Day Four

The pics show (a) strange sign which indicated, shortly after I started to walk this morning, that I was even more of course than usual, and (b) my advance party coming out with V-Force one to meet me after 35 kms.



Today I had a pretty uneventful walk - although another long one of 35 kms, from Auriac sur Vendinelle to a lonely crossroads in the middle of nowhere, about 5 kms north of Lavaur. So far I have walked 139 kms since Saturday morning.

At last it was a really fine day, the first we have had for several weeks (and don't forget that about 4 or 5 weeks from now it will be the highpoint of summer).

It was pretty hard walking again - one thing that is really being confirmed in my mind is that there is not much of France that is flat.

With about 5 kms to go, Gay met me in Lavaur, where she had been doing some shopping - including for a longer USB extension so that I can place the dongle outside the Faraday cage which this vehicle so proudly has, but which probably helps to prevent bloggery. We had a coffee and, in my case, a small patisserie before I walked on. This is the first time that I have tried breaking the walk up a bit instead of just charging on to the finishing post. I wondered whether the break would help or hinder me - whether rigor mortis would set in or if the rest would regenerate my legs. I have to say that I think the latter is true. Maybe I should not just set out and charge on for 30-odd kms without stopping, as I usually do.

The regeneration came in useful because the last 5 kms, to the point where we had agreed that Gay would meet me in V-Force One, was all uphill. A worthy finish to a day of ups and downs, geographically.

Gat then whisked me off to a very rural campsite about 7 kms away. Tomorrow morning whe will take me back to the crossroads, where I start the final road section before setting out on the Grandes Randonnees tracks on Day 6. Then it will be mainly traffic-free GRs all the way to the port at Caen/Ouistreham.

These blog entries will appear late because I am finding it very difficult to get connection to the Internet. This is likely to be the pattern for the whole of this trip because we are travelling through such rural areas - also France is very hilly so there are lots of dead areas for telephone reception. So there will likely be several days without blog entries, then a rush of several, like this batch.