Saturday 16th June

Johnny and the majority of his team were leaving pretty early, so I was up to say goodbye to them all. There were a lot of sore heads and quiet tongues around the breakfast table and I was not immune to those afflictions. After they had all left I returned to my hotel room – it was available to me until midday and I was going to make the most of it.

My plans for the next few days centered around meeting up with extended family. I had an invitation to stay with an aunt & uncle on my wife’s side in their house to the west of Toulouse, my sister-in-law & husband were also going to be in the same area visiting their daughter, (my niece) wbo in turn had just started working on a vineyard just east of Carcassonne. I toyed with various combinations of routes, sequences and dates to come up with a cunning plan. I established that my niece would be available to meet up on Sunday evening, so that became my first aiming point. An afternoon of around 40kms today should put me in a decent position to effect a rendezvous on the following day. Now 40 kms in an afternoon would normally not present me too great a challenge, but today, with a thumping headache and a howling headwind, it proved a stiff challenge.

I only managed one photo of the day – an unremarkable image of a rather unremarkable 15th Century monument; the Fortress of Salles

The fortress was originally built by the Spanish to guard the border between Catalonia and France and it changed hands 3 times in 150 years before the borders were re-drawn in 1659 following the treaty of the Pyrenees. It has remained in French possession ever since.

Just up the road from the fortress I came to my campsite. As I checked in, I started chatting with the site manager. It was one of those occasions when you just hit it off with someone; we chatted for ages over kids, football, nationalities, travel, the weather, food…….However, as pleasant as the conversation was, it was to have some unfortunate knock-on consequences over the next couple of days (to be revealed in subsequent blogs) Eventually I was shown to my pitch, set up camp, cooked, showered and crashed out for some much needed sleep. The wind was forecast to be even stronger for tomorrow and I had a long day ahead of me if I was to make my rendezvous  with my niece – I needed the rest!.

42.8 kms / 26.5 miles for the day.