Saint-Mammès

As there had been a number of set-backs I elected to take the afternoon off and end the day in the Fontainebleau area. I stayed at a camp site on the south eastern edge of the Fontenbleaux forest, which isn't great progress, but not disasterous either.

I spent the early evening making a rich minestrone soup. I also trued my wheel (some of the spokes were loosening under the load) and reenforcing the cable tie bodge on the pannier. I also looked up the french for, "my pannier rack in broken" - "ma port-de-bagage en case'" just in case.

It does seem like there might be some problems with the solar charging. I got plenty of sun during the day, but the gorilla battery didn't seem to be holding much juice; it's only given lappy a couple of exrta %age points of power.

There was a thunderstorm in the morning and the tent has done ok. I stayed put until it passed which I think was the smart move. I'm hoping that with the rain and cloud it will be a good day to put in some miles as the heat has definitly been an issue so far.

The camp site owner had lent me a canister of camping gaz, so I could cook. When I made to return it the self sealing seal... didn't, so I quickly reattached my stove to prevent the gas from escaping. Not feeling my French was up to explaining a valve failure and definitely not wanting to spray pressurised butane around to demonstrate, I quietly left camp.

On the bright side, this should be a good position to start a big push towards Dijon.Read more