Couldn’t believe what time it was when I got up – I was sure it would be 7:30 or maybe 8, but it was actually almost 9:30! I haven’t slept that late in a long time.

Went for a walk around noon down into the village and north along a side street that has occasional access to the river.

Walked a little further to the war memorial park where I went to the riverside and did a bit of chi-gong in the sun – it was very lovely and peaceful.

Sat on a bench for a while reading another James Patterson novel, then walked to the bar – the ‘usual’ one across from the town hall.

It’s a day off for the world championships, so nothing terribly exciting to watch on tv. Had a nice quiche lorraine with salad for dinner.

Read for a bit, then watched a bunch of you-tube videos on the ipad until pretty late – I’ve gotten into watching the singing competitors on the various talent shows – Britiain’s Got Talent, X-Factor, etc. I love seeing the looks of shock and surprise on the judges’ faces when someone they’ve already written off in their minds starts singing and blows them away – you just can’t tell by appearance alone.

Another good sleep, followed by another quiet morning. Colin went out in the afternoon to do a few things while I stayed behind and did some chi-gong, then watched the beginning of the ITT of the world championships. Bergen looks like a lovely city – on the water, with mountains and lots of trees – kind of reminded me a bit of Vancouver, although on a much smaller (and less expensive) scale.

Colin returned from his errands and then we drove up to Ruffec to do a bit of shopping, and so Colin could pop into the vet’s office to make an appointment for the little ones’ checkup before travel to England.

Back at the house we watched the rest of the ITT that had recorded while we were out. Tom Dumoulin won! And not just by a few seconds – he blew them all away. Froome managed to come third, which isn’t too bad only ten days after the Vuelta ended.

Face-timed Dominic later than usual – I’m really starting to miss the kitties. He shows them to me and I can hear them purr sometimes (especially Sly – Merlin purrs too, just much more quietly) but I miss the combs and cuddles. I even miss being trapped in one position on the bed at night because I don’t want to disturb a cat (usually Sly) that’s curled up against me. Merlin likes to curl up on the bed too, but Sly, being the smaller of the two by quite a bit, doesn’t usually let him settle in for too long – he’s a bit bossy that way.

Had a nice sleep-in until almost 8:30, followed by a very lazy morning. I must admit to a couple of errors recently – Colin looked at my blogs from the last few days and pointed out that I’d put some things in the wrong order (seeing the Roman ruins dig in Spain on the wrong day, for example) – that’s what happens when I don’t write my journal every day, even with photos that are dated automatically when I load them to the ipad to guide me. We’ve seen a lot in a short space of time recently and I’m embarrassed to say a couple of the many wonderful sights have gotten a bit mixed up.

Another thing – the traffic chaos on the highway out of Bordeaux yesterday wasn’t anything to do with bad organization by the french (sorry!) – it was actually a fiery accident. A semi-truck that was carrying cylinders of gas had caught on fire – a couple of other semi drivers had seen that it was on fire and had blocked the highway preventing any other cars or trucks from approaching from behind – the driver got out ok before the cylinders started exploding in all directions. Traffic heading south had to stop as well, so it was backed up for miles in both directions. We must have been about 45 minutes after the initial explosions, and were lucky to get off the highway when we did to continue on the lesser roads. Some semis were stuck for up to 8 hours before they were able to continue, although as far as we could find out no one was hurt, thankfully. I had seen a couple of signs as we crossed the highway via an overpass that made me think it was road work being done, and we hadn’t seen any police cars or anything, but obviously that wasn’t the whole story.

Took the little ones out for a walk in the early afternoon – they were on a mission and basically led me where they wanted to go. First destination was the cricket field just on the other side of the river – they both did their ‘business’ and I put the black baggies in my pocket to use – not my favourite part of going for a walk, but every once in a while I must act responsibly.

Next place I was led to was the bar across from the town hall – they had come there for a reason and the bartender knew it – he produced the desired doggie treats for them when he delivered the glass of vin rouge for me.

There was a team of civic workers cleaning leaves from the square across from the bar, and it was kind of funny – they were using a leaf-blower and raking them into piles, but as soon as the piles were made and they tried to gather them up the leaves were blown all over the place again by the wind.

Had a quiet afternoon, made pasta for dinner, face-timed Dominic. I still have a decision to make about whether I’m taking my bike home with me or not, but that depends, of course, on if I think I’ll return to Europe next year, and if I do, will I want my bike…big things to think about, but I have a bit of time.

