After 12,000km on the road, it was definitely time for some new tires. The first couple pictures on the left show how cracked and worn our old Vredestein Spiders were. We were very happy with them though - not a single flat after all this time! Unfortunately, we couldn’t buy them again since no one seemed to have them in stock. Even Vredestein’s official distributors said they didn’t have any to sell us and an email to Vredestein’s customer service department went unanswered. A real shame that poor availability prevented us from staying with what we think is a great tire. Instead, we’ve plumped for the famous Schwalbe Marathon XRs. The standard has been set by the Vredesteins and we’ve heard so many good reports about the Marathon XRs. We’ll let you know in another 12,000km how the two compare.

A lot of people ask what we get out of our current activity: working for room and board on a farm. Well, the latest “life skill” we’ve learned is how to catch a chicken! Four red hens are the latest addition to La Chatte Gitane and every night we have to put them in their house to keep them safe from cats, foxes and any other wildlife that might fancy a midnight snack. This involves a comical chase around the chicken coop, much squawking and flapping and quite a few near misses on our parts as the chickens run between our legs, until we finally manage to scoop up the hens and put them to bed. We have been getting better from our first attempts, quickening our reflexes and learning which corners of the coop offer the best chicken-catching chance. You’ll see Andrew is looking particularly proud in one picture with his “prize”. The hen is less pleased about the whole situation!

Yesterday we left the road and took to the water for a 24km kayak adventure down the Ardeche river. The scenery was beautiful with birds soaring in the skies and the walls of the gorge towering above us. The route also gave our upper bodies a workout, after months of toning our calves by cycling kilometer after kilometer. Neither of us had much kayaking experience, so we flipped over once, after hitting a rock right in the middle of a rapid, but in a strange way this was a good thing. The cool water felt so refreshing compared to the heat of the sun shining down on us. There were quite a few people out on the river but not so many that we felt crowded. It might be quite different in July and August. Apparently in the high season there can be as many as 8,000 people on the river each day.

We’ve returned to La Chatte Gitane, a peaceful corner of the Ardeche where our friends Bert and Patricia happily give us tasks like building stone walls and weeding the garden in exchange for room and board. This really is paradise for us, a quiet place to relax and take a break from our bikes. It’s spring here and everything is beautiful so today we took some pictures and put them into a groovy new slideshow program we found. Just click on the photo to start. We may add more shots over the next 3 weeks.

Our pick of camping spots do tend to be on the rough side. The ground we picked this time in a field full of overgrown grass was a good hiding spot but a little bumpy, making for a night of rolling to one side or the other but never the most comfortable part of the mattress. Ah well, a coffee in the morning solves all things. Just as we got most things packed up it started to spit rain a little. Considering yesterdays hot weather, it was a welcome relief. As we entered the Ardeche the quiet, very rural countryside gave way to campgrounds and towns packed with tourists. What must this area be like in the summer? One of the obvious tourist hot spots was a bar with an English-pub style sign and the name Chelsea but a logo with the cartoon characters Tin-Tin and Snowy and an advertisement for German beer. A little confused, but it probably stops a wide range of tourists! (more…)