I woke at 6 and as Lesley was still asleep quietly said morning prayer. Because of the heat of yesterday we had decided to leave earlier than normal to try and get as much distance under our belts before it got hot.
But first it was confession time. Each evening we wash out our socks and smalls and I have been using the tap on the sink to wring things against, unfortunatly last night the tap snaped off. So before we left we confessed to the hotel owner that we had broken the tap, fortunatly for us he just gave a galic shrug and wrote the room number down for his maintenance people. However, I still had visions of being stoped later in the day by the Gendarme on a charge of criminal damage, so my heart beat a little faster when we came into Nasbinal and the first thing I saw was a couple of Gendarme.
We left the hotel and discovered that its Monday and that everything closes rather than on Sunday, but fortunatly there was a small supermarket where we were able to pick up lunch, and also bumped into our French friends and our three Australians friends none of whom we had seen yesterday.
We left Aumont and after crossing railway we came to a motorway where they have built a tunnel which in known localy as the "Saintjacqueduc".
A few km later we passed the tiny chapel Chapelle de Bastide where some French pilgrims were holding an impromptu service and singing "Seak ye first the kingdom of God" in French and we were able to join in with the chorus.Moving on about a km later an old woman informed us that we were the 32nd pilgrims to pass her that day!
A few km later as we began our ascent up onto the Aubrac plateau the scenery changed again, now it was reminiscent of the white peak area of Derbyshire but on a much larger scale, with vast tracks of moorland seperated by stone walls.
Coming down off the plateau we hit Tarmac again for most of the last 7 km into Nasbinals and so we were very relieved when we got to our gite and were able to kick off our boots and put on our crocs.After a shower, change and laundry (without broken taps) we visited the Church and said evening prayer, we then headed for the tourist information to discover that all the accomodation at our next destination was fully booked. And tHe next town with accomodation on the trail is 20 km away. After much research and phoning by the man for us he managed to get us a bed in a village 9km off piste.
On meeting the Australians for a beer, we told them the news they decided to skip the stage and get a taxi to the next town, so unfortunatly we might not see them again.
After a meal we headed to bed ready for tommorow.
On the Camino in France
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