Lost and stung - Eauze to Arblade le Haut

I woke up with a stinking headache, (and no before you say it, it was not because of too much red wine! - we had Rose). Outside there was a heavy mist. After breakfast we made visits to the patisserie, the chemist and the church, and then we were off.

For a second day we were walking through fields full of grapevines, and the harvest is beginning to be in full swing.

Like me you probably have a picture of bronzed men and women with wicker baskets on their backs, carefully cutting each bunch of the vine and placing them in the basket.

The reality is very different! One man drives a large machine over the tops of the grapevines and this machine harvests the grapes, which are then put into large skips (like the ones at council tips in the UK) and the grapes are then taken to a factory for processing.


All morning we had been following at a distance the young French couple (Seb & Anne) we had met last night. Seb was wearing a very bright hi viz orange hat. A little while later we passed them and said to Seb how much his hat showed up. He told us that he was wearing it as a precaution against hunters because he said "I am not a rabbit" and a drunken hunter could well confuse a six foot Frenchman with a 9 inch rabbit! I don't have a hi vis hat, but I do have a bright orange "Mr Easyjet" rucksack so hopefully hunters should not confuse Lesley and myself for rabbits either.

When we reached the town of Manciet we had to cross a major trunk road using a road bridge. As we crossed we could smell the grape lorries as they passed underneath. We stopped at the church to say midday prayer, only to find it shut. There was however, an oratory of St James, (a small room with a window looking into the church, and just behind the window was a picture of St James). So we stopped and said the office, before continuing on our way.

We left the town passing a scrapyard before continuing in open countryside, as we went up a small hill I heard a shout from Lesley, looked around to see her all contorted, I asked what was wrong, "I'm being stung by a bee" I leaped into action removing the offending insect, which then turned around and stung me on the arm. "it's gone I said", "no it's not, it's just stung me on the ear" said Lesley. It turned out two bees had attacked Lesley, I had got no 2, who had got me, but no 1 had already stung Lesley. I removed the stings from both of us and as a precaution we both took an anti-histamine.

It was about half an hour later that we realised that we had not seen a balise marking the route for a while, also where there was a possible left or right there were no balises indicating a turn. I was then worried we might have taken the wrong route. We read our guide book and concluded that we had missed a right turn 2.5 km back. We turned around and retraced our steps. As our last map for the route ran out just before Condom, (and we have been unable to buy the next one), we couldn't look for an alternative route.

We also realised that the route back would probably take us past the irate Bees again. However, luck was on our side, after retracing our steps for about 1km we came to a side road with signs to a gite and church we knew were on our route, so we took the turn and after another km regained the correct route.

As we retraced our steps we reflected that in nearly three weeks and over 500 km of walking this was the first time we had gone wrong, which is not a bad achievement. We also mused that perhaps the bees had been trying to tell Lesley that we had gone the wrong way, as they were buzzing in her ear, and perhaps they had stung her in frustration when she hadn't listened!


Eventually we got back on the route and came to the church of Sainte Christie where we stopped for lunch, but unfortunately the church was locked, as ever a disappointment. After lunch we continued to the town of Nogaro where we bumped into Seb and Ann again who had wondered what had happened to us as they had not seen us, so we explained that we went wrong.

After getting something for tomorrow's lunch, and a glass of Orangina we set out to walk the last 2.5 km to our nights halt at Arblade de Haut, (all up hill of course!) we arrived at our gite and were welcomed with a cold glass of mint squash, before our host showed us to our room. After the usual round of showers and washing, we sat on the terrace with our hosts and our fellow guests (including Seb & Anne) for a beer.

There were 11 of us who sat down for supper, we 2 Brits, 3 Germans and 6 French people. With great ceremony our host brought out two bottles of Floc de Gascogne, the drink we had first tasted at Therese's in Miradoux, he explained that it was grape juice fortified with Armagnac. The Floc was followed by a courgette soup, a lightly spiced tagine type dish from Reunion, served with rice, and a desert similar to Breton fa with Apple.

Over dinner we talked with Seb and Anne, and in conversation the speed of my walking came up. Lesley had been commenting on how after 28km I was still walking at the same (fast) pace. Seb said he had noticed that I seemed to keep on going and that they had nicknamed me the Terminator, as like Arni in the film I was relentless. I found this quite funny. Seb and Anne are also doing a blog and so we swapped blog addresses.

Finally a happy birthday to my dad for tomorrow 29th September.

On the Camino in France