Day nine - Wednesday October 27

Departed: La Cassagnde 8:45am
Arrived: Cajarc 2:15pm
Total hours: 5.5
Total kms: 25.8
Accumulated kms: 281.8
Weather: Sunny and beautiful

I would have liked to walk further today, but the next place with accommodation is another 18km away, and that's just too damn far. The weather was perfect again today, I'm hoping it continues, it's such a pleasure to walk on days like this.

The landscape today was a little rougher than it has been, more like hiking in lots of Australian National Parks. Less wet green and more spiky brown. The walk itself was really easy though, very few hills, and part of me actually would have liked to try the extra 18km.

But instead I'm calling it a rest day. I slept in, left late, walked slowly, had a prolonged lunch, arrived early, and I'll kick back and read the rest of the afternoon. It's only got to be good for the knee anyway.

The next few days will be confusing - my guide book and chart showing distances are completely at odds with each other, by as much as 10km at a time. That's a huge difference when I'm at the point in the year where if I don't reserve a bed the gites will likely be closed up when I arrive. Even tomorrow's walk purports to be just under 36km, but my host here told me 31. Perhaps I misunderstood his French.

Day eight - Tuesday October 26

Departed: Livinhac-le-Haut 7:30am
Arrived: La Cassagnde 3:15pm
Total hours: 7.75
Total kms: 31.1
Accumulated kms: 256
Weather: Sunny and beautiful

I departed this morning while the Swiss and the family were eating in a bar somewhere. It's not just my friends at home who have breakfasts in bars, it seems lots of people here do it. As I walked out of the city (all uphill, of course), the whole valley was submerged beneath a river of fog and cloud. The road opened up to an absolutely beautiful morning, and that's about all I have to say. It was a very wonderful walk, although I should mention that with the new strap my knee felt much better. The walk was also quite fast, I arrived in Figeac around 1pm, much earlier than I expected. I got online for a short time before realising my journal wxas right at the bottom of my bag, and to do any blogging at all would require me to pull literally everything out, so I decided to hold off and just pack smarter next time.

There are two older French women staying here who are cycling from Conques to...somewhere else, I can't remember. One of them speaks maybe ten words of English, and after trying to have a conversation with me, she said, "I can understand your English, but not your Australian. When you speak Australian to me I understand nothing you say." We have such a crazy language, don't we?

Aw, it's a cute baby donkey!

Day seven - Monday October 25

Departed: Senergues 7:30am
Arrived: Livinhac-le-Haut 4:30pm
Total hours: 9
Total kms: 34.8
Accumulated kms: 225.8
Weather: Beautiful and clear for most of the day, with gale force winds that literally knocked me sideways in the afternoon.

Last night I downloaded a book on reiki to my kindle and read it, then did some reiki on my knee. I don't know if that was it but for the first 25km or so today my knee almost felt as if nothing was wrong with it. Perhaps it was just sleeping though, because after that it gave me a world of grief. The ridiculous thing about an injury you refuse to give in to is that it sets off a chain reaction of other injuries thanks to the compensations you make for the original. So it is that tonight my right shin has some kind of strained tendon, as does the hamstring on my left leg. I'll try some more reiki tonight and see how I go. I also bought a proper strap for my knee that works a whole lot better than a shirt tied around it.

The first couple of hours this morning was some of the most peaceful walking I've done - strolling along country back roads with birds singing and a light breeze blowing, it was just perfect.

I arrived at Conques first, purportedly one of the most beautiful villages on the walk. It looks just like the Goblin City in Labyrinth, except it's built in an immense valley, which means it has cobblestoned streets an angle that would make San Francisco's roads drop their traffic lights between their lanes and slink off in shame. It was a long, steep climb down a mountain to get there and a longer, steeper climb up another mountain to get out. I passed a pilgrim on the way up but we were both too out of breath to say anything other than bonjour.

This afternoon, just as the winds were reaching near cyclonic proportions, I came across four pilgrims from Switzerland. Every year they come here and walk 5-12 days of the Camino, and are finshing up in Figeac tomorrow. One of them gave me some cream for my knee and offered to give me his strap too, but I refused. Some people's kindness is just too overwhelming.

Tonight at the gite I also met a family of seven (seven! Mum and dad, and kids aged 15, 13, 10, 7 and 2 1/2). They come here twice a year each year and walk five days of the trail. They just started today. The older kids loved showing off their English skills (the eldest spoke English better than her parents) and they asked me all about Australia. When I find people who can speak English they often love to hear about Australia, it seems to be so exotic to them. Or perhaps they just can't think of anything else to ask me.

A photo of cows. Why not?

