First turn of the morning is wrong and Del sends us all down hill to hell - just another dead end port with no bridge to the other side. There’s a heap of swearing, the road will be long today. He shouldn’t feel too bad, as Hellybutt never throws his hand up for nothing and Bodean - well he loves this riding life and it’s spilt milk in the end anyways. Cruising into Guidel on an empty stomach, past those universal high-vis covered council workers, who all come from the same country - a country which isn’t on this planet and they block the road and take twenty breaks before lunch and meticulously discuss the lifting of each shovel load. It makes Hellybutt wonder if humans can ever really get lost anywhere on this earth ‘cos everywhere is fundamentally the same.
Bodean slurps a beautiful coffee and then two retired couples from New Zealand and Australia whoop and rebel rouse with the caravan. And these guys are fun and don’t give a “rats” about speaking terrible french, “Just as long as you try and they laugh at you”. Nice people doing it for themselves around crazy, old Europe and forever comparing beer prices with back home.
But time keeps pressing from somewhere and into Lorient and another Decathlon store for more additions to Bodean’s bicycle. Hellybutt makes friends in the carpark with various curious young people. And a surfer on company time stops to point out where future waves may be found - but some surfy girls and surfy dudes just can’t talk about anything else, and won’t let up any secrets about good bars, or never have any real stories, so what’s the point?
And so it goes…After a conversation about french pikeys, english chavs and the australian bogan (it is decided that the french pikey is to be truly feared - not a sniff of joviality in them - they won’t even snigger when their gothic blade comes a flashin’) the Quiberon Peninsular is now in view and the wheels tick over 70 kilometres. Too tired, the trio pulls up into what appears to be a working prison farm at dusk and they laugh about Hellybutt’s heroic collision with a stonewall and how he showed that wall what for. Over the dunes swell was building and Del began to yell in his sleep.
