pocket-full-of-seaglass

-Tence-

I woke up at, drumroll please, 9.16am. Which is, somehow, the latest I’ve gotten up since Yenne. And it felt.,,. awful? I felt groggy and m o r e tired and just unproductive. This is terrible news; it means the science was right. Damn. All these years of attempting to catch up on sleep by blacking out for like,, a day at a time w a s n ‘ t good for me ??

1-0 to my father.

Suitably horrified at the realisation I might actually start becoming a morning person, I got up. Exceptionally slowly. Got myself dressed and clean and packed up. Slowly. Because realisations are great and all, but I still don’t actually want to d o anything.

All jokes aside, I had all day! From what I’d seen, French campsites were crazily lax about checkout times – I’d seen a guy drive out at 6.00pm last night. And I was going to sleep outside anyway, so that meant I had zero time restraints bar the sun, and that still gave me hours. So I took my time packing, un-setting-up the tent. It gave me some more time to write in the sun while the last of my clothes dried anyway :]

Eventually though, I remembered the sun is hot. Yikes. That got me moving a bit quicker, and by midday I was on the road. Now, purist pilgrims are probably feeling lightheaded – breathe. It’s fine. I’d realised awhile ago that I much prefer starting and finishing late – having hours to kill but nowhere to go at the end of the afternoon is lame, but naps along the way and then watching the sunset ?? Hell yeah dude <33

As I left the turnoff to the camping spot, I rejoined the shells and turned left. We’d be climbing, almost immediately. Woop woop! But first, as if to apologise for the day ahead, the way leads you past this incredible little workshop place where, I can only imagine, dreams are realised. This workshop specialises in ‘chalets’; tiny wooden homes. And they rule.

There’s a classic rectangular-prism-shed-adjacent box, but that absolutely falls to bits next to the submarine themed cylindrical pod. Yeah, you read that right. I spent so long looking at them that by the time I kept going it was already nearing 1.00pm. But could you blame me?? There was a small house that looked like the old scribble cartoon versions of a smurf house (with chimney) that I would move into in an instant, plus one that looked like a hot tub but had stairs going down to where the mini-house was ?

Mood boosted to new heights, I finally started the climb. Today was another stage-and-a-bit day – as I’d stopped in Tence, I had just over 8km to make up (according to the guidebook, which was never that accurate), until I arrived in St-Jeures, where my actual day would begin. Still wasn’t entirely sure why I was insisting on finishing by the time the guidebook said, considering I’d spent all of maybe three nights ‘on stage’, but whatever!!

And, like always, it was a pretty first eight kilometres :] It was a mix of pine forest and the meadows and fields I’d come to know over the past few days. And as I began passing my first few towns of the day, I realised how incredibly different the landscape was to that of the first week. Or even to the second! If you’d shown me a picture of the pine forest last week I wouldn’t have guessed it’d be the same path – long gone were the days on days of corn fields and the soft-leaved greenery of the Swiss border, gone were the sloping, continuous hills of the first 200km.

And then I sort of had an ‘oh shit’ moment where I realised how far 350km was. I was nearly a third of the way through France. Through an entire country. I still had the better portion of 800km to go – the landscape would change more than I could keep track. I was now on my last full day of the Via Gebennensis, and tomorrow I would arrive. The Via Podiensis was big – the rest of my way even more so – on it’s own it was more than double the Via Gebennensis. Oh boy.

And as I had my first, then second, and then quite a few more ‘oh shit’s, I passed the first house of St-Jeures.

-St-Jeures-

As someone I love dearly would say, “jinxing isn’t real, it just coincides with something that has a high likelihood of occurring.’ Or something like that – my persnickety-ness isn’t quite as good as theirs. However, at this point, I’ve decided it is completely 100% real and Always True and I should never say anything again because holy shit? The French do hate me.

There’s no store in St-Jeures, at least, none that I see when I walk past the outskirting village, attempting to scout. There’s apparently one in town, but it’s done for the day and even if it wasn’t, I can’t find it for nothing. Ah well, I’ll just restock at the next – oh there’s no shops today? Awesome.

I stop anyway, exhausted. This is a La Ferme de 1000 Couleurs kind of day. I feel like I’ve been walking all day, and it’s only been two hours. I can’t get food, which means I’m stuck with an apple, my last cashews and some pesto and tomato. For the next day and a bit. But hey – at least there’s water! Realising I’m almost out, I fill my water-bladder and bottle and repack my bag.

Y’know, I heard a lot of people say not to get a bladder and just use bottles instead but my god do people not drink ever? I would run out of the water in my bottle every thirty minutes if I tried that! Plus, it’s so much easier to push on if I don’t have to stop for water. Anyway, that doesn’t matter in regards to the whole food dilemma, I just needed to get that out. Back to the problem at hand!

