Le Payre cycle way

We travelled from Viviers to the small marina of La Cruas completing another lock, were old hands now. We decided to stop at La Cruas so we could complete the Le Payre cycle way, it’s an old railway route linking Le Pouzin with Privas and in its day was used to transport iron ore to the River Rhône. We had to do a 10km section of the Viarhona first to get from Cruas to Pouzin. The Viarhona goes all the way from Port Saint Louis to Lake Geneva. The very small section we completed took us through orchards of pears, apples, apricots and kiwis. Must confess I hadn’t ever seen a kiwi tree before. The Payre route was beautiful, all the old aqueducts, viaducts and underpasses had been restored, the stonework was beautiful and the whole 20 km journey was without motorised transport, excluding electric bikes, there were a lot of those. On our way up, well actually the whole 20km route apparently only ascended 420m and descended 230m, we stopped for coffee and cake at Chomerac to rest our weary bums, this enabled us to actually see the largest aqueduct that we would be riding over. Privas town, the administrative capital of the Ardèche, it a lot bigger than I expected and although the old town is pretty it is a very small percentage of the town itself. We looked at the obligatory church and Hôtel de ville and also walked up to the Montoulon view point, great views, and white mulberries to be scrumped, before riding more slowly back to the boat and stopping to photograph the bridges and read the information boards. We also picked a lot of wild plums that I now have to decide what to do with.Read more