads are colourful, glistening wet in the sunshine from the recent rain.
After a fuel stop we approach the St Nazaire bridge, still operating the experimental lane control we encountered in 2016.
From the top we can see a monstrous cruise ship MSC VIRTUOSA nearing completion. We wonder if something so big might prosper in post Covid cruising, the operating crew numbers - deck/engine - vary little between ships and hotel/hospitality crew is a ratio to passengers. Big ship at one third capacity, plenty of social distancing in public areas, reduced hotel crew, nett operating costs similar to smaller ships [bar fuel] and they’re in a better position than smaller ships will be.
We planned a route through the salt marshes but after the bit of dual carriageway we enter the first of a continuous string of villages, each competing for the ‘Most Aggressive Speed Bump Award - 2020’. Sub categories include ‘Smallest Roundabout’, ‘Narrowest Pinch Point’ and ‘Slowest Bin Wagon’. And they’re not even pretty villages!
We stop in the last one, St Joachim, to recover from this Dakar Rally simulator and hold down a sandwich. In 3 hours we have travelled 41 miles only.
The ‘green route’ north from here turns out to be very pretty, partly through the marshes, sometimes through woody patches with lots of red virginia creeper, before we join the N165 west.
The miles start to click over quickly now but we have been so badly held up we consider whether to stop on the coast south of Vannes or in Hennebont, but press on towards Quimperle.
When the satnav leads us past the Quimperle east sign we are unperturbed, but when we come off west and continue west Ali questions where we are going, insisting the aire is east of town. Nick, who has the hump with delays and busy traffic, forgets that he had programmed an aire near Quimperle, not in it. We reprogramme and find it is 5 miles back through the city. Last time we came here in 2008 it was a quiet sort of place but the teatime traffic is manic and it takes half an hour. We arrive and park in the small aire and it dawns that this has 2-3 places which is why we were going to ‘rue de Quimperle - le Trevoux’ 4 miles north west of the city. Ali suggest we could go if we want; answer not printable.
It’s a secluded little spot though with a babbling brook beside us and lots of birds singing around us. Ali crosses the bridge and finds lovely views of the river.
After coffee, then beer all is calm and we have a tasty salmon and pesto supper.
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