Improving Weather and Increasing Miles

The very kind farmer dropped me off where he’d picked me up, outside the Tourist Office in Pradelles.

Then it was on with the coat and off I went. The coat wasn’t for the rain, which had stopped, but the wind, which was still strong blustery and very cold.

The first section of today’s walk was a gentle stroll down to a town called Langone. In the 17th century this was the centre of a rampage by a wolf which killed a lot of people, especially children and terrorised the whole area.

When Stevenson came through this area the locals wouldn’t leave their houses after dark for fear of the beast.

It is still a topic of conversation today and the lady at the Chambre d’Hote regaled us with the whole story. It was made more relevant when one of the other guests said that wolves were returning to France, naturally.

Wolves had been extinct in most of France for centuries, but had held out in the more remote alpine areas and Eastern Europe. These populations have been increasing and the wolves are moving into the rest of France, having crossed the Rhine corridor several years ago.

Apparently there have been sightings as far west as Normandy but so far, no attacks on people.

Modern statue of The Beast.

The path out of Langone started off on a minor road, then turned off onto a farm track.

There is a definite pecking order when it comes to different types of path.

• Country foot paths, simple paths beaten into the earth by people’s feet. They are easy walking underfoot and because they are the product of people choosing where to put their feet, generally follow the best and most practical line from A to B.

• Maintained paths, as above but have been built up using stone and other materials. These are often Country foot paths that have become so popular that the need maintenance.

• Farm tracks, broad easy walking but can suffer from pot holes which in wet weather become deep puddles.

• Metalled roads, hard on the feet but you can get a good pace going.

• Forest tracks, sometimes these are good, but often they are in terrible condition. The big logging machines rip the track up and then rain washes all the soil and sand away leaving loose broken rocks. The next time the forestry machines pass they rip up the big stones and loosen more soil. It’s a vicious circle that leaves a very rough, uncomfortable to walk on.

The route from Langone mixed minor roads and farm tracks in a pleasant combination that provided easy and fast walking. They were also quite busy.

For the first few days I’d hardly seen people on the route; from Pradelles that changed. Suddenly there were lots of people, in groups of 4-8 with the occasional couple, at any one time I could generally see at least a dozen other people enjoying the trail.

What struck me apart from the numbers was their surprising homogeneity. Almost all were about 55 plus, well dressed and equipped with walking poles and small rucksacks.

These buggers were the reason all the votes were full!

I’ve talked to a few and generally they plan and book their accommodation weeks or months in advance and often use couriers to take their main luggage from one gite to another.

I might have been hoping for a bit of an adventure, walking and stopping when and where the mood took me but these walkers were an altogether more civilised and organised than I’ll ever be.

They also strolled along, I don’t walk particularly fast, about 4km or 2.5 miles an hour, plus rest and photo stops. Nevertheless I was considerably faster than most of the, even with my much heavier pack.

As I progressed along the various tracks my spirits were buoyed by by the rapidly improving weather. The clouds were breaking and by lunchtime all the grey had gone, replaced by fluffy white clouds and warm sunshine.

When I’d been planning this trip I’d intended to start slow, with few miles per day and increase my daily mileage as I got stronger and my confidence in my dodgy knee increased.

However, even with the bad weather I was doing much better than anticipated, so as I strode along I revised my plan. My new destination for the day was a place called Chelylard, about 16 miles from Pradelles.

Unfortunately, when I got to there, while the hamlet was beautiful, it was also tiny an devoid of any accommodation except a full gite.

This left me in a quandary, camp wild, if I could find a suitable site or press on another 6 miles to the village of Luc, where the map assured me there was a camp site.

I pressed on, the walking was lovely, along well graded farm tracks and forest roads that had only been smashed up in a couple of places.

No obvious question laces for a wild camp presented themselves so eventually I arrived at the Luc campsite to find it wasn’t open.

This is not the same as being closed; a closed campsite is chained up and you can’t get on it, the campsite at Luc had free access, but the facilities didn’t open until 15th may, a pretty arbitrary date as far as I can tell.

It was also a very simple site, just a field with a couple of toilets, a shower and a sink for washing up but as it wasn’t open, theses facilities were all closed and there was no water.

