The others - day 25 (Rennes to Dinge)

Main lesson from today? Never book a cycling tour with Macs Adventures! More on that later but as far as the days ride itself went beautifully. Weather forecast was for +10mm rain but luckily it just stayed cloudy but cool the whole day - just great for cycling. The route just followed the canal from almost in the centre of Rennes all the way to Hede where the ride officially to usher for the day but we then had to go an extra 10k to our accommodation in Dinge. So what went wrong? Story goes like this: We were supposed to be given our bikes at the hotel in Rennes at 9.00am. Waited in the foyer until 9.30 when I was about to ring the contact and in came our bike delivered. Followed him over the road to get the bikes out of the van and as he was adjusting the handlebars, the head set screw snapped. Oh dear I'll have to go and get another headset - meet me back here in an hour. Got a map from the hotel and went for a walk around Rennes for the next hour which was in fact very interesting and we picked up some bread, ham and cheese for a picnic lunch. Finally got our bikes at about 11 and headed for the "starting point" as per instructions. Problem was that no-one in town knew the place in question so by the time we sorted that out it was about midday! After that we enjoyed the beautiful and flat ride adjacent to the canal and through the gorgeous countryside and forests. Beautiful ride. Things got a bit difficult when we reached Hede and found we had no instructions for the extra journey to Dinge except to say "Di he is another 10k on from Hede" No problem, we'll have a cup of coffee and just ask. No-one in Hede knew the way to Dinge! Impossible ! Finally a girl came up with her iPhone and found it and after some more false starts and frustrating phone calls which only gave us French speaking answers we got on hopefully the right road. We finally got to Dinge and then had to ask the chemist for final directions. Got to the lovely B&B to be told by the wonderful owner that the first she knew about us coming was when our luggage got delivered in the afternoon!! Problem was she was actually on holidays and was not having guests! She rang Mac adventures and gave them a huge serve and we will have to pay cash for the nights accommodation and be reimbursed by Macs. No restaurant or pub in this tiny village so off to the general store to buy some food for dinner and then back home to clean up. Thought we'd better take a look at tomorrow's rude only to discover they have not given us the instructions for this section! The lady here has been just wonderful and is a real character and has saved the day really. She will get us breakfast in the morning but is then off straight away on her holiday with her daughter. I have managed to download some maps to get us to Dinan tomorrow but wait for tomorrow's blog to see if we succeed or just wander around France! Complete failure by the tour company and we won't be using them again I'm afraid.