day 21 – draft
Tuesday, 26 April 2016
Eauze to Manciet - sort of
10 km today - 546 km to date
Farewell Mike as Marie-France has oferred to drive me to Manciet in the afternoon as she has business there. More ice, another walk around the town and an attempt at my daily blogs. Then off. By car.
The trip is not long by car and soon Marie-Frame, Mathieu and I are enjoying his hospitality at the gite I had booked into two nights before. With Marie-France's and my presence our explanation for my own non-appearance is quickly not an issue. I look around the village and find at least two groups playing petanque and beyond them something that looks like a bull ring but is far too small.
We each cook our own dinner and Mathieu provides a desert. in the chat I learn he had been a professional rugby player. An enjoyable evening.
And so to bed.
07 May 2016
day 20 – draft
Monday, 25 April 2016 (ANZAC Day)
Eauze - at rest - sort of
00 km today - 536 km to date
Watched Serge and Michel get ready and go as I lazily go through breakfast. Get ready and go to the nearest doctor, who is just across the street. No receptionist and we informally organise who is next ourselves. Marie-France, the gite owner comes in to see me and she talks and I nod. My turn at last and I meet a very pleasant middle aged man. We converse as best we can: he examines me and I do my best to answer his questions. in the end he gives me a script for an anti-inflammatory and gives me a fulsome note of what I am to do, I pay him directly 23 Euro, get the mess for 2. 99 Euro and go back to the gite to place ice around the distracting area.
After a while of doing I that decide to look around Eauze. The biggest find is The Tresor of Eauze: a hoard of some 30,000 plus coins from when an area adjoining the present town had been a Roman city. It was estimated the value of the coins was enough to pay at least 100 farm labourers for a year. Not only coins but about 20 pieces of jewellery, most of which women of today would choose to wear.
Back to the gite and more ice and an attempt to write more daily blogs.
Just me and Christianne, from near Montreal, Quebec, for dinner, so English can be spoken. Mike, an American from Aransas, is cooking his own dinner but joins us for aperitif and desert.
And so to bed.
Monday, 25 April 2016 (ANZAC Day)
Eauze - at rest - sort of
00 km today - 536 km to date
Watched Serge and Michel get ready and go as I lazily go through breakfast. Get ready and go to the nearest doctor, who is just across the street. No receptionist and we informally organise who is next ourselves. Marie-France, the gite owner comes in to see me and she talks and I nod. My turn at last and I meet a very pleasant middle aged man. We converse as best we can: he examines me and I do my best to answer his questions. in the end he gives me a script for an anti-inflammatory and gives me a fulsome note of what I am to do, I pay him directly 23 Euro, get the mess for 2. 99 Euro and go back to the gite to place ice around the distracting area.
After a while of doing I that decide to look around Eauze. The biggest find is The Tresor of Eauze: a hoard of some 30,000 plus coins from when an area adjoining the present town had been a Roman city. It was estimated the value of the coins was enough to pay at least 100 farm labourers for a year. Not only coins but about 20 pieces of jewellery, most of which women of today would choose to wear.
Back to the gite and more ice and an attempt to write more daily blogs.
Just me and Christianne, from near Montreal, Quebec, for dinner, so English can be spoken. Mike, an American from Aransas, is cooking his own dinner but joins us for aperitif and desert.
And so to bed.
day 19 – draft
Sunday, 24 April 2016
Larressingle toManciet Eauze
28 km today - 536 km to date
This day starts well. No navigation issues. Cross the Pont d'Antigues and not much later notice a pathway crossing the road I am on. I check my offline map and see it is a named pathway and that it takes a series of gentle curves towards my next destination. And it is brilliant to walk on: it is level, sealed and passes through forest/bush and passes over or under all the next roads I meet. I find it was once a railway line.
I “alight” at the town of Gondrin where the church is locked but find an open air market underway so buy somke kiwi and banana. And notice Gondrin has a rugby team.
About this time I begin to feel pain at the front of my right leg, where it joins the foot. After about 5 km of the 20 km to Manciet the pain is too distracting. After a while I get a lift to Eauze. This is with a male driver and two women in their late 30s in the front of a people mover and two children and a small dog in the back. They are not totally familiar with gite arrangement in the town so the driver asks a conveniently nearby policeman who tells me to go to the Tourism Office. I get there to find they are closed on Sunday.I turn around to see my rescuers have parked close by, beside the central church. The driver helps me again by ringing the first gite that the guide says English is spoken, and takes me there. Now it is I find the owner does not speak English at all so we communicate by typing words into Google translate on my tablet. At last we agree I will stay two nights and get medical advice the next morning, Monday.
I go back to the church and find my rescuers just arriving as well : they offer me coffee and tell me they are a flutist, a soprano and an organist who also plays the harpsichord and they are putting on a concert that afternoon and will I come.
I do go and hear about a dozen items from almost as many composers from around the time of J S Bach.
Dnner is marvellous, cooked by mine host, Marie-France with two other walkers, Serge and Michel Louchard from Lille. Compared to other meals this is a tour de force and lasts for three hours. Fortunately for me, Serge has some English.
And so to bed.
Sunday, 24 April 2016
Larressingle to
28 km today - 536 km to date
This day starts well. No navigation issues. Cross the Pont d'Antigues and not much later notice a pathway crossing the road I am on. I check my offline map and see it is a named pathway and that it takes a series of gentle curves towards my next destination. And it is brilliant to walk on: it is level, sealed and passes through forest/bush and passes over or under all the next roads I meet. I find it was once a railway line.
I “alight” at the town of Gondrin where the church is locked but find an open air market underway so buy somke kiwi and banana. And notice Gondrin has a rugby team.
About this time I begin to feel pain at the front of my right leg, where it joins the foot. After about 5 km of the 20 km to Manciet the pain is too distracting. After a while I get a lift to Eauze. This is with a male driver and two women in their late 30s in the front of a people mover and two children and a small dog in the back. They are not totally familiar with gite arrangement in the town so the driver asks a conveniently nearby policeman who tells me to go to the Tourism Office. I get there to find they are closed on Sunday.I turn around to see my rescuers have parked close by, beside the central church. The driver helps me again by ringing the first gite that the guide says English is spoken, and takes me there. Now it is I find the owner does not speak English at all so we communicate by typing words into Google translate on my tablet. At last we agree I will stay two nights and get medical advice the next morning, Monday.
I go back to the church and find my rescuers just arriving as well : they offer me coffee and tell me they are a flutist, a soprano and an organist who also plays the harpsichord and they are putting on a concert that afternoon and will I come.
I do go and hear about a dozen items from almost as many composers from around the time of J S Bach.
Dnner is marvellous, cooked by mine host, Marie-France with two other walkers, Serge and Michel Louchard from Lille. Compared to other meals this is a tour de force and lasts for three hours. Fortunately for me, Serge has some English.
And so to bed.
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