Saugues to Le Sauvage – 20 kms

Steps: 38391

We only planned on 12 kms today but it wasn’t to be.

We left our fantastic gite in Saugues, and backtracked into town to get supplies. Deux pain au chocolates, un baguette et salami. Sorted for the day.

Today we heard cuckoos as we staggered along. They may make a cool sound like a clock, but they are quite a selfish bird.

The cuckoo lady does it with the dude cuckoo, then lays her egg in someone else’s nest.

So one day Madame Blackbird is happily sitting on her eggs, excited about becoming a mum. Movement under her bum indicate her children are hatching.

They hatch and her children are beautiful. Except for one. The ugly ducking.

Even though Madame blackbird loves the ugly one as much as the others, she starts to panic.

‘Oh no,’ she thinks. ‘Monsieur Blackbird is going to know about my affair.’

But of course it was just the nasty cuckoo stirring things up, too lazy to look after her own children.

So next time you get excited about hearing a cuckoo, sister Susan, please think about the impact she has on the other bird families.

The other sounds of the day was the Eurofghter Typhon giving us a private airshow. There was too much cloud to see him all the time, but when we did it was pretty exciting, and amazing how the sound travelled for a good 5 seconds behind him.

We had planned to stop at the same gite that my sisters stayed at the previous night, but we arrived at 12.30 and they didn’t open until 2.30. So we continued on 8km to the next gite in Le Sauvage.

For the last kilometre it pissed down with rain and we were thankful to arrive to a nice warm bar.

We stayed in an old barn that had been converted to a gite. It was modern and clean. Our room was a dorm of six beds, all of which we had to ourselves.

Dinner was delicious. We sat at banquet tables with about 40 other walkers, all of them French. We had the most delicious pork and scalloped potatoes. Yum yum.

Monistrol to Saugues – 12 kms

Steps: 33048

My three sisters were up and off just after six this morning, missing out on breakfast. We had a more leisurely start and waited until 7.30 for breakfast.

We’ve become used to relying on Susan to speak French for all of us, so as she wasn’t at breakfast today I asked the lady next to me to pass me the milk in my best French.

‘You speak French?’ She says.

‘Non,’ I replied.

‘Yes you do. Without your sister here you speak French!’

I had to laugh.

We’d been warned of the two hour steep climb out of Monistrol, but we’re from NZ and found it easy. It was a lovely walk with stunning views.

As we neared the top, a man came running down the hill with a wheel barrow full of stuff. At first I thought it was burnt croissants, then I thought it might be some sort of weird horse meat.

The man sliced a piece for Mike to try. It was a fig thingamy. I don’t like figs so I declined and so did Mike. Hopefully the man will have better luck selling to someone else.

My ankle today was not so happy. I think the downhills from the previous day have upset it a bit, so a short 12km day for us.

We arrived in Saugues around 1pm, but our gite didn’t open until 3pm.

Being a Monday, most things were shut. Luckily we found a nice little bakery where we sat and ate bread and quiche and sipped coffee.

When we felt we’d outstayed our welcome we found a bar. Then they kicked us out so we hung around outside the gite like hobos, until it opened, hoping the Beast wouldn’t get us.

The region around Saugues was terrorised by the beast of Gevaudan, a man eating wolf, in the 1700s. We’d been warned to be careful.

Tonight we have a large private room to ourselves.

We had an amazing paella for dinner. Check out the photo.

Montbonnet to monistrol d’allier

Distance walked: 15 kms

Steps: 34163

The day started off well despite having no sleep the previous evening. My ankle felt good and I managed to keep up with the others.

We wandered through fields of poppies, stopping every 5 mins trying to capture the perfect photo on our phones. They turned out crap.

Then we entered the forest of doom where we were viciously attacked. Swarms of mozzies came at us from all directions, biting, weaving, and sucking on our blood.

Thankfully Susan had some repellent and we came out of it reasonably unscathed.

In the afternoon it all went downhill, literally. Steep, rocky, and upsetting to my ankle. It was a stunning days walk though, and the best part was having a beer at the end.

My sisters are planning to walk 24 kms tomorrow, but Mike and I have decided on a shorter day.

We stayed and gite where we enjoyed an amazing dinner with the other walkers and the hosts.

So last night was a bit of a drama. Everyone had gone to bed and I was heading there too and misjudged the stairs.

An almighty crash followed by shocking swear words woke the entire apartment.

Apart from the agonising throbbing in my ankle I was thankfully able to walk on it. That’s a good sign, right?

Luckily we don’t start the walk until tomorrow. Lynda strapped it for me this morning and it seems to be ok although I’m struggling to figure out how I’m gonna hike 16 kms tomorrow.

We’ll see how I feel in the morning.

Anyway, the rest of the day was spent drinking too much red wine, and eating too much bread and cheese.

We met other people doing the walk and Carol from Sydney who is s

podiatrist, said my ankle was not too bad so we should be good to go

We’ll make that decision tomorrow.

My foot expertly strapped by Lynda

Stupid stairs i feĺl down

We left our hotel in Saint etienne to pick up my sisters in Firminy, just twenty minutes away. Thirty minutes later we are driving past our hotel again trying to figure out which way to go. Sixty minutes later we finally find our sisters.

We arrived in le puy and headed straight for Decathlon, our favourite store in the whole wide world. Still didn’t find the pocket knife I was looking for, but walked out with aĺl this other crap to carry.

After that we dropped our car off and found our apartment which is up four flights of stairs and no fire exit in sight. Eeek.

This afternoon we climbed up to the highest point in Le Puy, just in time for the thunder storms. Thankfully we didn’t get struck by lightening.

Then we checked out the cathedral and looked after a random sausage dog with a beard while his owners visited the church.

Now we are relaxing in our apartment, drinking wine from a 1.5 litre plastic bottle that cost us 3 euro’s. Mike cooked us a smoked salmon pasta with pistachios.

Lynda is now hanging out the window and showing off her star trek pajama bottoms. I took a photo.

And then I fell down the stairs.

Sausage dog with a beard

Rainy view from the top

I’m writing this on our flight from heathrow to lyon. To anyone who cares we’re on an A320 british airways plane.

Mike’s had coffee, I’ve had wine

The pilot has just announced a bumpy descent into lyon, but it’s a nice day there and 25 degrees.

I think that’s it for now. Here’s a poem I wrote while we were waiting for our flight.

Sitting at the airport, sipping on a Stella

Waiting for a flight with my handsome fella

We’re off to France to walk 800 k’s

Seems a good way to spend our lazy days.

It’s getting bumpy now and I spilled wine all over myself so bye for now.