It was a bit surreal waking up on a mountain peak in Andorra. There was more snow than mountains I’ve skied on, and it was funny to think we rode here. We amused ourselves breaking of 2m icicles and throwing them around in the snow, and then sat down to the best buffet breakfast of the tour. The first 10k’s we were riding on snow, having fun doing big skids and taking in photos of the surrounding ski slopes, with the ski lifts below our altitude! The customs officer didn’t bother checking our smokes and alcohol quotas, and soon enough we found ourselves in Fraaaance!
I thought we were in for an all day downhill, but we still had a sneaky 900 odd metre climb in middle. The second downhill lasted forever and was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done. As soon as we were back at a normal altitude, we started passing 
through fantastic little French villages every 10km or so. I was loving it and so were the boys. There was no way we were going to make it to Perpignan before sunset as planned, but as the rain set in we decided to try anyway. After another hairy 15km night ride, we thought we should call it a day, Simon couldn’t see through his glasses anymore. We rolled down a suburban street asking locals if we could pitch the tent in their yard, without much love. An old bloke informed us however of an empty lot where no one would bother us, so we pitched the tent right in the middle and waved to the neighbours as they drove in and out around us. The old bloke was right but we almost froze to death that night. Well, Lach and I did, keeping Simon warm in the middle.
It was a frosty morning outside in the small village of Rhodes. Sam and I had barely slept from the cold, dew, and ice that had formed on the outside and inside of the tent. Our sleeping bags were good down to zero degrees, but it was below that. Simon on the other hand was quite toasty in his Mt Everest-resistant sleeping bag and sleeping mat. Our water bottles on our bikes outside were still frozen, as was the Australian flag attached to Simon’s bike. We stood outside the tent waiting for the sun to come over the small mountain range to dry the tent, but the clouds prevented that from happening.
had spoken to his daughter, Benedicte, who told him about our ride. It was only because he saw the half-frozen Australian flag on Simon’s bike that he stopped. He called his wife, Gisele, to direct us to their house who made us coffee, gave us lunch and all-round brilliant French hospitality.
With our stomachs well lined and clean dry clothes we waved goodbye to the Isaias and headed off towards Carcassonne. We realised early on that we were in for a hard days riding with a head breeze and squabits of rain about. Trying to avoid the winds we decided that following the advice of the global positional system was getting a little boring and tried the old method of guess and see. This took us on many back roads, that then digressed to gravel paths and then further to muddy goat tracks, some how we popped out back on track and had managed to escape the winds for a hour or so as well as getting in some great but unexpected mountain biking! We were already behind our predicted times as around every corner was a great view but also winds that were making riding very difficult. We stopped to eat the lunch that the Isaias
had given us after almost 60km and saw a storm coming down the valley we were in, we scrambled into a farm shed where we planned to wait out the storm and hope with the passing storm the winds would die down.This proved to be a presumptuous decision as the storm passed, the winds only got stronger, having trouble controlling the bikes in the winds before the storm we decided that it was to dangerous to head back out and set up camp in the shed. With the tent up inside the dilapidated shed we fired up the camp stove for some Spaghetti bolognaise and tried to have an early night, but it was an un easy sleep as we all continually woke to the sound of the howling winds occasionally accompanied by bursts of rain.
The best thing about setting up the tent inside the abandoned tool shed is that in the morning it had finally dried out for once! We’d lost a water bottle and used the little water we had cooking the day before, so we rode pretty parched into the first town. Today was great. Friendly local artisan trades, several chateaux high up on hills, markets, and a long easy ride beside some river rapids. Arriving in Carcassonne we were met with a huge medieval castle. Huge. Garmi was directing us right inside to where the hostel was supposed to be, over the drawbridge and everything. We were pleasantly surprised to see that for once he was right!!We timed our stay in the castle well too, because this weekend there were 150 Spanish medieval enthusiasts stamping around in costume with drums and pipes and wine sacks and swords. Outside the castle in the downtown area, there were Christmas markets, light shows, and an ice skating rink. There were people everywhere and everyone was generally having a good time. We joined in and had a great night to finish off a great day.
We woke this morning to a warm hostel bed, a nice change from a cold sleeping bag yesterday, and got ready to ride. Instead of getting on our bikes outside in the cold, we slid back into our hostel beds and stayed there until we decided that staying in the castle another day was a more attractive option, and we’re glad we did. Later we rode throughout the town enjoying the old streets, had a beer in a local pub watching the rugby and bought groceries for a massive feast at dinner. We had pate, baguettes, a healthy pasta dish, and a generous serving of wine.
A bit too much drinking meant we lost track of time, but it was around 7 hours later that we joined the Spaniards drinking and eating fresh jamon. We were shown how to drink from a traditional sack of wine, where Sam mastered the technique drinking for 60 seconds! He was then thrown in the air by a few to the calls of CHAMPION and OLE OLE OLE.
