Life, as the e-Bike Cycle Tourists have discovered over the past four weeks, can be very interesting when you are cycle touring.
Such has been the generosity and kindness of complete strangers we have met along the way we have been invited to dinner, offered hot drinks, chocolates, warm showers, internet to track down a camp site for the night, a bed instead of sleeping in our tent, 40 pounds to “buy a drink” and not to mention electricity to charge our e-bikes! Yes all the above has been offered to us and more!
It warms the heart to know that there are still so many generous people in society, in spite of all the bad news we hear about these days. You might ask, “Where do you find these people?” Well it is simple, they are everywhere. They are people who openly embrace individuals like us who are prepared to step out of their comfort zone to ‘have a go’.
To date we have come across so many wonderful people on our travels, like Christine and Tony in Aldershot, UK who put us up for 8 days to allow us to prepare for this trip.
Ron, an amazing Englishman who recently lost his wife after 60 years of marriage who generously put 40pounds in our hands to have a nice bottle of wine in France on him.
Taletha who took us to her home to use her internet when we were desperate to find a campsite after the first park we called into turned us away because “we only take motor homes” and the second park, much to our dismay, was closed.
Gill and Simon in Scrigna, a small village in Brittany, who helped us when there were no campsites to be found after a long day’s cycling. They allowed us charge our batteries and when we collected them we stayed for a cup of tea and chocolates. The next day we had a lovely hot shower after wild camping next to their home on the rail trail.
Frustrated and lost in Morlaix after the signs for the Eurovelo 1 cycle path seemingly disappeared, we stopped and asked a cyclist for directions. No problems with the language barrier, by pointing at our map the cyclist soon understood our predicament. The response? He indicated to us to ride behind him which we did for 3-4 km out of town before he indicated to us the track we had been looking for. There were smiles all around and a genuine tres bien and merci beaucoup from us as we parted ways!
Our most recent encounter was a couple of days ago, after setting up our tent in Blain. Just as we started to cook our dinner Eddy the park manager came and asked us if we would like to join him and his family for dinner.
His wife was an English teacher and by all accounts she had heard all of Eddy’s stories about all the foreigners he meets and had asked him to bring some home so she could meet them too. I think being Australians was the reason we were the choses ones!
At every turn we seem to experience friendly helpful people.All these magical experiences really restore your faith in society and encourages you to keep on cycling to see what is around the next corner!
Bring on many more similar experiences.