Saturday 10th May - St Martin Lalande to Carcassonne

Great start to the ride through beautiful countryside for the first 10km as we made our way back to the canal. The surface hadn't changed much since the point we left the canal previously in Castelnaudary (and was going to get considerably worse before the day was done. We persevered for most of the way to Carcassonne with the trailer ploughing its own furrow through the undergrowth (it really has performed superbly throughout the trip). The final few kilometres were completed on the road as we awaited our first glimpse of the city walls.

They came into view with just a kilometre to go to city campsite; a pretty good big site which seemed to have its own live in nightwatchman (a kind of mini Fagin but with a more friendly disposition), how were we to know we'd pitched near his tent and had no option other than to have him as a constant companion on site ;-) To be fair he was extremely friendly, greeted us instantly with sweets and steered us to yet another bike shop, as we planned to replace some worn tyres.

We had a little time in the evening to make our first foray into the medieval city but wanted to save some of its treasures for the following days as this was our originally planned holiday break within the trip and a 4 star hotel awaited us for the following two nights.

Running through our trip calculations, we've now gone over 1,000 miles and also, pretty sure the distance has eclipsed a certain ride to Northern Spain 33 years ago!