It seemed a shame to leave our favourite camp site so far, but we’d gazed at the river, soaking up the sun for a whole day, and had a good walk around the town so  after a breakfast from the boulangerie of pain au raisin for me, and a cravatte viennoise for Kez we slowly packed up and rolled out to cheery fairwells from the underworked camp attendants. We cycled along a small D road that more or less followed La Vienne East for a few miles then South as the river bent round and angled us just right for a light tailwind. No hills to speak of, just a few sharp rises as the road climbed sections of the river bank to take us through tired but flowery little villages, not given quite the attention of those on the Loire, and somehow more convincing for it. We were looking for a nice place to stop for lunch as we cycled into a town called Dange St-Romaine where Kez lost sight of me cycling through the busy town square and rode off in a different direction. I backtracked into the square, worried that she’d had a fall but could find no sign of her. When I called her mobile phone she’d already turned it on as we’d agreed to in such situations and as I finished directing her back to the square a French cyclist shouted something, pointing over the bridge in Kez’s direction. I waved thanks hoping he hadn’t said something like ‘hey fatty, your woman is faster than you!’, and after a couple of minutes Kez appeared again. We lunched on left over gammon, dry pork and nut sausage and celeriac salad under a tree on the road out of town.
Approaching Chatelleraut, our intended destination and a largish town, near some busy road works we noticed a sign for four star camping and decided to pop in just to see what the charge would be. The attendant was a gruff fellow with half moon spectacles and an open necked blue shirt who informed me in excellent if rather sarcastic sounding English that (as it showed on the sign outside if I could be bothered to read it) two people and two cycles would be twenty four euros per night. After I’d clarified that he’d said twenty four I asked if there was a municipal site in town.
‘Indeed’ he said. ‘It’s good if you want to learn guitar.’ I looked at him trying to work out where the conversation had gone wrong.
‘Gypsies’ He clarified.
‘Ah’ I said, ‘Perfect’ and after flicking on my bandana, I thanked him politely and strolled out.
Kez and I agreed later that the only things that would’ve made the site worth twenty four euros would have been the provision of uninterrupted hot baths and decent English ale on tap.
We cycled through town to the rouger South side and found the gypsy commune municipal slum we’d feared actually was quite a nice clean riverside site with willow trees and lush green pitches bordered by thick hedges and costing a mere €6.50. The attendant said they’d had a lot of bad weather and to feel free to use an empty caravan near the reception if the rain got too bad for our little tent. A nice thought even if we did have more faith in our tent that she did.
The riverbank had benches under the willow trees which we gratefully relaxed in with some wine, watching the swollen silt laden river Ozon spill into the Vienne a few yards from our pitch. It looked the colour of Bailieys as it slipped past in the late afternoon light and cast orangey rippling reflections up onto the dark tree trunks leaning over it.
We met a lone cycle tourist from New Zealand, a small woman somewhere near retirement age who had cycled Edinburgh to Weymouth and was now heading South through France to visit family, travelling light with a tiny tent. She was doing a lot of miles, cycling all day, but was very chirpy and friendly, unlike the lycra clad Dutch cycle tourists who turned up later and seemed a bit aloof. Kez took an instant dislike to them.
Ignoring the regional cuisine we feasted on chicken curry and cheap German lager, Kez slurping a bottle of sangria, and in the end, someone did turn up with a guitar on his back, but thankfully he broke it as he drove his moped under the height restriction pole, forgetting the headstock was sticking up quite so high.