Now, my choices were sort of split; I could walk to St-Julien-Chapteuil, around 17km away (guidebook says – so it’s definitely a rough guess but hey), where the classic stage would end for the day o r I could walk to where I was originally planning to stop, in Queyrières, just about 11km away. There were pros and cons to both; St-Julien-Chapteuil did have shops, but I’d get there too late anyway, and it’d be a Long day. On the other hand, Queyrières was closer, but I’d still have to cross the distance in the morning. St-Julien-Chapteuil it was!

Preparing myself for a rough next few hours, I down an apple and a handful of cashews. As I air my feet for a few minutes, another group of five arrives. Not the five from last time, just a different set of five Germans. I felt like I was collecting them.

The path out of St-Jeures follows the main road, then turns sharply right then right again (only, it turns right after the shells tell you, so try to avoid walking into that rando French backyard, if you can. It dips (again) in and out of pine forests on rocky paths for a few kilometres before you see the volcanic bluff of Araules in the distance.

-Araules-

The road to Araules is more than a little deceptive – you see it directly on the hillside opposite, but the path itself seems to take the longest possible route, winding slowly down the side, then aaaaall the way around the hill, then sloooowly up. But eventually, you’ll arrive, gross and sweaty, to find an open boulangerie not acknowledged by your guidebook. Yes. And it’ll have the most delicious baguette you’ve ever eaten. Yes. But you’ll almost have a breakdown when the lovely cashier asks a follow up question you weren’t expecting and can’t understand. No.

Either way, walking can wait; it’s time for lunch. Immensely relieved I won’t have to ration my cashews, I enjoy a flawless pesto-tomato sando. Yum. I love pesto!! Dinner and breakfast for tomorrow sorted, it’s time to re-deliberate. Was it worth still pushing on? Queyrières was still seven kilometres away, St-Julien double that.

With my need to shop vanquished, and the only thing pushing me on being the desire to finish on time, I slowly came round to the idea of stopping. I could make up the extra seven tomorrow – 25km wasn’t unmanageable, and I was planning to start early anyway. A bench at Queyrières would do perfectly.

My rest in the near, I kept walking. All that lay between me and Queyrières was,,, the last fucking mountain. 300m of elevation gain over the next kilometre. Ouch. But – no fear! It was pretty :]

I passed by several houses seemingly enjoying last-day-of-holidays activities; siblings chucking each others toys on the roof then sweeping them back down, paper plane races and cartwheels. One girl attempting to land a handstand into an arch, stacking it, her mother and I giggling and her low ‘nooooooo‘ as she realised someone saw her. I didn’t feel too bad though; she collapsed into a fit of laughter a moment later.

Smiling and sentimenal, I carried on through the village of Pialevialle, as the path began to creep upwards. This time, I was borderline open-mouthed as I walked; had it not been for my dwindling water and how dry it constantly felt, I would’ve been. The climb is manageable, more than so. The first chunk is on uneven, rocky ground, but soon you come to a road and wander on for the better part of two kilometres, and it’s so pretty you forget you’re road walking.

It’s fairly isolated, it seems, because there are barely any cars – just you and the pines. These are properly massive ones, reaching out into the clouds. The sunlights just trickling on through, and the birds are s o loud. Since halfway through the first week, eagles have been everywhere, but here you can hear the young, hear the whip of air as they pass by overhead. So distracting is the mini-stroll that you barely notice you’re only fifty metres from the top.

Raffy is another village, standing directly at the highest point of the entire Via Gebennensis at 1,276m above sea level. You have an incredible view over the surrounding mountains, and as I step gracefully downhill (stumble repeatedly), I try to squint through the glare of the sun and find Le Puy. There’s a few towns, and some glints peppered around the horizon, but nothing that screams ‘town of 20,000 people’. Evidentially, I still didn’t know how far kilometres were – 26.5 seemed like it should be visible.

From Raffy, it’s a quick few kilometres until you reach Queyrières – entirely downhill, of course. But soon, it comes into view, complete with church against the jagged basalt rocks.

-Queyrières-

Wandering on down into town, you pass by some open fields and meadows – I’m telling you, wild-camping is easy enough to do stealthily, as long as you keep an eye out!!

But soon, you arrive to pilgrim haven; a small rest stop with shaded benches, potable water, toilet (with paper), and a sink with soap. Such luxuries cannot be overstated. Speaking of luxury, I have decided to forgo my night on the bench in Queyrières, trading it instead for a bench in St-Julien-Chapteuil. Plot twist! We’re walking more. It’s nearing 6.00pm, which still gives us two and a bit hours to find somewhere, and should be more than enough time to get us the 7.3 kilometres to our next bench.