I don’t think it quit raining all night long, but I slept pretty well. Had a nice hot shower – there was no temperature control, just a push-button that turned off every 20 seconds or so. It took a bit to get hot, but once it did it was good.

Ate breakfast, and we were on the road just after 10:30. Went generally northwest, passing through or by Nerac, and Langon, before arriving at Bordeaux. We circled around the south, then west of the city on the ring-road to get to the Ikea store on the north side.

Had lunch of – guess what? – Swedish meatballs! They were pretty good, along with veggies and some red wine – not exactly cheap but it was Colin’s treat once again. Then walked miles and miles thru a maze of rooms – following the arrows in the proper direction, of course. Colin got what he’d come for from the open warehouse before the check-out, and we finally made it out alive.

Exited the city on the highway heading north-east – got about 1/2 hour out and ended up parked on the road along with hundreds of freight trucks and hundreds more cars – hardly moving an inch. Eventually reached a flashing arrow forcing the traffic into one lane, then got onto an off-ramp and followed a bunch of cars and semi-trucks onto lesser highways.

We crossed over the motor-way and saw what looked like roadworks happening – spent a deal of time criticizing the organization of doing roadwork without any notices or detour advices for all of the vehicles, especially the hundreds and hundreds of semis.

Wound our way around northwest, then northeast, and eventually back onto the motorway much closer to Angouleme.

Finally made it to Mansle about 1 1/2 hours later than we’d expected – a fairly long day of travel, but being back is nice, and it’s certainly a bit warmer here than it was for the last few days in the mountains.

We watched a couple of stages of the Vuelta that had taped while we were gone – I actually saw myself crouched at the side of the road taking photos on the Sept. 7 stage we’d been at on Collada de la Hoz – I’ve been on tv!!

Got up to a mix of sun and cloud – don’t think it rained during the night like they’d expected. Took the doggies for a short walk, ate breakfast, then sat at a picnic table to make use of the fast wi-fi here.

Took a photo of the campground’s dog – very large and fluffy, and super friendly.

Got on the road shortly after 10:00, heading east and north – didn’t go quite as far east as Lourdes, which is supposed to be absolutely over-run with stupid tourists – glad we by-passed it. Passed a cavalcade of old cars on the road – some of them were pretty neat.

Skirted around the western edge of Tarbes, then got onto the N21 northeast then north. Went thru Auch and continued north to the town of Lectoure, where we turned west. Tried to find a campground that Colin had stayed at before, but it was closed.

Went in a bit of a loop on some very small back roads, then headed west to the town of Condom. Passed a couple of goose/duck farms – they make a lot of foie gras around here – it’s very mean and I’d never eat it.

Found a municipal campgound next to the river – it’s quite nice, and very cheap compared to some of the others. The rain started right after we arrived, and didn’t quit for even a minute. Colin has picked up a bit of a cold so stayed in the campervan while I went for a walk.

There’s actually a canal here with a lock right beside the campground and the rest of the river a few metres away. A nice park, and a path that likely goes right into the town. Listened to news and music videos on the ipad with the ear-buds in – went to bed at a decent time.

Didn’t sleep too bad – the tractors pulling the huge bins with the hand-picked grape harvest to a facility down the road seemed to go by all night long, though (we wondered later if they picked all night as well as all day). It was cold, but not wet so taking the tent down and packing up didn’t take long. Before we left we went up to the cafe, which wasn’t open yet, so sat outside for a bit using the wi-fi. The signal here isn’t that great, so didn’t get much done before we left just after 10:00.

Took the main highway northeast, bypassing Pamplona where we veered southeast for a bit then got onto smaller roads to the town of Ochagavia. Nothing was open – 3 hour lunchtime not over yet – so we decided to keep going into France.

Passed into the foothills of the Pyranees, and through many pretty towns, including one that has Roman (I think) excavations happening, then into the real mountains. Saw a herd of horses on the road – they looked like mountain horses, slightly shorter, rounder and shaggier than regular horses. A herd of sheep was on the mountain right beside the road – you could hardly tell them apart from the rocks as they were all the same colour and size.

