The gite we stayed in last night was host to a group of walkers, complete with support van. When they arrived a man barged into the kitchen with an electric cool box. Banging into tables and chairs. He promptly set it on the flloor in front of the sink and plugged it into the nearest mains socket. In the evening there bangs and crashes as they went to bed and at 5.00 the rustle of bags as they began packing. By 6.30 they were ready to load the van. Each walker carried more luggage for their weeks walking holiday than Jo and I brought fron NZ for our 3 months away.

Today’s walk started off in the best possible way; on the flat along the river Lot. Our joy was short lived as the way was blocked by the electric company for their dam. So a very, very steep scramble was required to take us back upto the road.

After that it was a mixture of road and tracks. Thankfully most of the tracks were shaded but the roads not so much. We passed a thermometer on a building and it was showing 36°.

We arrived at our booked accomodation to find it deserted and rather spooky. We had booked a double room, but the room contained two bung beds crammed close to each other. Even I felt claustraphobic. We walked into town to find the walking party moving their baggage in. The owner told us the gite was complit.

Not wanting to go back to the haunted gite, we phoned ahead to the next village and booked another room there. Having completed our walk we now find we have another 8km to go.