What a gastronomic delight last night’s meal was. Each gite seems to be trying to out do the previous one.

Breakfast however appears to be the same, bread butter, jam and coffee.

Today will be a change of route, instead of following the red and white markers of the Chemin du Puy we are going to be walking an orange route to by pass Cahor, but first of all we have to find it.

We walk the 3km on the road to the next town, armed with a map and instructions (in French) to pick up the route.

The first instruction I roughly translate as ‘Facing La Poste take the road on the left’. Quite straight forward, not. Jo pipes up, “That depends on where you stand”.

Well I suppose that is true, but I am standing facing the main entrance with a large sign showing ‘La Posta’ so I must be right and everyone else can…..

We get on the correct path and soon get the k’s ticking over. Again today is a mix of narrow paths and wider tracks along with roads. Again not much of a view only trees and a few fields of cut hay.

The extra walk yestetday was well worth the effort as we had a lovely gite to stay at and very friendly hosts.

The walks are getting flatter now and only glimpses of tree tops from the road. There is no horizon to view, therefore no targets to see or set ourselves.

It is hot again today, luckily there is quite a bit of covered tracks and I at least was glad to arrive at our gite, even if we were 2 hours early. We have a room privi, which is worthy of a 4 * hotel.

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.

We set the alarm for 6.00 so that we can get an early start. But after our faffing about it was nsarly 8.30 before we left.

After back tracking 500m on road we are soon back on our chemin which thankfully takes us off road and into shade. The down side is, like any other day, the start is uphill.

The view has changed today and we are walking through more woods a d have entered a park naturel.

Besides passing several castelles we also saw an ancient long barrow.

Oh, we also saw a llama at the pub.

Trying to get started after a rest day is difficult, especially when breakfast is served at anytime from 7.00 – 10.00. But we ma aged quite well and we set off at 7.30 and arrived at the dining room by 7.32. Fruit, cereal, yogyog, croissant, eggs, bacon and 2 coffees later we are ready to pack up our room.

To get us back in chemin mood we have decided on a short walk of 15km. Which was ideal in the heat we have and also where we are staying has a swimming pool

On arrival (90 minutes early) we are shown our accommodation, I am informed that I need swimming togs and I can’t wear shorts. So I have to borrow some.

So a quick shower to get rid of the dust from the road and it’s off to the pool. A nice warm 27°. We will e back later but for now it’s the boring daily ritual of clothes washing.

Today is a rest day. Some think you don’t require one. I have now changed my mind and think that after 6 or 7 days walking a rest is not only required it should be compulsory.

We did venture out to try and find sister Susan’s glasses. We found the gite she had stayed at but unfortunately we were unable to find her specks. Not sure how she’s going to read yhe menus now.

Today entailed yet another climb to start off with, but we had checked this one out on Miam Miam Dodo and it was only about 500mts long. But like any hill seemed to go on forever.

It was hot again today, and apart from a few off road trips through the woods to cut off a corner or bypass a dangerous bit if road, was without shade. The rest was either on tarmac or a narrow strip close by.

Also we covered about 32km. So was had on the feet and mentally getting over our 20km barrier.

Buy Best Western are providing our bed for tonight along with a single course meal of steak and chips.

I am now coming to terms with the saying for every up there is a down. On this walk it has been for every down hill there is an up hill, and last nights entrance to Conque was a very steep down hill. So today started with a very steep uphill. Once completed we were presented with rolling hills again withe little downs and little ups. We travelled along a ridge line a d the views were amazing. Sister Susan would come up with some beautiful description to describe the view, but all I will say is that the view all around was a patchwork of brown and greens.

Weather wise today would have been exceptionally hot, but fortunately there was a cooling breeze most of the day.

Our host this evening not only made a delicious meal but also made Jo speak in French.

Golinhac to Conques

After a lovely breakfast with meat and cheese it’s an early start for us at 8.30. Still cool, well compared to yesterday afternoon, I’m sure it will warm up soon.

As it turned out I was correct and it soon turned hot. The walk was across rolling hills with a steep down hill into Conques.

To over come the heat I soaked my shirt and hat in some cold water, whuch was a god send as Jo wouldn’t let me strip off for world naked hiking day.

The climb down into Conque gave a wonderful view of the town.

After our evening meal on the terrace of the hotel we went to an organ recital at the church, followed by a light show outside

Estaing to Golinhac

A lovely gite last night, with a room to ourselves. We also had a lovely meal by the river.

Today is due to be hotter than yesterday so we will be taking it easy and although the distance is sfated as 12km I’m sure it will end up being longer.

There was a lot of road walking today, luckily we were sheltered from the sun by the trees.

We started off walking on the road walking along the river, thinking that we would be following le Lot for some days I thought the walks would be easy. But the pilgrims before us weren’t keen on taking the easy route so it was up steep hills again. Well not so steep as some on the previous days but in the heat they seemed challenging.