ST 7: Signs of rain

How do you tell you are in a rainy place? Here are my top 5:

1. Your gite has piles of crushed newspaper ready to help dry shoes.
2. The trees are edged with mushrooms and other fungi.
3. There are slugs, huge slugs, all along the roads.
4. Mud – enough said.
5. There’s water falling on you, a lot.

Our stopping point last night is half way through the GR70 so we lost a lot of people and gained a lot more.

The trail this morning was the most crowded we have seen – and everyone was kitted out for rain. We were in full rain-pants and jackets for the first time as we slogged through muddy trails up some serious hills.

The views when we could see them were good, but we were in clouds or mist for a fair while. The rain let up a bit and we did manage to stop for morning tea and then lunch in a clearing by a river.

We are spending tonight in Le Bleymard in a nice enough auberge which was once a coaching stop and may have been updated once in the last 100 years. The major practical issue we are facing down is that the wet weather has left us in dire need of doing some washing. Wasn’t a big deal while all our co-walkers were in the same, slightly smelly, boat – but this new cohort of walkers doing the second half all smell freshly laundered.

And, by the way, Jennifer’s 2-6am meeting went well and she dealt with a sleepless day faultlessly.

Second donkey today, bringing the donkey-meter to 2.