Day 11: Decazeville to Figeac
- Simon Pollack
- May 7, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 29, 2024
A burgeoning friendship cemented, with heaven’s tears tumbling down
A fortunate meeting with motorised pilgrims, in Renault we cover the ground
And when comes the time to go walking, for that in the end is our aim
‘Tis no longer heavily pouring, we’re winning this heavenly game
7 May 2024, Tuesday
Distance hiked 17.0km (10.6m) | Ascent 396m |
I left by 8am as I had such a long walk ahead of me. And the weather forecast was ominously bad.
Leaving Decazeville is pretty hard: the reverse law of gravity showing itself.
As I reached Livinhac-le-Haut a few kilometres in, I bumped into the cousins who were just setting off. How serendipitous this turned out to be! About 12km into my day at Montredon, or say 5 into theirs, the heavens opened.
The shelter of the church for 20 minutes saw us through the worst of it but the rain was still hard and persistent. And a local couple told us that there was flooding at a lake we would normally cross on the Chemin, which meant it was tarmac all the way from here. This was the point that Frédo was to take over the driving so I, and a couple of other female pilgrims looking with dismay at the clouds and the hardtop black stuff, hopped in the car for 6km. The girls got out and started marching to Figeac with just 10km to go. I decided to stick with Frédo who is good company. And we met up with the rest of the gang for our packed lunch.
It was very interesting chatting with them: Frédo (63) and ex-doctor Gérard (68) had only recently retired. Serge (68, I think) and Gérald (73) had retired as policemen at 51 and 53 respectively. They explained that shortly after the war, the police (though not the Gendarmes) had the right to strike, and presumably they did. The government of the day did a deal that removed their right to strike in return for extraordinarily generous retirement terms. The pernicious power of unions. Anyway, I hopped in the car after lunch with Serge to be dropped off, with slightly better weather, 6km short of Figeac. Thus my 30+km day was rather easy at under 20km of nice walking instead of a knackering slog through the storms. Nice!
That said the wet really did take its toll on those last few kms. The mud, the mud. I felt like a trenchman in 1916 Flanders. Well perhaps I’m not in danger of being mown down as I pop my head up high, or of mustard gas, but boy this mud really is something. I showered my shoes in the bath when I got to my room. Yes, I literally showered them.
As I type this I’m about to go and meet Cat at a bus stop to bring her to the hotel where we will catch up over dinner and start 4 days of walking together, up to Cahors. I can’t wait!
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