Crossed the border at a tunnel above the tree-line at Pic d’Orhy – there were cattle-guards in the road at each end. I guess they have to keep those short-legged chubby Spanish cows out of France – ha ha. I don’t think I mentioned it before – in every country there are always signs ‘watch for deer’ with a deer jumping, or ‘watch for cows’ with the silhouette of a cow – the cows on the signs in Spain are very chubby and have very short legs compared to the cows on all of the other countries’ signs so it’s been quite humorous to me every time I see a sign – the actual cows look about the same as those elsewhere.

Down, down, down the other side of the Pyranees into southern France. Just after one village we were slowed right down by a herd of sheep being moved along the highway – there were 5 herders at the back of the herd and another four or five at the front, as well as a van (to warn oncoming traffic, I think), also two dogs, one of which looked like a small sheep himself. There were hundreds of them – we pulled over for a bit so they could get further ahead and we wouldn’t be pushing them.

Not far around the next corner they were all stopped towards the side of the road and there were a couple of big trucks and a holding pen or two where the sheep (and a few cows) were being sorted for transport.

At another village there were a couple of men directing traffic in the middle of the highway (one doing a very poor, kind of spastic job), and dirt bikes everywhere – there was some sort of dirt bike race happening and the whole field on the left of the highway was covered with stalls and things.

A little further on at another village there was a festival of some sort – a parade across the bridge of local folks dressed in traditional costumes, with girls holding bread baskets (that were empty) and boys with red berets playing a drum and flutes/pipes.

Drove up thru Oloron-Ste. Marie, where we did a bit of food shopping, then continued on a bit southeast to a lovely place called Louvie-Juzon and a campground Colin had looked up. It’s on a hillside and covered with trees – a very nice, kind of remote place.

I went for a look around, and near one end there’s a cabin that had no one in it so I went to the back where I could see stairs leading up to a bench. At the top you can see across the treetops to a mountain peak – just beautiful.

The ground was soaked from rain earlier in the day, and it was supposed to rain again so I didn’t end up setting the tent up. Read for a bit, then was just starting to fall asleep when we were startled by the sounds of fireworks. The dogs, especially Mo, got quite excited. There seems to be a lot happening all around here this weekend.

Every time I woke up during the night I thought it was pouring rain, and in the morning when it started getting light I had no idea what time it was as I’d left both of my ‘clocks’ in the campervan. The church bells were no help at all – the ones I did hear ding-donged 32 times – not sure what time it was supposed to signify.

When I did get out of the tent I found it hadn’t rained at all – everything including the ground was dry – it must have just been that the wind was so bad. It was just before 8:00 when I went into the campervan to make tea – Colin wasn’t up yet so I made my tea and took it up to the cafe to access the wi-fi. The signal wasn’t great, so I finished my tea and went back for breakfast – leftover lamb on a bun. Found out it had gotten down to 2 degrees in the night – glad I have a decent sleeping bag and my black blankie.

Hung out the clothes again to finish drying, then went for another ride on the Camino, which once again was just metres away from the campground. Gabriel had given me a local map and tried to tell me that I must go west for my ride, but I headed east into a fierce head-wind instead – I figured go out with the head-wind and come back with a tail-wind. I mention ‘fierce wind’ a lot in this area, because it is just that – I don’t think I could live here, although it does power a lot of wind turbines, which is great.

I rode for a few km, passed an old convent, then when the path left the road and turned into dirt I followed it, which I regretted a little later but didn’t want to turn around and go back.

I could see the road not far to the right, but there was no way to get to it for several kms. Most people were very nice and friendly, but one unhappy-looking bag had to say ‘you are going to wrong way’ which made me wonder – where did she see the rule that said you could only follow the Camino from east to west? And where was the sign that said anything about bikes not being allowed on this stretch? She was full of crap and I knew it so I just kept going.

I finally found a side lane that went in the direction of the road, and followed it. Eventually arrived at the town of Hontanas, another major stopping place for walkers – lots of hostels and cafes. It was only about 9 km from where I started, but because I’d stopped a few times, and followed the dirt trail for quite a ways, not to mention the head-wind, it had taken me almost an hour.

I turned around and stopped for a few minutes to eat some peanuts and have a bit of wine in front of a mural of a pilgrim and the Camino route, then headed back to the campground.

I thought it would now be warm enough to ride with my rain jacket instead of the hoodie, but after a very short time I pulled over and put the hoodie back on – it was very chilly.

Got back and Gabriel asked where I’d gone – he was disappointed I hadn’t taken his suggestion to go west, and seemed to think I was a bit of a wimp for not going further than I had.

