France Cycle Tour: St-Rome-de-Tarn to Near St-Crepin

The River Tarn changing colour before my eyes

A hell of a day, non stop rain. Cycle touring nightmare, the public holiday probably compounded things. There was lots more up and down than I had anticipated, and together with full waterproofs meant a cycle of boil-in-the-bag and chilled to the bone. I was not a happy bunny! The river tarn normally runs a pale turquoise, but today it was turning a rusty red with the copious run off. I followed the Tarn as close as possible as far as Trebas were in theory there were two campsites. One was closed and the other I couldn't find. It was 2.30ish so my plan was to continue on my planned route thinking some form, indeed any form of of accommodation would turn up. However nothing did and I found myself at 8pm having climbed continuously for 5.5 hours in driving rain, in low cloud at approx 950 metres. This were starting to look a bit desperate. A wild camp was the only option, but even at this altitude all the surrounding land was cultivated, I spotted a track leading into some woodland and about 100 metres from the road there was a rather damp clearing. Far from ideal but beggars can't be choosers so I got the tent up and basically crashed out.