Thursday 17th June
Landean to DuceyLast night’s host is a great butterfly and moth expert so before leaving we looked at some of his wonderful photos, and were also able to put names to some of the ones we have seen over the last few months. We were quite pleased that we had a photo of the very large moth seen in Greece which he hadn’t seen but did know what it is- a Paon du nuit, - no idea what it is in English!
Today was a joy compared to the last 2 as we were mainly on bike routes and were out of the wind for a fair bit. Our first stop was at the boulangerie in Landean to get some bread for lunch. When we asked the girl in the bakery if she made filled baguettes she said “no, but go to the bar next door and they will” so off we trotted. We put in our order at the bar and they then sent a runner back to the bakery to buy the bread to make them with. Then we had to get the Orangina and fruit from the Epicerie so in our short 30 minutes there, all the village businesses had benefited a little. It is one way of keeping the money circulating.
We joined the cycle route going northwest towards Normandy, about 10 k’s ahead.

Todays route with Alec in the lower one!

This is new country for us on this trip and it is very picturesque with rolling hills, a great many beef cattle and hay making in progress yet again.










                                                                                            A bit of Normandy countryside.

The bike route was easy and all went well until Alec’s back tyre went flat again. The same thing had happened yesterday . Probably too much weight on it! ( in fact it was a faulty valve) So for it to happen again so soon was annoying – I hadn’t even managed to clean the oil off my hands. Why is it always the back wheel that goes, the one with the chain and all the gears? So for the third time in 2 days the back wheel had to come off and the tedious process of changing an inner tube began all over again. Fortunately this time it stayed up and the rest of the day’s ride was uneventful and even enjoyable. As we neared the coast we could see the Mont St Michel in the distance.

We arrived in the little village of Ducey on the west side of the Manche peninsula and to our half surprise had booked ourselves into a salmon fishing hotel.

Our hotel and below again from the next bridge up. Vivi's duckling is somewhere below us in the weeds.


When we told the owner we fished for salmon on Scotland he became our new best friend! If he wasn’t also the chef and was somewhat busy we would have seen his fishing books and fly box too.

                                                 River Selune photos of past catches.

The season unfortunately is currently taking a break so there was no opportunity to borrow a rod and get out there. From the photographs on the walls and the size of the sides of smoked salmon in the freezer some reasonable sized fish do make it across the channel and up the river. (Probably more than run up the Frome!)

Looking downstream and past the hotel.

After a delicious supper we went for a stroll.There is a weir across the river with a chute in the middle which is presumably designed for the salmon, if this was the Oykel there would be one a minute going up it but sadly it isn’t so in the 5 minutes we stood there we saw nothing.-except for 1 baby duckling who was far too young to be out on his own busily feeding on the weed, with no sign of any parents, so hope a pike doesn’t have him.
There is also a rather lovely chateau in the village called Chateau de Montgomery which is now owned publicly – presumably the owners didn’t survive the revolution! Consequently it looks extremely well maintained although there wasn’t much sign of life.