En France, encore.

What a thrill, to rock it under the water for half an hour + chug it right on out of there into a completely different country! No mucking around, it was time to head south. Within half an hour, the sky was red hot + we were belting out a load of great tunes, setting forth into the sun.

Itching to 'go have a look at France', we called it a day somewhere south of some pretty touristy town called Reims. It just so happened to be in Le Région Champagne. Spotted there was a forest in the map, so headed straight there, and sort of found the ultimate French paradise. Layers upon layers, upon undulating hills, upon ravelling cuordory like carpets made up a complex combination of high end vineyards as far as our red sleepy eyes could see. Perfection in their linear plantations, with no gradients or size seeming like an issue ; we were completely and gloriously surrounded by everything that was champagne.

" Where we gonna get ourselves some of this stuff then ?"

we gasped, as we took on the steep hillage of the area on our hugely welcomed bicycles (Hoorah ! Fresh air in our faces + no more gurgling out of horrible omissions, with limbs in grave danger of clottage from hours of plodding through the country with our three and a half tonne butt). Ostentacious gates shut us off from the endless variety of unobtainable dwellings de champagne, and we were very much aware of our unruly appearances (ripped lycra + Dan's 'The almost legendary Gaffs' T-shirt, complete with yellow steins and cartoon images of vodka + Stella ; « It's a bloody French drink though » quipps Dan, « If anything they should be rewarding us «) . So we called it a day searching for the ultimate first evening toast + settled instead for warm water + a stomp around our new garden ; a 100 acre delicious forest, complete with an orange setting sun. We only got a bit lost, which was kind of incredible. And we'd already given up on the idea of leaving this place anytime soon, mainly because we really just wanted some champagne.

Today's route