Thursday 24th July 2008- A great walk in the hills

The sun was shining again and so we headed off down the road beside the campsite on a route we have walked before during a previous visit.

The first part through the fields is flat and very pleasant and then by an old farmhouse we turn right and walk steeply uphill for at least 40 minutes. It was damned hard work but both of us wanted to get some tough heart pounding exercise after being a bit lazy recently.

It was getting a little warmer; I guess around 27 degrees centigrade and so the sweat was flowing nicely.

Almost at the top there is a private residence with a great view over looking the valley and with a beautiful swimming pool which looked very inviting. Unfortunately nobody invited us in.

At the top of the hill there is another house which we think is owned by some Brits as there is a French registered Sunbeam car in the garage. Only English bought Sunbeams we thought.

The road ran along the top of the hills for a short while and then headed off on to the small track which goes part of the way downhill and then alongside the hill for about a mile and a half. This track is very narrow at times and perhaps only eight to ten inches wide and made of gravel with at least a one thousand foot drop down the side of the mountain and plop in to the River Lot, if you are lucky. If you are not you hit the road and get run over by a passing lorry. Anyway you have to be most careful not to fall but we made it ok. By now it was midday and the sun was beaming down and we were getting rather hot. The rest of the journey was mostly down hill through the woods which were cooler and we got back to the campsite about two and a half hours later and about a kilo or two less weight. So straight to the bar we went for a cold beer to replace the lost juices and weight and we soon felt much better.

It is a lovely walk and we took a few photographs en route as you could see on our Phanfare Blog including one of a very large Hawk or similar. My camera lens is not strong enough to cover the distance to where it was perched. There are also lots of lovely little wild flowers to see as well.

Following a well earned beer and shower we had a great afternoon enjoying the sun and reading and hoping that we would not ache too much later or even tomorrow.

We took our evening walk down to the camp site owner’s house where the WiFi is located and caught up with some emails and checked out the UK news which is still quite depressing.

This camp site used to be owned by a Dutch couple and that would explain why there are so many Dutch people here and so I have started practising my Gud Morning with a guttural cough and it seems to work OK.

By early evening the skies had started to cloud over and at about 8.30 pm the thunder came and some rain, not much, but enough to damp down the road dust.

Shopping for us tomorrow, as I need to get a spanner to check that the nuts on the tow bar are tight enough.