on the other side which looked like
they’d been flung against the cliff. A
mountain town had a gite to stay in
and I felt like an eagle perched on an
eyrie. Next day I marvelled from a
distance at the impressive Millau Via-
duct.
Stopping to post a letter at Florac,
a young Englishman ran up to me,
rolled up his sleeve and showed me
the most splendid tattoo I have ever
seen and, as a nurse, I’ve seen a fair
few. He had an Enfield Bullet forever
marked on his arm complete with the
“Made like a gun” slogan.
We two Enfield devotees spent a
happy hour standing round my bike,
me telling him where I’d been and
him telling me where he wanted to go
when he had enough money to buy
his.
In Florac I stood on the brake when
I saw another Enfield parked in a
side street. The owner came rushing
out when he heard mine. He thought
someone was riding off with his! A
couple of beers later, having done an
internet search for an Enfield me-
chanic in Lyon, I decided to stay in
Florac’s communal gite and had a cof-
fee with him the next day. He was one
of the French journalists who start-
ed the Reporters Without Borders
organisation in war-torn Rwanda and
had now retired to a more peaceful,
rural environment.
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote
“Travels with a Donkey in the
Cevennes” about this lovely region
and sure enough, you can hire a don-
key and guide and do it yourself 132
years after he did. He was a pioneer
hiker/camper in the days before
lightweight equipment. But the book
wouldn’t be the same without Modes-
tine the donkey he needed to carry all
that Victorian kapok bedding.
At the ascent of a gorgeous moun-
tain road which had been signed as
being dangerous (Pah! Not for me and
my bike.) the clutch cable snapped.
The narrow road did not yet have
enough downhill gradient for free-
wheeling and it was hard work push-
ing.
Unwilling to do any damage to the
gearbox by forcing gears without a
clutch, I set about doing the job I’d
asked my mechanic (who was fast los-
ing his place in my favourites) to do.
TRAVERSE 82
All was going well until I couldn’t
pull the new cable through the hole by
the clutch lever.
“What I need is some needle-nosed
pliers” I mused wishfully. With not a
soul about I sat on the road by the bike,
fishing fruitlessly in my tool-bag and
pondering how to solve the problem
with what I had. Hairgrips or string
might work. Then up the hill rode a cy-
clist. Not only did he speak fluent En-
glish but he had a tool kit containing
some nice little pliers. He gripped the
end of the cable from the outside as I
pushed it through from the inside. He
lost his grip and I was whacked heavi-
ly in the eye with the pliers!
Job completed, I thanked him in my
best French and bidding each other
‘Au revoir’, away he went leaving me
staring after him and feeling I’d had
an encounter with the Lone Ranger or
Superman. My eye throbbing, I made
my way down the valley marvelling at
yet another fortuitous encounter.
Explaining a black eye in my limited
French wasn’t easy when I stopped for
the night in Firminy at a smart hotel.
The town is famous for its church de-
signed by the architect Le Corbusier.