Upon exiting our canalside tenterrific paradise, we were unexpectedly greeted by a pair of fishermen; although these paths along the canal are marked as cycling, pedestrian, and equestrian routes, it seems that locals occasionally use them to get in some recreational fishing or picnicking or what have you. Needless to say, we packed up in record time and were on our way along the canal once more. We continued for roughly 90 km until we reached the top point of Lake Erdre just north of Nantes. Unfortunately, the path ended abruptly there; we were just about to turn back when one of the éclusiers on his daily maintenance rounds stopped to kindly inform us that we could set up our tent on the dyke opposite. Finally, a tiny sliver of hospitality in France!
Aside from that: the canalside paths are inconsistently paved - we came across occasional patches of coarse gravel, and even saw a couple of places where the path maintenance staff had dumped loads of fresh gravel on the path but had yet to smooth it out, thereby forcing us to the grass to avoid fishtailing...but, for the most part, these paths have been fairly bikeable. Another first for France! (To be fair, France is much larger than the other countries we've travelled through so far, so that it is not as easy to extend route networks to more remote rural areas. Most of the cities we pass through here do have comprehensive cycling path networks.)
Although it is a bit demoralizing to be told that we'll have to backtrack, it's only a few kilometres - and we can take showers in the lock facilities, which is exciting! That's one thing about bike tripping; once you get far enough into it, the smallest luxuries seem like paradise. (Such as laundry, for instance, or a decent wifi connection. Those are near impossible to find in Europe.) We're hoping to start vlogging shortly, so that you can get a better idea of what the trip is like, how we set our gear up each night, what sorts of things we see, etc. - keep posted!