Some shots of the Basque Country we are now walking through

The Pyrenees have been within our landscape now for about 3 days, but a persistent low cloud / smog and no wind has meant we can only see vague outlines -but we can work out that they are very impressive and reach at least 2900 metres in a couple of cases. 

We are already impressed with the Basque houses and farms and there appears to be a lot more activity than earlier in France.

1. Looking towards Ostabat

2. The village of Ostabat

3. Lunch - 30 plus cm. ham and cheese roll ( called a sandwich )

4. A Basque farmhouse we awarded 9 out of 10

5. A lucky shot of 2 raptors surveying today's high country

6. The Pyrenees from our gite balcony at. 4 pm. today

The Communal gite in Aroue

Aroue is a small village at the end of stage 30 in the Michelin Guide. We were the only 2 booked in and on arrival discovered there was no dinner or breakfast and only one shop !

The manager rang the Pizza shop lady to make sure she was going to open at 5.30pm and then promptly left for the night!

We sat outside her shop drinking wine we had purchased inside and watched the traffic go passed through the roundabout before returning to an empty gite with 2 excellent pizzas!

Be careful Wood Pigeons !

Just as the Canadian Geese migrate each year  - so do the Wood Pigeons in this part of the world. In Autumn they fly South and return flying North in the Spring.

This is by far the highest shooters hide we have seen being about 30 metres up in the tallest trees at the top of a significant hill.

Gite d'Etape du Cambarrat

Our problem of booking Gites in advance has been helped by Genevieve who has coincided in the last couple of stop-overs. Tonight's gite is in Argagnon and was difficult to find. We came across Genevieve asking directions from a farmer in a very large John Deere tractor with spreader attached. Next minute he takes our 3packs into his cab and tells us the gite is another 2 Km down the road - just turn left at the Eglise!!

We eventually arrive at this lovely old farmhouse to meet Nicole - he and his wife raised 7 children on this farm. A lovely dinner and then Banjo from Nicole made for an excellent and unexpected highlight of our trip!

Tim and I were given a 4 bed room to share while Genevieve was relegated to the Gypsy Caravan!

A small gite in Larreule

This gite had only been open for 4 months and was in an old farming complex of buildings which they were repairing as quickly as possible. The meal was one of our best and we discussed farming and irrigation practices with Jean over dinner before he went back out to change the spray on his corn field.

Our meal started with soup, followed by salad and chicken mince and then a roast chicken with beans and a mix of tomatoes and zucchini. ( pictured ). Most produce came from the home veggie garden - mine has to become more productive!!

A real pilgrimage

We have followed the evidence of horses for many days on the track and came across the team in a small town just before Arzacq-Arrazignett. Mum, Dad and Sunshine started their trip from Le Puy en Velay in mid July and expect to be on the Way for 5 months.

From Aragnon

We will get to St John PDP on the 1st September. We abandoned the sections in the last few

days in order to average the k. for each daily walk. This meant that the sections took 4 days instead

of 3 but we avoided consecutive walks of 34,29 and 29. it has meant that we have stayed at two farm

Gites and a small town as the photos show. This leaves us with 4 shortish walks to finish.

At the duck gite I ate a bottle of the duck in haricot beans for lunch - see photo - then I surprised the

farmer by buying another bottle for dinner. The duck was very rich and fatty but nice. We are about

to have dinner at our farm gite here in Argagnon. If duck is on the menu I will dodge it.

Cheers 

Tim