The later was the real problem, it’s impossible to camp without water, I felt ok but knew I needed to drink and I needed water for my emergency dried meal.

Fortunately there was a river; now it’s not a good idea to drink from any open water and I’d had a couple of bad experiences over the years and didn’t want to have another bout of whatever it was I’d had before.

This time however I was prepared, some time ago I’d bought a small water filter kit and carted it round but never used it. This was the ideal opportunity.

It must have worked because I had no ill effects after drying the river water and from a couple of streams.

I was also not alone, there were three other tents, one of which was home to a couple of bikers.

After tea, dehydrated pasta bolognaise, which fell a long way short of the previous evening’s glorious repast, I checked the map, my phone and my feet.

There was good news and bad news, the good news was the next day was a short walk of about twelve miles, the second bit of good news was I’d beaten my own record for a single day’s walking, 22m and 44,864 steps, longer than the longest day on LEJOG, but that had been over the four highest hills in the Pennines and in pouring rain.

The bad news was I had a blister. A nasty one down the inside of my left big toe. I’m prone to blisters there because that is the really bad, arthritic toe which doesn’t bend and has been pushed sideways.

Never mind, a quick poke with my pen knife and it was drained then taped up, job done.

And so to bed

The next morning saw an even greater improvement in the weather, the clouds had almost buggered off and the freezing wing had almost dropped to nothing.

I was faced by a small dilemma, I could either do a short day, or a very short day. The difference was a trip to a monastery, Notte Dame de la Neige, which Stevenson had visited on his journey, or a short cut down to the village of Bastide-Lepuy.

I didn’t have to make that decision for a couple of hours, so set of in high spirits and, despite the size of the blister, no limp.

In good, sunny weather, on a cool morning. You would be hard put to find better walking. The Alps, Pyrenees or even the Lake District might be more spectacular but for pleasant walking this was hard to beat.

The sun shone, the inclines were easy and the forest tracks hadn’t been ripped to shreds by mechanical tree harvesting. Indeed most of the woodland looked like mature beech wood, not the serried ranks of commercial pines, on a long distance back packing trip life becomes simpler, all was good with the world.

After a couple of hours of this the point of decision was reached, it was only about 3 miles to the village, or a detour of 3 more to see the monastery.

As Stevenson had written so eloquently about the monastery, and as it was so early I took the long route and visited it.

Apart from a couple of sections where logging had ripped up the track it was an easy and pleasant walk to the monastery.

I think that I’d been hoping to find the monastery much as Stevenson had described it in his book, what I found was an all too familiar scene of gentle disappointment.

The monastery buildings are much as Stevenson describes them, but there is now a huge car park and visitor centre, they even have accommodation and paking/hookups for camper vans. The simplicity of the monastic life seemed under threat, which I found gently depressing.

As an atheist I have no faith in god and don’t understand religion, but I respect others beliefs and there is something profoundly human about sitting in a silent place and simply thinking.

My favourite church/chapel is the tiny one at Wastdale Head. The monastery of Nottte Dame de la Neige had a very nice chapel, 19th century but built in the Romanesque style, larger than I’d expected there was room for more than 300 people.

I left my hat hat rucksack outside, sat on a rear pew and relaxed. At first the only other person in there was an old monk, sitting contemplating, then a few more visitors arrived.

They seemed to have little respect, they wore hats and caps, carried rucksacks, clattered their walking poles, took pictures and chatted. They reduced the place to a tourist attraction.

I felt sorry for the old monk who sitting at his Devine offices.

After 15 minutes I’d had enough and left.

Notre Dame de la Neige

An hour or so after leaving the monastery I arrived at La Bastide Puylaurent, a charming village on the Ailse river.

After a pleasant lunch I bought some supplies and strolled a mile or so to the local campsite. Here I booked in for two nights, intending to spend the next day resting.

Nothing profound about this picture, I simply liked the framing and juxtaposition of the bright green spring growth with the darker pines.

A late glass of lunch.

A fine example of French path marking, all paths lead to Laveyrune but the distance is variable😄

The campsite at La Bastide is a perfect place to have a test day, it’s quiet, warm and only a mile to the village and shops.

It’s also got a bar where they will charge you phone for free if you buy a beer or two.

Home sweet home.