That's your Lot...

A bit of bike maintenance is needed Friday morning before we wave goodbye, making our way through roadworks but at least in the opposite direction to the busy commuter traffic of Montauban. Soon on quiet country roads again, passing the distinctive tall frames supporting plum trees which produce prunes. By noon it is 31 degs in the shade. Our bit of shade is a grapevine trellised over a stone seat on the central square of the village of Castelnau-Montratier.
We sit out an hour of the heat, then sweat our way through undulating farmland to the River Lot at Douelle. A derelict campsite here, so we go for our second choice which means cycling in rush hour traffic through the large city of Cahors, not pleasant but the camp is a lovely oasis of calm a mile to the east of the city, big grassy, shady pitches, surrounded by peaceful fields.


After a reviving shower followed by a cold beer in the camp bar (that didn't touch the sides) we are re-humanised.


Miles to date:- 1979

Location:Montauban to Cahor

Yurt and a heatwave...

An easy ride back down the cycle track to Lourdes, then farm lanes up and over foothills with the towering snow capped peaks we are leaving behind visible above clouds. Wild strawberries grow at the verges. At the top of hills are pine woods, in the many small valleys, young corn plants in neat rows, with fig and cherry trees around the edges.


We stop for a cool drink and map check at Meilan, with it's imposing Hotel de Ville.


We are hosted tonight on a farm, where Farmer Thierry is away in Norway, but has arranged for us to use the yurt on his farm for the night. We were expecting just a large tent affair but it is a really big room.


We sit on the steps on the evening with both doors wide open for a cool breeze as is has been a very sultry day. Further up the meadow are a flock of free range Rhode Island Red chickens. Nightingales, crickets and frogs are the evening chorus.
We set out Thursday morning at 6.30 to have some of the day out of the heat, and are rewarded with close encounters with hares and deer, feeding on the young sunflower crop and a red squirrel. A lot of hills soon have us overheating, though, and by midday we need our stop at Mauvezin. In the deep shade of their enormous ancient Halle we sit, people watching in the central square. The small shops shut and the locals take refuge in the 2 cafés under the shade of ancient stone colonnades. We route plan and rest til 1.30 then back into the heat for just 2 more up and downs into valleys before following a tributary of the Garonne to the great river itself near Montauban. We know our way here as we are revisiting WS hosts AnneMarie and Yvon, who we first met last year. Two miles to go, 78 miles down, and a puncture on the rough canal tow path that won't take even enough air to get us there. Yvon is brilliant and comes to the rescue in his van. It is fantastic to stay with them again, catching up on journeys taken, whilst eating Anne-Marie's fabulous home-cooked dishes, rounded off with a cream cheesecake "de paradis".


Miles to date:- 1923

Location:Argeles-Gazost to Monteban

Rapids and a Bun...

As we leave the hotel in the morning to buy today's provisions, the smell of cooking Paella is overpowering. In the adjacent main square a large market has just been set up including two competing Paella sellers. Stalls selling local produce from goats cheese to sausages predominate, but spreading down all the side streets are shoe and clothes stalls. Our hotel owner/chef struggles back with his shopping bags full of fresh veg for dinner. Our last full day in A-G, a rest day. Only an 18 mile cycle up and down a valley just south of the town, following a river (with no name on the map) as it cascades in waterfalls and rapids from the steep wooded slopes above.


The cloud is sitting very low in the valley and as we gain height the humidity is visible on the wet road surface, and our clouds of breath. At the mountain village of Estaing we are getting into thick cloud, so head back down. Just before we leave the bridge here, a white bibbed dipper dashs up stream, then does his characteristic bobbing on a rock, bringing our bird count to 86.


