- Distance: 15.2km
- Ascent/Descent: 890m up, 496m down
- Time: 5 hr 54 min
Mood of the day: feeling fit and on top of things
Starting already feel hikery. We bought 2 liters of water each at the Carrefour Express, then onto to the trail. In town, trails are always difficult to follow, but this was straightforward, exit a roundabout, some 100m to the bay, then along a bayfront trail, along with all the joggers and such. It’s Tuesday, what is everyone doing at 9am?
Head inland and through some residential areas, then very quickly through pastures and maybe some abandoned fields, some corn fields, into the hills. Not rolling hills, just hills and mountains.
Up through some gorse and bracken fern covered hills. Petted a tiny horse who already knows how to beg, being weeks old, it nuzzled my knee looking for pocket treats and I developed a rash ten minutes later, sigh, one of my known allergies that I generally can easily avoid.
Good views from up top, overcast and 25C, but not much of a breeze, but not too much of a slog.
Back down, a confused French couple asking the way to somewhere, we
couldn’t understand, then back up and up and level and then a steep
down as we approached Ibardin. Ah, almost there, some places look
like they
have good beer, let’s go in the first place and get a cold drink.
Oh wait, it’s our hotel, yay.
Had some Fransizkaner white beer, one of my favorites. The innkeeper was fun too, and it was a lot easier to talk to her in Spanish, of course we can speak it, we’re not British, we’re Californian. Technically our first night on the French GR10 is in Spain, but hey. We can see France, it’s the dirt across the parking lot about 20m away.
Did better than I thought. Once again I think I’m old and out of shape and what am I doing? And then I do something and realize oh, I’m not out of shape, I’m just old, which is a big whatever. If I feel like doing something, I’m not going to particularly doubt I can do it, until reality bites and really slaps me and says I can't really do it... for now.