La Souterraine – Chabannes – Bessines sur Gartempe – Limoges – Isle
In the middle of my short night I woke up due to some raindrops falling on my face. In seconds I packed my stuff and went to a discotheque two hundred meters down the street, to find shelter under the huge roof of the entrance. The ground there wasn’t very inviting and after I had circled the building, the rain had stopped. So I went back to my first place hoping that there wouldn’t be anymore rain until sunrise.
I was lucky, the rain just started again to wake me up at half past six, stopped for the time I needed to find the next supermarket and leave town. On the way to the supermarket I found a pack of tobacco laying in a roundabout, the day didn’t seem to start that bad.
On my way to Chabannes the rain started and stopped several times but not very heavy. A blessing to me because there was for once no sun in sight.
A few kilometers after Chabannes I also found a nice stone-shrine, Celtic I think.
So much for the nice part of the day. Before reaching Bessines I had to cross that small river Gartempe, which means first I had to go down into the valley and then … up again. This road was so extraordinary steep I had to push Rosinante up the hill while taking several brakes to gather the power to go on. After Bessines the became just steep and I managed most of it on the bike. When I finally reached the peak I met this French-guy walking towards me with his saw, telling me that I must be very courageous to take this route, because of the next two mountains, said goodbye and headed for the woods. GREAT!!! Two more f***ed up mountains!
He didn’t mention the other smaller hills in between but I managed to get pass them, too.
When I reached the suburbs of Limoges I earned myself a long cigarette break, during which I prepared for the chaotic traffic of the industrial zone I had to cross.
After one hour of searching a safe passage through the traffic I arrived at the heart of the Moloch and was only a few crossroads away from the Vienne.
Along the river I had to follow a national road. That meant much traffic but neither less space and somewhere near Isle I found a nice place for fisherman right next to the road and big enough to put up the tent. I washed myself with the cold brown water of the Vienne, ate the very big can of ravioli and went to bed.