Colin and I decided to get on the road again rather than stay another night – this is a nice campground and the people are great but we wanted to move on and get going back to France.

We followed quiet back roads so took a bit longer, but got to see some nice countryside – the road, for once, didn’t parallel the new motorway the whole way. At one hilltop there were wind turbines on all sides – we were surrounded by the turbines, and a network of electric lines going in every direction, but to me it’s a lot better site than seeing oil wells and pumps all over. I must also mention Spanish roads in general – there are new highways everywhere, even when the existing older, slightly more winding ones are still in good shape – lots of viaducts and tunnels. We figure that it must have been a large infrastructure/make work project funded by the EU a few years ago.

We drove as far as Fuermayor, near Logrono before stopping – the campground was ok but the office didn’t give Colin the discount he should have gotten for having his ACIS card so it seemed a little expensive.

The electric still doesn’t work in the campervan as we didn’t go to the dealership in Logrono, but that’s ok until we get back to Mansle. The gas for the stove still works, as does the fridge when on battery and the phone/ipad charger so we can manage.

Had a good sleep, but once again it was too cold to do yoga – no rain, but condensation was very heavy and the grass is soaking wet. More church chimes – one that had a ding-dong bell, and another that bonged out of tune and tinny-sounding – twice at the top of each hour, one minute apart. Nice shower, although I had to hand-hold the wand as the hose was cracked and the water didn’t flow much if it was on it’s hook. Once again the building was heated – so nice.

Had a nice breakfast, packed up the tent and all the gear, then went for my Camino ride. I left the campsite at 10:26 and was on the trail at 10:27 – just had to cross the road. After about 4 km the trail followed a very quiet side road, so I ended up riding on road instead of the dirt trail. The road was very quiet – I think a total of five or six cars went by the whole time I was on it.

I stopped at an old church on the way, then at what was supposed to be a bird-watching place, but you couldn’t get to the watching platform because the walkway to it was broken.

Passed through the town of Bercianos del Real Camino, found the trail again at the other end of the town, and continued on until I had gone exactly 15 km, where I turned around. I stopped at a bench 2 km back and ate a few nuts and had a 12 minute break before starting out again.

Back at the bird-watching place I saw four cyclists pulled over doing something to a wheel, so I stopped to see if they were ok. They were just finishing pumping up a tire and obviously had everything they needed but we stared chatting. It turns out they are not only Canadian, but actually from Kamloops – we all laughed when I told them that I usually say I’m from Vancouver because they do the same thing. They rented their bikes over here and are going to ride much of the Camino, then want to go to Portugal before heading home around Thanksgiving.

Got back to the campground earlier than I expected since I had a head-wind almost the whole way and thought it would take much longer. Headed to our next destination, once again on the smaller roads. Colin remembered that Ponferrada, where we had stopped and shopped at yesterday, was the host of the cycling world championships a couple of years ago, and I recalled that I had watched it on tv.

Found the next campground at Castrojeriz no problem and when we were checking in the fellow asked if we might want dinner – a few times a week they have a special dinner and tonight they are having lamb roasted over an open fire and they need to know how many people to cook for – yes!!

I was just setting up my tent when the older fellow (Gabriel) from the office came and asked Colin why we had a tent when we had the campervan – he could hardly believe it when we told him that I slept in the tent and Colin in the campervan – he was fairly incredulous, and walked away shaking his head. After I was setup I joined Colin at the cafe for a drink and some wi-fi.

There’s a couple of very nice ladies, one Irish and one German, that we stared taking with. Agnes, the German, has two adorable chihuahuas that she’s taking with her on the Camino, and she and Jacinta met today on the Way. I asked if they were partaking of the lamb dinner, and Agnes informed us that she had been too late – they didn’t just need to know how many to cook for, there was only enough for 12 people, and we were here first – lucky us!

We did a load of laundry in the machine, then hung it on lines to dry in the fierce wind. I took a short walk up towards the castle on the hill above us, but didn’t go very far – the wind isn’t only fierce, it’s very cold. Also passed an old church.

Went to the restaurant for our lamb dinner just after 7:30 – the place was almost packed. When they brought the first table’s lamb out my mouth started watering – it comes in a large baking dish steaming hot and gets cut right in front of you. After dishing out some to each person the rest gets covered in tin foil to keep it as hot as possible. Side dishes of salad and fries came next. The waitress indicated we are meant to eat the lamb with our fingers to get the most from it, and brought packets of wet clothes to clean up with.

