| Calais to Lille (2) |
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| Ah, Audruicq station - last visited a year ago. This time it offered some mild amusement. Now I'd heard that the French railways offered concessions, and wondered if this applied to over 60's. It did! 35% discount for each of us. Well almost - one of our party just didn't come up to the bar - being only a young 59. So poor old Paul had to dig into his wallet to pay the full fare. I suppose we could have lied about his age, but it wouldn't have been as much fun! |
| Still Paul didn't seem to worry about it for too long as the photo right evidences. Yet again the French showed how to accommodate cyclists. Our bikes were stowed close by in a specially constructed area that allowed us to stack them four deep without removing panniers and other gear. Just over the hour to get to Lille and then another 45 minutes cycling to the B&B - another great find |
| Ferme de la Noyelle (click for more details) is typical of the type of B&B we stay at when choosing from the Sawday selection. A fine farmhouse with comfortable rooms and an excellent evening meal and breakfast - Dominque, the owner, served us well. |
| Our cycles were stored in the barn shown to the left of the above photo. I thought it deserved a couple of extra pictures as you can then appreciate the elaborate roof structure inside the building - the supporting timbers must be close to 150 years old. In the picture below you can see the base 'X' frames that I believe carry a good deal of both the lateral and vertical stress created by the high roof - I could probably do with some input here from the civil engineers amongst our team! |
| La Noyelle is very much a working farm. Plenty of foul making their various noises, Chickens as below plus ducks and geese as well. The chickens were particularly inquisitive - and I'm sure a quick headcount revealed that there was one less than the previous evening.... |
| ...and very tasty he (or she) was too!! But enough of this gastronomic banter. we needed to be on our way. Friday seemed to be starting well - slightly overcast but no sign of any rain as we pedalled out of La Noyelle - sadly, dryness was not to be for long! |