Mouscardes - a one bullring town!

A story of a couple of kiwi cyclists racing the etape de tour in France 2008.

We get to the Pyrenees mountains and after some seriously good map reading we find our ‘place to stay’ now this is a uniquely kiwi term, in fact the whole ‘staying’ situation is oddly kiwi, so loose and informal. No other country does the informal hospitality like us. We are staying with Jay, neither Andrew or I know Jay and he doesn’t know us. Jay is a friend of Glen’s, who is a friend of Nigel’s who is a friend of mine! We are hoping that he is a nice bloke, and I guess he is hoping we are nice blokes too!

It sort of always works out, when we kiwis travel the world we tend to look out for one another, besides when there is only 4 million of us it is not too onerous, like I said it is a kiwi thing, as kiwis we don’t do 7 degrees of separation, we’re lucky if we do 2 degrees! 

Jay has lived in France for the last 15 years, he is from Petone, I am from Wainuiomata, we probably drank at the same pub as young men, he came to France to play rugby I came to France to ride bikes.

Mouscardes is Jay’s village it is made up of 6 houses and a bullring! Now you have to admit that is cool, having your own bullring.

The satnav had long since given up but we find Jay’s ‘house’ eventually. Actually it isn’t Jay’s house it’s Manu’s (Emmanuel’s) and it isn’t a house it’s a bloody great mansion. The house is extraordinary, beautifully restored, we meet Jay, he is an ex-Petone rugby player who made his way to the UK, then France to play rugby, he is Manu’s flatmate. Manu is a farmer whose family have owned the farm and house for generations. Manu farms dairy and kiwifruit, he spent some time in New Zealand learning the kiwifruit trade. Manu’s girlfriend and her son as well as a huge pitbull dog complete the household.

So here we are in deepest rural France and we get down to a classic kiwi BBQ – half a 44-gallon drum is the actual BBQ - not 1 hour after arriving.

Andrew owns a company that makes the worlds best domestic coffee machines www.rocket-espresso.it so good coffee is his thing, Jay offers Andrew a ‘special’ coffee which he accepts, only to receive a large mug of the instant stuff, the look on Andrew’s face was priceless!