Thursday 15th Day 5

Castelnaudary to Carcassonne

Cold again today as we left Castelnaudary the world capital of cassoulet. The reasonable canal side path eventually turned into a muddy trail again after the previous days rains. This hampered progress and indeed this time it was Peter who fell off his bike. His excuse was that he thought he saw out of the corner of his eye, a cafe we could stop at. No such luck, once again we pedalled on without a stop slipping and sliding all over the place. David eventually went on strike and insisted a road was the answer. Sure enough he found a road and we pedalled our way into Carcassonne for a late lunch with our support team under the walls of the old fortified Cite de Carcassonne.

David and Peter beside the canal

We had achieved 28 miles before lunch. We had arranged to stay with Vicky and Peter's
very old friends Caryl and Jan Panman at their vineyard near Limoux. So we suspended our trip to the Med and pedalled south towards Limoux. David ran out of steam in the hills and as this was not part of the Atlantic to Mediterranean route, he generously agreed to handover his bike to Vicky so that she could do the last bit.

We are now taking a short break. Normal service will be resumed on Sunday when we set off on the last lap of our journey back to Carcassonne for the final 80 miles to the Mediterranean seaside.

David and Peter