…. And that’s just me!

OK gang I’m going to keep it brief tonight.

It’s been a pretty gruelling day. Only 260 miles covered but 140 of those were painful, tedious grind on old National Routes that Dookes should have known better and avoided!

I was going to regale you all with tales of the changing geography and landscape vistas. Then tell how vast fertile plains of cereals gave way to contented suckler herds of Charolais cattle and then slopes of Burgundy vineyards. Instead my eyes are dry with the stinging dust from too many miles stuck behind heavy goods vehicles on roads with absolutely no overtaking permitted!

Fortunately a lunch stop in Mâcon, one of my favourite small French cities, cheered me up a bit as my patience was definitely wearing very thin!

My old mate Floyd, bless his soul, had a solution for that gritty road dust in the eye syndrome; a slug of Marc de Bourgogne in a strong espresso.

Instead I have to settle for eye-drops!

Anyway, tonight we are in the Ain Département of Eastern France, right up alongside the Swiss border. It’s lovely country and as we are a bit up in the hills it’s also mercifully cooler, as the warm winds today made it seem like I was riding into a hairdryer at times, as my pal Paul says!

This is the gorge of the River Ain, from which the region takes its name, nice eh?

On a plus point the twisty roads have begun, the last fifteen miles certainly made up for the painful bits!

Tomorrow we start La Route des Grande Alpes.

Catch you soon.

Dookes