Van Morison sang “There will be days like this” and Paul Simon “Slip sliding away”. They pretty much sum up my day. Although a short day, 24km with 650m elevation, it was a day of challenges.
It rained through the night with lightening every 5-10 seconds. Even the French had never seen anything quite like it, and the owner of the hotel could hardly believe that I slept through it, thanks to my ear plugs.
Yesterday marked the end of the Via Garonne and for the next 11 days I will be following the GR78, the Pyrenean Piedmont Way (Le Chemin du Piémont Pyrénéen) until I reach the French-Spanish border on the Atlantic coast.
As such the walk was pleasant, through forest and farmland and primarily on paths, however at times very muddy path thanks to the storm. I walked downhill from Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges, the air fresh after the storm.
Following road and paths towards Tibiran-Jaunac, when I was attacked by a dog snapping at my heels. The soles of my shoes have visible proof that it made contact.
In Tibiran-Jaunac there were no signs and several paths to follow. What I assumed was the most likely path, ended up taking me in the wrong direction and I had to double back. The actual path was very narrow and clearly not walked very often and finally totally disappeared. Eventually after crawling through thorny brushes I managed to get back on the track and a steep and slippery downhill. I have cuts on my legs, arms and face.
Finally back on the official track it was downhill towards a stream.
Everywhere was wet after last nights rain and I slid at least 10 times, but managed to keep my balance. The final descent was very steep and very, very wet. There were some steps built into the path, but as I stepped onto them my foot sunk in mud and water to my ankle. So I took the path. The first slide I managed to cling onto a tree, but I wasn’t so lucky next time and ended up on by back sliding down the hill. I had mud everywhere.
I cleaned myself as much as I could in the stream, and continued – I still had another 15km to walk.
I took a break in the very quiet village of Montégut, before continuing, mostly on roads through farmland, corn fields and cows – as you can see from the pictures. Everywhere was very green.
The temperature reached 27C. After everything that happened, I didn’t feel that the kilometers were passing as easily as they usually do. A few kilometers after Montégut, the official path goes south-west, whilst I continued west as I couldn’t find anywhere to stay on the official route south of La-Barthe-de-Neste, where I am staying tonight.
I arrived at the beautiful B&B around 16.00, muddy. The owner is English and interested in photography. I saw that he had lots of cycling photos on the wall, that he’d taken. We had a long talk about cycling. He bought the place because Tour de France comes through here almost every year and he’s a big fan.
The town itself, doesn’t have a lot to offer. A chocolate shop, a tabac, a butcher, a baker that only sells pizza and a restaurant where I had dinner.