With it being our last day of riding today I think most of us set out with mixed feelings - on the one hand a bit sad to think that our adventure was drawing to a close, but also a bit of relief that we won't have to pull on bike pants tomorrow!! Nina warned us that as we draw closer to Paris the roads will be more crowdy, but she planned to try out a new route that is less crowdy for us. We headed out of Bougival amongst quite a bit of traffic and then Nina started searching for the forest trail that one of the other guides has discovered as an alternative. We actually spent quite some time in the forest looking for the right trail. Nina asked Robert to scout along one ... read more

With today expected to be our hardest yet, I volunteered to be the sweeper so that I could just cruise at the back and not hold anyone up!!! Fortunately my alternate bike shorts don't seem to press in the same places as yesterday's shorts so I wasn't too uncomfortable in the saddle. And what an eventful morning we had!! Well before our first stop at Chateau de Chantilly, we had already had a fall (a nasty graze on the knee - not mine - but no broken bones) and some vomiting (again, not me)!! Of course Bernie couldn't resist telling me that this was my fault as sweeper. Just because he was lucky enough to have an incident-free spell as sweeper yesterday! Despite all of the incidents AND a wrong turn, we eventually arrived in Chantilly ... read more

It was raining as we ate our breakfast this morning which did not bode well for our day's riding. Fortunately, by the time we finished breakfast, cleaned out teeth and got on deck to unlock and prepare our bikes, the rain had stopped!! Our first stop this morning was at Ourscamp Abbey, a Benedictine monastery not far from Pont l'eveque. The abbey is on the Santiago de Compostela pilgrims' route and offers accommodation for pilgrims. Out the back is the most incredible ruin that attests to the fact that the site must have been spectacular in its heyday. A team of archaeologists were working in the ruins. They turned out to be American so they were able to tell us that this is their second season at the site (2009 and back again this year) and ... read more

Today is a rest day. After six days of riding I think everyone is ready for a day out of the saddle?! Breakfast was at 8.00am as usual, but we then had about an hour to finish getting ready to leave the barge rather than the half an hour we have been getting between finishing breakfast and heading off on our bikes. We were due to be picked up for our tour of the Somme battlefields at 9.30am. We wandered up to the bridge over the canal at about 9.15am and Brian arrived in the minivan at about 9.20am. We headed first to the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux. The memorial is an imposing white stone monument that was unveiled on 22 July 1938 by King George VI. It bears the names of 11,000 Australian soldiers ... read more

The rooster that crowed all yesterday evening started up very early again this morning!! It woke me at about 5.00am unfortunately and I really didn't sleep again after than - just dozed a bit. With a few locks to get through today the Elodie actually sailed while we were eating breakfast. Sander is the deck hand as well as the chef and he did an excellent job assisting Zac through the locks and feeding us at the same time! After we had cleared two (or was it three?) locks, Zac moored the barge and we all disembarked quickly so that the Elodie could continue on her way. She had a lot more distance to cover today on the river than we had to cycle on the road. Today we crossed the border into France. If Nina ... read more