OMG - today was the day that could end touring by bike!!!! We left Carcasonne full of enthusiasm for the ride to David  & Sundara's - friends of ours that be helpx'ed for in 2011. He was hard to work out the exact distance with the map but I figured is was around 54km's. We'll this is not a bike path this is a rutted, bumpy, skinny goat track!!! It took ages, bump, bump, bang, argh that hurt the butt, no room for riders to pass each other, some gave up and were walking - well thats how the day went really. I have no photos of the bad section as it was just a matter of biking on.

We rode on and on and on, it was beautiful from Carcasonne to Trebes but after then it went all down hill. The 42,000 plane trees lining this historic canal are being felled because of a fungus brought to Europe by US soldier in World War II.  

 "This fungus evolved in the eastern USA, where it causes little problem to native species. It was accidentally introduced into Italy in the 1940s, when American troops brought packing materials that had been processed too rapidly for the drying process to eliminate the pathogen."Over the next 50 years, it spread through Italy. In the 1970s, the disease was found in south-east France. It is now present in Switzerland, Germany and also Greece, where it is killing 'oriental planes' - the only indigenous European plane tree."As the disease continues to spread, it is likely to eliminate planted planes from the cities of western and northern Europe. At the same time, the spread of the disease in the native range of oriental plane is an ecological disaster, on a par with the loss of elms throughout Europe in the mid-to-late 20th Century."  

What a disaster, the canal looks so barren in this part, they have replanted trees however these will take years and years to grow as big and shade the canal. These huge trees have such a present and and feeling of calm and tranquility and with them gone riding alongside its dusty hot, barren & boring.

We finally got to Ventenac around 4pm and what a relief I was so over it - 56km's yipeee only another 40 until we hit the Med for out swim in the other side of France. I was really tired and it feels a bit surreal that we have actually ridden all that way when you look at the map. We had a swim in their fantastic pool heated to 28 degrees, washed all our biking gear - yay and a wonderful home cooked meal, fell into bed around 11pm. It was so nice to be in a home again.