Day 7 - Orléans to near Boulleret (76 miles)

I am laying in my tent nestled into the edge of a wood. Outside the chirping of birds and the occasional cuckoo, the drone of insects and the incessant noise of frogs. And five miles across the fields I can just catch the Belleville nuclear power station; it is not quite the remote camp site on the bank of the Loire that I had hoped for but the river's edge has proved hard to reach.

It has been a steady day. Having decided to camp, but with no particular location in mind, I was content to pedal into the late afternoon until I found a reasonable spot; from the moment I left Orléans and headed along the river towards the morning sun I was under no pressure. In a morning that consisted almost entirely of cycling along levee or through farmland a few things stood out along the way: coming out of woodland early in the ride to see the sweeping arc of the Loire before me, sparkling in the sun; relaxing in Jargeau, twinned with my home town of Corsham, while drinking coffee and looking at the red telephone box sitting incongruously in the town square (I also found out yesterday that Jargeau seems best known for its traveller internment camp during the war); a beautiful section on the levee, the white track lined with a blanket of grass and buttercups and daisies while the languid, olive green of the river hemmed the levee in on one side and fields of bright yellow rapeseed the other; and finally, enjoying a hearty lunch in a small restaurant at Sully-sur-Loire, overlooking its fairytale 16th century castle.

Sully-sur-Loire

As for the afternoon, although never far from it I hardly saw the river. I entered the outskirts of Briare over the very impressive aqueduct of the Briare canal, picked up the Loire canal that runs close to the river and followed it for a long stretch through woodland shaded from the afternoon sun. As I rejoined the Loire near the tiny village of Beaulieu-sur-Loire I started looking for likely campsites.  My ideal: a picnic area with flat grass and benches by the river and which I was advised would be perfectly acceptable for camping as long as it was early evening. But it was not to be. A woodland's edge and a chorus of frogs reminding me how close I am to the water will have to suffice.

Gien