As I head off, a tiny voice in the back of my head goes, ‘hey, so we’ve been deliberating back here and we think maybe actually this isn’t the best idea? We’re all pretty exhausted, you’ve got some Really strong capital f Feelings happening, your feet are shot, and we would like a good nights sleep – and not just for us, for you! You should be affording yourself the same kind of care you’d tell others to, and lead by example. Listen to your body and all that. So please, consider taking a break, stubbornness won’t get you anywhere.‘

And to that little voice I say, “shut up!!!”.

On we go.

Almost immediately from Queyrières you begin to see the town of Monedeyres on the next hill over, and it’s all the red roofs and white walls that never get tiring – every single town feels like something out of a movie. The downhill gets even steeper here, verges on a cliff. The rocks are fickle, and the ones that look most secure send me stumbling downhill, knees taking the brute of the force. Maybe walking sticks might have been smart actually.

1.5-0 to my father.

The sun is getting lower, the light dropping. It’s warm, still, and for that I’m glad. Here in the village, I befriend a dog. It’s by complete accident – I rustle as I walk, and she seems to like the sound. She accompanies me down the next slope to Le Moulin de Guérin, which, as my book tells me, is notoriously tricky; not physically, but signage wise. Here, the GR65 and it’s classic red/white markings diverge from the shells for the first time; they’re much easier to spot, and in most cases can be used almost interchangeably with the blue and yellow.

So I’m glad for the company as she hunts beside me, definitely fucking up the natural order while she’s at it. She sticks with me down and back uphill, leads me past the divergence then to a crossroads where all markings vanish. In the woods. As it gets dark. Oh boy. She wanders to the right with such confidence that I decide to follow her, and as I round the first corner, she turns tail and trots back to the village, ten minutes away. And I look up to see the first shell. Clever girl :]

Following them even further downhill isn’t ideal, considering the sun has definitely ditched the valleys by now, but I try to stay calm with the knowledge that I’m right by the village of Le Moulin de Guérin. Which is, of course, just a historical site of just a Really Old House at the complete bottom of the valley, in the woods, in the dark. Nice.

With Fear alive and well, I start the climb back up, doubled in two to give myself momentum. Get me out of here. Woods in the day ?? 1000/10, beautiful, wouldn’t trade it for the world but the second the sun goes down they become freak hell. Tragic – they have such perfect hammock-spaced trees.

I listen to some music to ease the Fear, try not to spill my capital f Feelings all over the place. Exhausted me is not the best at emotions, and I’m really scrambling for control as I finally round the curve and re-enter the sunlight. Thank God. Re-bottling that lovely pit of loneliness and shutting fear up, I reach the next settlement.

-La Chapuze-

I don’t ever want to give the illusion that I’m in any way getting fitter – if anything, my days seem to be getting shorter and my breaks longer – but I mooch on into La Chapuze firmly convinced I can’t take a single step more, and I leave within five minutes.

It’s the view – I can see St-Julien-Chapteuil. It was, like the last few, just a hillside away. And it was big, which meant shops in the morning to restock; I was low on almost everything. So on I went, feet like concrete blocks, plodding down the road and only going the wrong way once (score). The sun was really going down now, and I’d accidentally timed it perfectly. Long, orange lines crossed the asphalt, pink stained the sky. I couldn’t quite concentrate on that though; I was focused on something new. A few too many coincidences.

My lame little superstitions were one of my favourite things to expand. Shooting stars were great, but they weren’t the only wishing opportunities. Santa-Clauses blowing in the breeze, dandelions in summer, looping numbers, late night aeroplane lights, endless repetitions. I had strung my wishes on every fairylight strand and flying kite I’d seen since I was a kid.

So on I wandered, trying out new wishes. I didn’t know what angle to approach it from – there wasn’t really anything else I wanted. I was sort of living the dream at the moment, and had been for the past few months. I was happy. What else did people wish for?

-St-Julien-Chapteuil-

By the time I arrived, 2km later, I didn’t really have an answer. I’m sure there’s something – I’ll just have to figure it out later. For now though, I’m approaching a park. Which means I’m approaching a bench. Which means; bedtime.

And so I watched the sun dip red under the horizon as the local park cat tried to hunt something making little sounds in the leaves. I loved the feral French cats; they were everywhere! And sure, they were, with 100% certainty doing irreparable damage to the natural local ecosystems, but they were so cute doing it <33

I’ll bid you goodnight here though – the cars are starting to slow, and I have an unfortunately early start tomorrow. But it’s kinda cool that I’ll end my last night on the Via Gebennensis the same way I ended my first; with you, on a bench, watching the stars through the leaves. No corpses this time though, sorry :]

---

Day 17 – September 6th

Tence to St-Julien-Chapteuil

23.7km

~ 345.3km total

€3.20

~ €453.09 total