constanttrek

re: previous posts

Add comment August 30th, 2004

Just to let you know that I have posted the last three entries all at once, which means you will have to scroll back through three headings to get to the oldest/new one. If that makes sense. By the way, Jeromy, don’t you go posting on our site posing as R.T Swing or I will put arsenic in your coffee.

Rue to Abbeville 29th Aug

4 comments August 30th, 2004

We are in Abbeville, which also means we have finally come to the end of our first French map! It has been something of a drawn out process, considering we have rested for as many days as we have walked. The Abbeville experience has been somewhat enhanced by the fact that, most unfortunately, it has no camping, which means we have been forced into seeking refuge in the local formule 1 hotel. The fact that is has a television, coinciding with the closing ceremony of the Olympics, is purely coincidental. As is the fact that as we arrived after the internet café closed on Saturday, and it isn’t open Sundays, we have to stay another night. Terribly hard time we are having of it. But as the weather continues to dump it down, I can’t say either of us feels particularly guilty.
I wrote earlier about the attention we seem to get from both horses and dogs as we pass; yesterday we were highly amused to find ourselves the object of intense study by an entire field of cattle. I frantically fumbled for my camera, but only managed to capture one of them staring dumbly at us. It is a rather strange feeling to be scrutinised by 50 odd head of immobile bovines.
It was about a 15 mile walk yesterday, and for the first time in a while the roads were quiet enough to enable us to talk to each other rather than yell over the traffic. Before we left London, a friend made a joke about how boring our conversations would get after a month or two with only each other to speak to, a comment which stuck in my head. I thought of it again yesterday after I realised we had gone over the same conversation about three times. It usually happens when we have gone about 6 miles and the first sign of fatigue sets in, and goes something like this:

Gary (as a flash car speeds past): God he was moving. Did you see? Nice car.
Paula: MMM. I wonder how fast he was going.
G: About 100 miles, I would think.
P: So, how long would it take him to get to Abbeville then?
G: Well there’s still 10 miles to go, so about six minutes.
P: 6 minutes.
G: Yep.
(silence for about 100 metres.)
P: So by the time we get to Abbeville, he would be…
G: Just about in Spain, yep.
P: Spain.
G: Yep.
P: I bet he’s got air con.
G: He’s sitting down, too.
P: Yeah, but look what he’s missing.
G: Yeah.
P: Yeah.
(silence for another 10 mins, then a motorbike flies past)
P: So, how fast do you reckon he’s going?……

And so on and so forth. Eventually we will get sick of this little game, I am sure, but for now it provides an endless source of entertainment. Or an exquisite kind of torture. I’m not sure which.
After Abbeville we are heading to Amiens, then Beauvais, and on to Paris. It is about 10 walking days to Paris, but we don’t expect to get there under two weeks, particularly if the weather remains foul. It is not so much the walking in the rain, which really isn’t so bad, it is trying to pack up in it. If we get a couple of clear hours in the morning we can get packed and on the road without a problem – but if it is dumping down when we try to pack everything up, it really does double the time everything takes, not to mention packing the tent away wet. As a result, if we wake to a steady downpour, we tend not to go anywhere. It is not that we didn’t expect some manky weather – in fact we are anticipating truly vile temperatures and loads of rain from October through January – but we thought we would get a relatively good run of it through August and September, which would enable us to push on quite quickly, and get on to the Santiago de Compostela before the bad weather set in.
But it is not to be. And I would be lying if I said I wasn’t grateful for the enforced rests. Much as we would like to be moving a bit faster, after a 15-18 mile day with the monsters, it is brilliant if we can have a day off. We both find that three days in a row walking is the most we can manage. And it tends to work better to do a three day on, two off pattern, which enables us to spend one day doing washing/shopping/repairs/internet, and one day actually resting.
It also seems to take us forever to pack up in the mornings. We keep on discussing ways we can become more time efficient, but at present it remains a two hour task from waking to walking. Partly it is because we tend to use nearly everything in the packs on a daily basis, which means that it all has to come out every night, and equally, needs to be repacked carefully the next day. If things are packed without care or in an unusual way, the packs don’t sit properly, which then means stopping after 3 miles and going through the whole process again in order to walk comfortably.
Fascinating as this is to us, it being the axis on which our small world turns, I did realise, as I expounded on the theme at great length to Sarah and James after a bottle of red, that it is relentlessly boring to everyone else. So on that note I shall desist.

Please bear with the long breaks between entries on the diary. We really can’t do much about them, as only big towns have the internet, and there is often 40 miles or so between the ones on our route, which takes us up to a week. Sometimes when we get there we can’t upload stuff, or, as is often the case with libraries, can’t access our weblog. As a result I am writing on the way and uploading 3 or more entries each time we stop, so just scroll down to see the previous ones. Once again thankyou all for your messages of support. I can’t stress enough how much we appreciate them, and all of you.
Cheers until (hopefully) Amiens.