Houses here have steep slated roofs coming almost to the ground, and impressively large neat log piles. We take a detour to a hamlet on the way back down, just because its name is Bun. Last year's flooding is evident where a torrent of water has carved a swathe through the houses, washing away gardens and a section of the road. Big boulders have been brought in to hold back steep banks. All is very tranquil now, with only a group of chewing donkeys stirring. A notice explains the local vernacular farm building, a "Poulailler". About the size of a single garage but 3 storeys high, these have stone pig pens on the ground floor, with timber slats across the front of the next storey to keep foxes from the chicken house, over which is a timber pigeon loft. All the protein needed to see them through a hard winter.


Miles to date:- 1781

Location:Argeles-Gazost

Wow!...

The Col du Tourmalet is officially shut from "our" direction, because the road was washed away last year and it still being replaced. However today is a Monday Bank holiday here, so we reckon it may be possible to get through the roadworks as they won't be working. So we set off, first trying a little farm road as an alternative but after only 200 metres find not only has the road been washed away but replaced by lorry sized boulders. We turn back onto the main route. The two villages we pass through, Esquièze and Barèges, have no top surface left on their roads, and many side roads have been destroyed. We had not realised the scale of the destruction. About half the small bridges to side roads are destroyed, only really old stone bridges and ancient stone barns and farms have survived unscathed. More recent buildings were just washed away entirely, the occasional foundation or end wall showing where they had stood. From here on up where the road had been totally swept away there are new tarmac sections, but where only the surface is destroyed these are not yet repaired, so are very rough. As the road climbs we are overtaken by a few carbon-bikers and a several groups of motor bikers - blissfully hardly any cars. Signs read "Tourmalet Fermé", but we ignore them. After the closed ski-lift station the road steepens and we are surrounded by high mountain peaks and big patches of snow. Full waterfalls are spectacular on both sides.


The road surface worsens, only one bike in sight. A barrier saying "Route Barré" is easily passed.
Water is now coursing down the full width of the road from snow melt streams, bringing with it gravel. Fresh rock falls have to be negotiated. An enormous pylon that supported the ski lift above us has been knocked sideways by a giants blow. Looking up we can see two more enormous empty hairpin bends, but not the summit, so we still don't know if we can get through. At 2000m there the are very strong wind gusts, water rushing across the whole road, and no top surface remaining. The side crash barrier has been washed away entirely so we are a bit nervous about being blown over the edge as there's a big drop. Three German motor bikers stop with us to admire the view of the valley we have just come up from, and the surrounding snow dazzling in the bright sun.


Then one last hairpin bend, a very steep climb through temporary barriers that again state "Route Barré", and there is the sight so familiar from photos on the internet, the enormous metal statue of a cyclist, and the Tourmalet summit height sign, confirming 2115 m.





I am sure it is rare, but we had it to ourselves for a while to take photos, and then were joined by a few motor bikers and a couple of Brits amazingly carrying full panniers. We go over the top for the view down the other side, but is is softer with green meadows, so we return to "our" side and the snowy peaks, to shelter from the very strong wind, eat a baguette and venison pâté picnic, before putting on gloves and jackets to start back down.


Then taking care on rock strewn hairpins, and very gingerly through the rushing waters. Five hours up, 1 and 3/4 hrs back down. Hardly a cloud in the sky all day. Sitting on our balcony eating olives with a glass of wine to celebrate before enjoying one of Madam's wonderful 5 course meals, I chase away a lizard away who is running into our room, then watch a red kite soaring near our high balcony. A perfect day.


Miles to date:- 1763

Location:Argeles-Gazost to Col Du Tourmalet

Route Barré...

In the warm evening sunshine we explore the country lanes around Oloron, coming to several very old derelict mills. A farmer on a tractor hoes between rows of young corn. We thought a Sunday morning pedal around Oloron to look at the sights would be peaceful, but there is a running event so there are many "Route Barré" signs and frustrated car drivers. The Cathedral is worth a gander, as are old terraces of houses and the very full river thundering under the bridge. We head off towards the mountains. Near Lourdes a countryside route we had travelled with our friends last May has a "Route Barré" sign, but we carry on, coming soon to a 200 m stretch by the river where the road has been completely washed away. We carry the bikes over stone and sand. Even the railings some 20 ft above the river at the hydro-electric generating station were buckled, where a tree or rock must have been thrown against them.
We can't find away around Lourdes, so get through past the tacky souvenir shops and faded hotels as fast as we can, to pick up the terrific rail trial 10 miles up river to Argelès-Gazost.


