The start from Rocalet was slow and messy as always as when we go back to the road after some days of rest in a project. Our stuff was spread all around and we could feel that getting things done, pack and go was taking us some extra time because many people had left during our stay in the community.
As part of the excitement of starting peddaling again Pepe (the red trailer) left with the axle of Una ( the one wheel trailer) inside of it, the pots ended by being carried inside of Knodels trailer and the confused dog in a box in someone front rack.
One group, including the special dog cargo action, took an adventurous way on the other side of the river. It was a gravel-path following an old railway-track. At some point, the path went through a completly dark about 800m long tunnel. It was very difficult to cycle because the ground was extremly bumpy with big puddles. And without a proper light it is hard to keep the balance, when your eyes don’t have any orientation point in the complete darkness. The dog, otherways often afraid in the dark was just running ahead.
The rest of the way was a never ending roller-coaster of 50 Km and the long day ended with a long hill that had a fig tree at the end of it that lifted up our mood.
On the next morning while we were packing the police came to tell us that wild camping was forbidden but, as said from them, they were too nice to put us fine and left after asking to put down our tents and turn off the rocket stove. The route to Carcasonne was wonderful, the route went trough roads with very little traffic and nice landscapes. Scouts were very creative this day and wrote some questions on empty roadsigns, like « how many figs did you eat today? How many kilometers have you cycled in your life? » The dumpster diving team rushed into the city but their experience wasn’t the best; on the first bin a women throwed water to them trough the window while checking the bin and in a full dumpster from a bakery the owner came out to to advise us that the bin had bleatch water and also to ask us whether we wanted a bike delivery job. Somebody else was more successful and found a lot of pencils, phonechargers and just a bunch of random stuff on the way. After a very fast tourism in the extremely capitalist medieval town we all gathered again in the river bank were we spent the night a cooked a loooooot of soup.
Again, we slowly left the campsite knowing that we had and long and tough day ahead but hoping that the scouts would find a nice place to spend the resting day. And that was it, the place was astonishing, we slept in an abandoned road next to a river and spend the day mostly swimming in the clear and blue water and chilling under the sun. A canal and a « waterfall » were digged in the beach, we had a half-naked circle with some of us floating on their air-matrasses in the river, an another up on the abandonad road about the future of the biketour. Next year in Spain and Portugal? Or in Belgium and the British islands? Or Balkans? Some of us were dreaming of transforming the wildcamping-spot into a steady Biketour-Village for wintertime.
After the restday, our bodys were ready for the ride until Perpignan. The cycling the was extremely enjoyable, the first kilometres were mostly uphill but once on the top the views were worth it, from up there you could see the sea and the shape of the Pirinees.
In the city we stoped by a bike workshop were people fixed their bikes and also the axle of the one wheel trailer which had bended and then,already quite late in the day cycled across the city as a small critical mass. At some point we were flashed multiple times while crossing a red light. That night in the lake the moon was gorgeous; full, bright orange and very close.
The next morning the maintenance people of the area woke us up very early in the morning and again we got asked to put down the tents. Even if they approached in a polite way in their words weren’t, this people constantly complained that there was very little french speakers and talked towards a participant in a sexist and inappropriate way.
Thanks to them we were awake much earlier than usual and cycled through the busy and touristy road of the coast with a very helpful tail wind that pushed up the bikes until Can Decreix, just some kilometres away from Catalonia.