Mondays text

After a good breakfast we wandered outside to the car and were disappointed to find the outside temperature was only 7 degrees. Legs and arms were the orders for the day with a forecast temperature of 20 degrees late afternoon. I had plotted a route for the Garmin the previous day.  It loosely followed the La Venne river and crossed over it on the viaduct L'isle Jourdain.we had had to divert of the route when one of the tracks I selected ended in a field. The diversion took us past the Circuit Val de Vienne where for a fee you could ride your motorbike round the track. We cycle into the circuit and watched some of the riders  before continuing to the viaduct. We then headed south on minor roads though Milac and then diverted off to the lake Etang des Verrieres. After a gravel track round the lake we then followed the D729 . Unfortunately the was no bar open on Abzac but we could have borrowed a book from the Broite a Livres.  The next track we took turned to a gravel track by a farm. A barking dog stopped our progress,  A women came out of the house to hold the dog, It was friendly really.  The track I was going to take was too rough but the women said we could take the track on the right  to get to Avaulles-limousine.  We followed the track to the river and then  turned towards Saint-Germain-de-Confolens. The track was a little rough for Lyn but we eventually made it to the road having negotiated a quarry!  Nothing was open in the town so we took the road back. We stopped in a bar in Lessac for a coffee, Our route then took us away from the main road and back towards the river.  We cycled past a chateaux and the road ran out at what looked to be a private drive near some houses . We were about to turn round we an English lady came out of the house and said we could cycle up the track. We would just have to lift our bikes over the barrier at the top   The track crossed the route of the  old railway line which we followed most of the way back,. A round trip of 37.5 miles with 2464 feet of ascent.