The mountains are closing in around, and with not a cloud in the sky we are very sweaty by the time we arrive at the hotel "Beau Site" where we had stayed with the our friends last year. The lovely owners remember us and we are soon ensconced in a room with a balcony and view of snow clad peaks.


There are 6 other English cyclists staying, on a CTC tour of the Pyrenees. The Col du Tourmalet pass is apparently officially closed, but this group got part of the way up. They know our friends Tim and Judy Green, as they have cycled with them on a CTC holiday in Kerala.


Miles to date:- 1714

Location:Oloron St Marie to Argiles Gazost

Vultures and vines...

As the weather stays perfect, sunny and no wind, we are remaining in the Pyrenees , pedalling east and for the third time climb the Col d' Osquich, one of the gentler Cols. There are a few walkers and touring cyclists as we are still on the Santiago way. There is a lot of snow on the highest peaks of the mountains to our right. We can tell we are in France as coffee at the village bars is twice the price we were paying only yesterday.
As we look down onto one meadow below us, a Griffen Vulture is sidling up to a lonesome feeble sheep. He is keeping to the vulture code, no touching til they are actually dead. The local tourist board are marketing this route as the "Route de Fromage" as we pass farms dedicated to producing the Berber sheep cheese. In other steep meadows the hay is being cut and laid to dry. Higher up the slopes are cultivated with steep terraces of grapes. Above these are pine forests. We shamelessly fall on a Lidls to stock up on basics (I'll always remember Steph falling asleep in a French Lidls carpark when she was meant to be guarding all our bikes in Brittany!) Near our stop for the night at Oloron Ste Marie we use the Wifi at a Mac Donald's on the ring road. The campsite is on a perfect location, near enough to cycle to the town for provisions but up a farm road with uninterrupted views of the snow capped peaks. There is grass and shade too! The only other touring cyclist is Dutch but unusually does not speak English, we gather however he has cycled from home to here via Barcelona.


Miles to date:- 1665

Location:St Jean Pied de Port to Oloron St Marie

Over the top...

An early start from Olite as we know we have uphill most of the day. Heading towards Pamplona then east into the foothills of the Pyrenees. Low down there are fields of young sunflower plants, then we gain height following the Erro river up into the mountains, squeezing in beside it in ravines as it becomes a fast flowing mountain stream. A very humid day. We cross the Santiago Pilgrims route where walkers with bandaged knees are following well signed paths, and then meet a few touring cyclists. We take a slightly different route from last time as the weather is so good, to do an extra pass, then whizz past the campsite where we overnighted in 2008, to take the final pass at 1100 m. On the last few kilometres up, we pass a touring cyclist who says his legs can't do any more, but we reassure him he is very nearly at the top. At the summit there is a tiny old Dutch lady cyclist (her description) who is also exhausted having come up the difficult way from France into a head wind. We reassure her that she only has a 1 km cycle downhill to find a good cafe which cheers her up and we take a photo for her on her phone to prove she made it. She tells us her husband died last year and they had toured lots including Cambodia. Two km down the other side are a couple. The lady managing to pedal at walking pace, hubby has given up and is walking.
We are in St Jean Pied de Port in their charming municipal campsite, near the town walls, putting up our tent by 4.00pm, 68 miles today, and across the Pyrenees.


The cyclist who said his legs had given up arrived a few hours later and celebrated with a cigarette! A walk around the top of the town walls finished the evening with very tired legs. There is a party of English walkers doing the Santiago way, who get up and slip away before dawn - dedication.


Miles to date:- 1619

Location:Olite to St Jean Pied de Port