Following a good nights sleep I wandered, bleary-eyed into the shower only to be confronted by one of those space age things that were all the rage 10 years ago, with an electronic keypad behind a glass panel and more nozzles and shower heads facing me than the number of machine guns Bonnie and Clyde had pointing at them on that fateful day! After much pressing of buttons and being squirted at from every angle with cold, hot and luke warm water, I eventually managed to get the overhead one working at the right temperature! Once out of my room I was greeted by Jean-Marie , a cup of coffeee and a little pack of chocolate biscuits to fire me up for the day.

All loaded up I left Montauban about 10am and headed south-west towards Carcassone where I stopped for a 'traditional' McDonalds cafe au lait and a quick wizz up to the ancient fortified castle which surrounds the old town at the top of the hill. It is massive, beautiful and impressive in equal measure surrounded by high ramparts and punctuated by fairy-tail rooved turrets at every corner. It's one of those places you could spend the whole day exploring, but I had to move on so I settled for a couple of pics and continued my journey.

I'd like to go back a week now when I was still at work. I got a call from the boss asking me to pick up a client for a meeting at head office. Her name was Marion and following the meeting I drove her back to the railway station where I established that she now lived in south-west France near Perpignon. I, of course told her about my trip and that I would probably be passing close to her on my ride. She then indicated that she did Air B&B and I'd be welcome to do an overnight stop. So after thinking about it a couple of days later I made an arrangement to stop over on Sunday the 8th. However, the day before I was due to arrive, I received a Whats App message from her, saying that one of her kids had turned up unannounced and that I would have to find accommodation elsewhere! This wasn't a problem as I'd originally planned to continue to the Med coast anyway, but as Joch was sort of en-route I was encouraged to go and visit anyway. So with Joch ( a scotsman living in France? :-) fed into the sat nav off I went. Soon I was taken off the main road and after a little village called Quillan the road dropped into a dramatic gorge with overhanging rocks and incredibly they'd even managed to build a railway running through it. Called the red train which amongst railway entusiasts and amongst train spotter types it's supposed to be quite famous! After this the road became incredibly twisty with more U-bends than a plumber will see in a lifetime! My journey culminated with a tortuously steep narrow lane leading to the top of a hill where Marian lived in an ancient converted barn. What a place it was though, built on the side of the hill on about 4 levels. At the bottom was a garage/workshop. Next level up, patio area, swimming pool and large kitchen dining area. Next floor a couple of bedrooms and bathroom and at the top another bedroom with en-suite facilities. So after a lovely ,almost english cuppa and good natter to get to know Marion and her hubby John a little better it was time for me to move on again.

John had given me directions to the nearest filling station and once topped up I went to turn the satnav back on; nothing! I tried again and again, nothing. Then dim distant memories began to emerge of when I first got the nav and was reading the instructions and something being said about not leaving the device in direct hot sunshine. I normally remove the nav for safe-keeping but as the hamlet where Marion lived was so isolated I had left it on the bike in the mid-afternoon heat and not given it a second thought. Thank god for the advent of smart phones! I had a hotel booked in Roses through Hotels.com and after a bit of pressing of various icons on the app hey-presto, Google maps popped up with directions to the Prestige Goya Hotel. So I slipped my phone into the bicycle-designed case that I had managed to cobble on to my motorbike handlebars and off I went arriving at my destination around 7.30pm. I was given a pleasant room up on the 9th floor, no sea view but instead, a glorious panarama of The Pyrenees in the distance. After settling in and getting changed I wandered down to the nearest restaurant where I had one of the nicest burgers I've ever had, even Elvis would have flown here to try one! (apparently that's what he would do. He'd hear of a place that did fantastic burgers somewhere on the otherside of The States and he would take a private flight just to try one!) On a more serious note my plan for 'The Big Adventure' has gone up in smoke or should I say melted in the heat? As all the files for the trails were downloaded and stored on the Garmin. So I'm going to have a rethink and let you know what my revised plan is. Maybe I'll rename my trip 'The Not Quite So Big Adventure' LOL :-)