We had a bit of a sleep-in, then went for a nice walk after breakfast. We walked along one side of the river, past some cute goats, then around past the string of campervans. We saw large GJ on the road in several places – we tried to figure out which rider it was in honour of when I finally realized it must be for the ‘Gilet Jaunes’ protests, and it is in yellow.

One Norwegian couple had an adorable little JR up on their table – he seemed very interested in us but the lady had to admit that – no – he was only interested in the cheese in her sandwich – ha ha!

A great many cars had gone up the road during the night and more in the morning, and then finally the road was closed – we’re just a few km past the village of Arthez d’Asson.

We struck up a nice conversation with some fellows from the UK.

About 2 hours before the race arrived two vans of VIP’s pulled up in front of the house across the river – they setup tables and everything and had champagne served to them, followed by a sit-down lunch. Luckily they left shortly after they’d eaten so wouldn’t be getting in our way.

The caravan was great, as usual, and we did very well again with the loot. Just before 3:00 the breakaway of about 15 riders arrived just 3 minutes before the main group.

We laughed when comparing it to yesterday’s stage – arriving the evening before and getting over eight hours of racing enjoyment in all, then today when it was over in about 4 minutes.

We took the time for a quick bite to eat before heading back north – I read out live updates on the race’s progress as we drove, so we knew who conquered the Tourmalet.

About 1 km from where we’d been we came across a sight that the british fellows had told us about – a farmer had hung two large dead sheep up with a sign protesting about the wolves. They love to protest over here, and farmers are very upset about wolves these days killing their sheep.

When we stopped for gas there was a small field next to the station with 3 cute donkeys in it – there was a couple there feeding them bread and I tried to tell them it likely wasn’t good for the donkeys but they didn’t seem to care. I went back to the campervan and got some carrots, which the donkeys loved – much better for them than bread.

We got as far as Rabastens-de-Bigorre before stopping at a small campground for the night.

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