Entering Conques, the Goblin City. The next few photos are from here too.

Day six - Sunday October 24

Departed: Estaign 7:30am
Arrived: Senergues 3:30pm
Total hours: 8
Total kms: 24.8
Accumulated kms: 191
Weather: Pouring rain all day

Today was rough as my knee was giving me grief through the lot of it. It didn't help that more than half the day was walking along hard roads and a lot of that was downhill, which is when my knee hurts the most. After a few hours I stopped and pulled out my long sleeve t-shirt and fashioned a home-made strap out of it as best I could. This definitely helped, although by the end of the day it was singing.

Thanks to my knee and the constant downpour, today blew by in a bit of a daze. I met two pilgrims on the way - Martin from Quebec and Ewan from France. Ewan had his dog with him and it was such a pleasure to see someone in France looking after their dog. I couldn't keep up with them downhill, and the dog would wait for me as if he wanted to be sure I knew which way to go. They finally outwalked me, but then I caught them at a little roadside table having tea with the owners of a gite. I kept going and didn't see them again - they stopped at the town before this one.

Tomorrow, if I want to stay in cheap lodgings, I need to walk 34.8km. Normally no big deal, but not sure how my knee will go. I just hope the weather's better - despite wearing my wet weather gear I was soaked when I arrived, including inside my waterproof boots. I hope they don't squelch and give me blisters tomorrow.

This seems to be the only photo I took today thanks to the rain.

Day five - Saturday October 23

Departed: Saint Chely-d'Aubrac 8am
Arrived: Estaign 5:45pm
Total hours: 9.75
Total kms: 35.9
Accumulated kms: 166.2
Weather: Overcast but not cold, really nice for walking.

I'm very tired tonight. On my walk this afternoon, just after I left Espalion, my knee started hurting (right leg). I walked slower and tried to ignore it but it slowly grew worse. Before it could stop me I found a large branch to use as a crutch, and hobbled the last 5km or so to Estaign.

At one point I was passing a field with cows, and one of them looked up from the middle of the herd and cantered over to me at the fence. She stood right next to me, staring at me for ages. After a while I kept walking, and was shocked to find that my knee didn't hurt at all. The cow walked with me as well (on the other side of the fence), as far as she could until the fence stopped her. The entire time she was in sight, my knee was fine. After the road turned a corner, instantly my knee began to hurt again. I believe this is a clear case of cow reiki.

It doesn't feel so bad now - I've done some stretching and will just try to stay off it until morning. I think if it starts twinging again I'll stop at the next place I can and rest up for the remainder of the day.

Aside from the knee the walk was very pleasant today, mainly winding through rainforest. Oh, early on this morning, I had a nice horror movie moment. I was walking through really beautiful forest, and from one side I could hear bells ringing (many cows have bells around their necks, you can hear them everywhere), and on the other side I could hear dogs snapping, growling and howling. That's the other thing you hear everywhere - dogs. They rarely sound happy. The dogs I've seen on the street with their owners often run at me, snapping and barking, and their owners have to call them off. This is unusual with dogs and myself, and I suspect they get treated horribly. I walked past an open garage today where some jerk was actually spanking his dog. No, I'll use the word beating, because he was thumping the hell out of it. If I could speak French I'd have had some words to say to him.

But anyway, I'm walking through the forest and bells are ringing and dogs are going crazy and then I thought I could detect the sound of the dogs getting closer. I kept walking and listening and, yes, they were definitely getting closer. After a few moments I could hear them crashing through the undergrowth, howling and snarling and, in quite a state of fear, I picked up a large and I hoped intimidating branch.

Just then three large black dogs, all with fluorescent orange collars on, sprung from the bushes right in front of me. They glanced briefly in my direction, then continued on across the path, into the bushes on the other side, biting at each other's tails and howling for all they were worth. They didn't come back but it was a little while before I put that stick down.

Tonight I'm staying in a run down gite that is an old church. I'm the only one here and there's no heating - lucky I have thermals and a warm sleeping bag. I'm paranoid this place has bed bugs and I keep thinking I can feel them in my clothes biting me, but I haven't seen any evidence yet. I'll see when I wake up.

An early morning photo of the local community garden.

This photo was taken about five minutes after the one above, weird huh?

This is where my canine horror film happened.

This kind of path is so goddamned hard to walk on.

About four seconds before I took this photo, a light wind was blowing and all those leaves were swirling around in the air like a scene from Miller's Crossing. Then I took the camera out and they all fell dead to the ground.

This is a huge statue on top of a very tall hill. I climbed up one side, saw the statue, then climbed down the other side.

Estaign.