Day Eight

Quite up & down.

The Gorge is enormous! It is impossible to describe the scale. As you ride along the edge it is almost 1km deep in places. Last year we saw nothing of it as we were riding through a massive thunderstorm but this year it was perfect weather and the gorge was all there to see. There are lakes of astonishing colour on the way up - extreme cyan, extreme green... beautiful views.

We all kept singing, “because you’re gorgeous, I’ll do anything for you...” Today we were very sore and very slow and are at the back with the slower riders, helping them. We rolled them in at the end of the day; ten hours in the saddle feeling very sore and still suffering after the exhaustion of Venoux!

If you climb up above Grasse, you are on a Mediterranean plain. From there, you can see all over the flower fields and the sea gleaming in the distance 20k away. Later we met up with Adrian Mote – Firefly No1. We left the girls and descended through the sunshine with the smell of the flowers all around like demons. We rolled in, grabbed a beer and jumped in the pool!

Got cleaned up and had a lovely dinner:

Chick Pea Salad

Grilled Salmon (first fish of the ride)

Chocolate Brownie

and some Rosé ...

and some more Rosé ...

and even more Rosé ...

So the blog was forgotten!