Authorisation

Service Offert par Mairie.biz : Mairie de Auriac-sur-Vendinelle

It started raining yesterday morning as I started my very wet walk from Quillan to home. It rained solid for 24 hours and we have a waterfall within 20 metres of this house, a waterfall we see only a few times per year.

Not much walking today because we have been out in the car checking the route for the first 4 days of VBW. As you know, I am going to be walking through France mainly on the Grandes Randonnees, long distance walking tracks of which there are 160,000 kms in France. Enough to girdle the earth several times.

But for the first 4 days I shall be walking on roads because there is not a GR which goes directly north of here. The GR7 actually passes through Puivert, but it wanders all over the map and I would waste several days if I used it.

Gay has spent several afternoons with the maps and came up with a route to Lisle sur Tarn, a logical place for me to join the GR system, 140 kms from home. All the roads she picked were white roads, which means they should be quiet enough to walk. They were - she did a fantastic job.

There were sensible places to camp at 30 kms intervals, except at the end of Day 3, when we found ourselves in Auriac. There was no campsite, so we went into the Mairie to ask if there was anywhere we could park up for the night. "Wild" camping, not on a campsite, is quite normal in France but we wanted to make sure we would not be turfed out in the middle of the night by the gendarmes, which is what would happen in France.

The Maire himself greeted us, gave us permission, took us round meeting his staff and telling them of my great project, then took us out round the town, demonstrating various places we could park.

I think we now have full authorisation.