29 June 2025 (sunny and extremely hot) 50km

First of all, as we sweat our way through the French countryside, we would like to thank everyone for the sympathy we have received from you all at home in NZ. While you lot have been luxuriating in the delights of hail, thunderstorms and the odd tornado, we have been enduring all the challenges that a cycle tour through France in the early summer conjures up.

The support and understanding we have received during this time is unprecedented.

The fact that we have had to cut our daily kilometers down in order to seek refuge in swimming pool after swimming pool speaks volumes about the conditions we have had to endure.

Of course every now and then, there is no swimming pool and we have to rough it in an alpine lake, but we're prepared to do what we have to.

That even extends to the occasional horror of having to consume more than one ice cream per day, which any reasonable person knows is the absolute limit. Toff, you'll notice I put “reasonable” person.

However, there is talk of relief on the horizon. Apparently five Fridays from now, there will be a cloud in a certain part of Switzerland. This will likely lead to the temperature dropping below 30 for approximately five minutes. They can't release the exact location for fear of a stampede, so we will just hope we're in the right place at the right time.

If you would like to help ease our suffering, we have set up a crowd funding page to finance our next ice-cream, coke or cold beer.

All joking aside, this heat is indeed intense and I think the fact that it is just day after day after day, makes it especially unbearable. 

At our last camp, we saw a group of young women drive in with an older lady and speak to the camp owner. 

He appeared to go and open up a trailer for them and then we saw him walking back with a fan. Next thing an ambulance pulls in.

We have no idea what was going on, but we never saw the old lady again. Hopefully she was just having a nap, and not the big sleep!

So bearing in mind there are warnings out for the elderly in this heat, and we are now in our 60’s, we are being careful not to overdo things.

So we are mapping our course day by day and avoiding any intense climbing and trying to stay near rivers as they usually have trees and shade.

We are also trying to be grateful that it's not raining as that would really be the pits. At least we can see the scenery, keep up with the washing and go swimming a lot!

Pete here: Nightclub or music festival pumping out house music last night. The intermittent screaming of revellers and all the while ...Julia sleeps. At one stage I checked to see if she was still breathing. 

Awake at 5.20am By the time we left camp it was 6.30am Changing mountain scenery today. It always amazes us how a few hundred metres can give you a whole new vista. 

It didn't take long today for the temperature to start rising. After the first hour, we started seeing more cyclists. The most common are those on racing bikes or the locals riding for bread. Cycle path this morning was excellent. 

Wonder what their handicap was? Thinking perhaps vision impaired, which begs the question, "why were they driving?"

At the town of St. Pierre de 'Albigny, which had an Intermarche that opened at 8.30am, we arrived early and then using their wifi, we called Georgina.

It was good to see her and have a ten minute chat, before we loaded up with food for the day, as the supermarches close at 12 or 12.30pm on Sundays. 

Not far down the road, overlooking a lovely lake, we enjoyed a beautiful breakfast, watching people come and go.

At 10.00am, we were back on the trail again, with the sun now very hot. Fortunately at this time of the day we had lots of shade. Rode on until we spied another lake.

Got to the far side and then decided it was more discreet and a whole lot less crowded on the other bank, so went back.

There was one guy swimming when we arrived there. Asked if it was good and he told us it was and we were in. Diving off the rocks at the side into the clear green/blue depths felt amazing.

It would have been nice to linger but as Julia is always saying here,

"It's not the same without waves."

She is bang on the button. Once you've had the initial cool off and a bit of a swim around, there's not much to do, so back to the bikes.

The chateaus are still plentiful and eye-catching.

Rode along nice tracks for the rest of the morning until at 1pm we stopped at another lake, about 4kms away from our destination for the day. 

Here we sat in the shade to have lunch. You'll be pleased to know sardines were back on the menu along with tomato and avocado.

A family, two daughters and their dad, from England showed up, and sat in the shade of a nearby tree.

We exchanged hellos and played with the idea of going over to have a conversation. But as we ate our lunch, we saw the shade was leaving their spot and the only logical place to stop and talk was in front of them, in direct sunlight. Even the lake was too much of walking in the sun to be bothered. Especially when you know you're really not going to get much cooler.

So we decided to just pack up and push on for camp.

Got an ice cream and shared a can of coke in Albertville and sat in the shade of a tree overlooking a very impressive building, the Chateau Rouge a Conflans.

We have just arrived in Albertville at the municipal camp which was only 12 Euro for the night. No pool this time but they do have cold showers.

There is a tempting river running alongside our current trail, called the l’Isere, but we have seen nobody swimming in it.

So we asked at reception and apparently there is a dam further upstream and they can open the floodgates without warning. So we settled for the cold showers.

Tent up in the shade with no flysheet, washing done and time for another cold shower. Still hot so sauntered down to reception for another ice cream each and a coke to share. How we're going to cook and eat chilli con carne for our dinner tonight, I don't know.

The girl on reception has a beautiful two month old border Collie cross, which was a nice distraction from the heat for awhile.

With no wifi on camp we just blogged in the shade trying not to move too much and waited for it to get cold enough to cook, eat and sleep. Might be waiting a looong time!

Well after my fourth cold shower this afternoon, I felt cool enough to cook chilli con carne with lentils and rice, and it was delicious. 

Gave Pete a haircut with the new shave/comb thing we bought off AliExpress for $2. It worked pretty well too!

And then a final cold shower before bed.