Stella Plage to Rue 27th Aug

Add comment August 30th, 2004

Once again the rain is coming down, and we are holed up in our little green cave doing very little. We walked here (Rue) from Berck yesterday, glad to be leaving the coast behind us. There is not much to be said for seaside tourist towns in the rain. It was a lovely walk yesterday; past old farmhouses, overgrown fields, and rows of corn. The ponies here are gorgeous, especially the miniature ones, of which there are many – often so fat on the rich green grass they look ready to topple over their own feet. As we walk by they come rushing over to the fence, eyeing us and the monsters with great curiosity, noses out in the hope of yet more food. They appear rather more friendly than French dogs, which I am sure can actually scent the fact that we are foreign, and bark at as incessantly as we go past. I had taken to sticking my tongue out at them but ceased the practice when one old lady thought I was directing the gesture at her rather than the dog.
We were all set to walk on to Abbeville today, but Rue is a lovely village, the camping here is tranquil and, more importantly, cheap; and to top it all off the showers are wonderful. We got as far as packing the bedding up before the rain started to fall, at which point we felt the decision had been made for us. Hence today is another food binge – as Gary puts it, our day is divided into two hour sections, and at the end of each we eat another course. In between we rest to prepare ourselves for the next meal. It is tough. We have already managed phase 1(cereal) ; phase 2 (croissants, brioche, coffee); phase 3 (baguette, ham, cheese, tomato) and 4 (huge patisserie cakes and coffee). We are gearing up for a spectacular finale, as Gary has been to the Boucherie and bought filet steak for dinner, which we plan to consume with a very nice Bordeaux we got on the cheap. I may have quit the dreaded cigarettes, but my food addiction remains alive and well.
So far we have walked about 170 miles over 15 days. Of the 11 rest days we have had, 5 have been dictated by weather (not counting today, which we may have been persuaded to take regardless). We are not quite as far on as we had hoped, but then the weather has been less than co-operative and besides: who cares? We’ll get there eventually.
Due to the difficulties uploading stuff in Berck, this will all wait until Abbeville now – that is assuming, of course, that they have an internet café. Sorry if any information has been repeated.
Again we both want to thank all of you for your texts, emails, and posts. It is very heartening after a lousy day, or when the blisters are hurting, to get a message of encouragement, and we really do treasure them all.
And finally – as this is the last post which will go up before all of my ex-colleagues go back to work on the 1st of September – I shall try not to gloat too loudly as I say GOOD LUCK to you all for the next year of happiness and joy teaching the little cherubs, and I hope you all particularly enjoy the inset day at the beginning. I am sure it will be as full of excitement and vital information as ever. And on that note, I think I shall have another cake.

Calais to Sella Plage 24th Aug

Add comment August 30th, 2004

We have managed a little bit of walking between the croissants and brioche. Not a great deal, mind you, but then one must prioritise.
We stayed in Calais for a few days, due mainly to the fact that our feet were mashed – I had one huge infected blister and Gary’s (who are featured in a fetching photo on the photo album) were covered. The weather also left a lot to be desired. When we did finally set off, we were following what is marked on the map as a “hiking trail” which supposedly ran parallel to the beach. After several very slow miles we realised that in fact the beach was the trail, after which we decided the road might be a better option. We had a pretty lousy first day, only covering 7 miles, and wound up trudging the last few miles straight up the beach to a village called Wissant. There is little more depressing than hobbling up a beach packed with folk frolicking in the sea and generally enjoying themselves, laden like a packhorse. To top it off the campsite was packed. The only available site was directly beside the sanitary facilities, and, this being France, these consisted of an open row of urinals. For the duration of our stay we had the dubious pleasure of observing the toilet habits of several hundred Frenchmen.
However, there is always an upside, and the following day we discovered the wonders of the French village food market. I have to apologise here and say there are no photos, as it was belting with rain at the time, so you shall have to rely on my description, which could never really do it justice.
We could smell it long before we actually reached it, a rich scent of garlic and sausage, and freshly baked bread. When we rounded the corner there was stall after stall of fabulous cheeses, big sloppy camemberts and bries, wheels of stinky blue and goats’ cheese. There were carts laden with smoked sausage of every description, and breads of all shapes and sizes. Fresh vegetables, bundles of herbs, baskets of fruit, meats and seafood. And in the centre of it all there was a huge cooking area, with enormous round pots suspended on tripods, one bubbling with paella, another with a rich cassoulet, and chickens roasting slowly over a rotisserie. We were in seventh heaven. I know that most of you have probably seen loads of these sort of markets in Europe, but it is a tradition which is not a regular part of Australian life, and they never fail to totally entrance me. I nearly blew our entire weeks’ food budget in one throw.
It was lucky we were stocked up with great food, as the weather got progressively worse and we were unable to go anywhere. The tent stood up well to the gale force winds and torrential rain – so much for the wonderful French summer – and we just ate our way through it.
We were due to meet Sarah and James about 40 miles down the coast on the 23rd, and we were running behind, so we packed up on the first semi-dry day and set out for Boulogne, or as close to as we could get. Finally it seemed as though our feet were okay; a couple of days rest, and walking through salt water, had really helped. We had a great day walking and did about 12 miles, landing in Wimereux, just up the road from Bolougne. The following day we had a marathon – over 18 miles, the last six of which were in search of a campsite. But it put us within 10 miles of Le Touquet, where we were meeting up with Sarah, so it was worth it. As I write this we are camped ( in the bloody rain again) in Stella Plage, about 3 miles south of Le Touquet. After walking all the way there, the campsite only took caravans, so it was another beach trudge down to the site here. You have to love the old beach trudge.
There have been no internet cafes on route, so I will upload all this at Berck, in a few days time. In the meantime we had a great night catching up with Sarah and James, and enough sun for one day to go swimming – although the French surf patrol dudes are little Hitlers, and have an absolute fit if you go any further out than three metres. Hate to see what they would do faced with an Australian beach. We were only waist high in the water, with a mild undertow, and the guy was gesturing madly and hounding us in his little motorised raft. I could have been hung for what I wanted to tell him to do.
I shall have to stop writing now as the rain is actually so heavy that for the first time it appears to be coming through the tent, and Gary is starting to get that slightly agonised expression which means I might have to actually do something about the situation. I shall just finish by saying that we are really starting to enjoy the whole experience now – our feet have cleared up, our fitness is 100% on what it was, and we feel as though we are getting used to the hard physical slog.