The lamb was awesome – I ate as much as I could and wrapped the rest in the tin foil to take back for breakfast. Once again I didn’t have room for the dessert. Back at the campervan we took our still-damp clothes off the lines hoping to have time to complete the drying in the morning. Made some herbal tea, then got into my tent – sleep came fast.

Woke up early very cold, but too tired to move the black blanket out from under me to over me, so lay there feeling chilly and not quite asleep. I did do the sleeping bag zipper up, which I have only done once before and was a bit warmer.

I had a nice fairly-hot shower – the shower facility was actually heated so that was unusual – no sudden shivers as soon as I turned the water off. It was far too cold outside to do yoga, so we just ate breakfast then tried to leave.

We had told the office yesterday that we would be leaving around 10 and she told us they opened at 9:30 so it seemed like it should be ok. But when we went to leave right at 10 the office was locked tight. We hung around for 1/2 hour – Colin calling out and knocking on their house door repeatedly, while I was getting the last use of their wi-fi. They never did appear, so we put some cash in an envelope with a note written on the back and left it under a rock at the office door – hope they don’t sic the camping cops on us.

Drove mostly east and a little bit south – stuck to lesser highways so it took a little longer but was nice and more relaxing. The mountains suddenly disappeared and the plains began. Went thru Ponferrada, which was a larger town – saw a really neat mural on the wall of a house – stopped for food as well as gas, then continued on.

We stopped for lunch on the side of the road just after 1:00 – I got out to take a couple of photos – there was another of the big bull figures at the top of the last hill, so as I lined up my shot a small white van pulled in and one of the fellows in it said something to me in Spanish – it appeared that they just wanted me to take their picture, so I did, then they crossed over the road to a truck-stop/hotel on the other side – quite funny!

It got hotter and hotter as well – up to 26 or more by the time we reached the town of Sahagun. Tried to find the campground, which is not well sign-posted, so drove around a bit before locating it – office closed until 4:30. Went back into the town and parked the campervan – walked with the doggies a bit then sat at an outdoor cafe and had a glass of wine.

Back at the campground after 4:30 to check in and setup – nice enough place, and literally right across the road from the Camino. I was having a great face-time chat with Dominic when it failed, then couldn’t get back on. There are some really fantastic-looking trees over some of the paths here – they seem to grow together at the top as if they’re one tree coming from both sides.

We’d decided to walk back into town for dinner at the cafe, so left after 6:30. It wasn’t a far walk, and the evening was very pleasant. When we got there the waiter told us that the kitchen doesn’t open until 8, even though the menu we’d looked at said they served food from before noon until later at night. We went to another cafe across the square, but their kitchen had already closed for the day, so we returned to our original choice to wait – of course the wait was made better by a glass of local red wine and a plate of local olives that was brought without asking.

We were on what I think was the main square of the town – lots of kids playing with skipping ropes, riding little bicycles, kicking balls – all laughing and having a great time. One of the little boys had a very annoying ‘police horn’ on his bike, but he was having fun.

I think they could have used at least one more waiter – he was doing his best, but patience was needed. We both ordered off of the ‘set menu’ – I asked for Catalonian soup to start, with ‘stew meat’ as my main dish, and Colin asked for Russian salad followed by beef steak.

When my soup arrived I was quite impressed – almost a meal in itself and Colin’s salad was huge. We both dug in – the soup was very delicious and Colin was enjoying his salad when the waiter came back and said ‘Russian salad??’ to Colin, then removed his plate from under him as he was eating and replaced it with an entirely different one – apparently he had brought the wrong one and how was Colin to know? The second salad also seemed very good, so he dug in again. We both wondered what was done with the first salad – was it chucked, or did they just throw a couple things back on it and serve it to the proper person?

My main course was wonderful – beef stew that was so tender I didn’t even need my knife to cut it, served with fries. Colin said his steak was good also. I didn’t have room for dessert – it was all I could do to finish my meal, and when it came time to pay Colin said it was his treat!

All this time the kids were still playing in the square – the doggies got a lot of attention from time-to-time, but remained very calm. Slowly but surely the square started to empty – I wondered how late some of the little kids stayed up as we were still eating after 9:00, and it was a school night.

Walked back to the campground and headed straight to my tent – used the wi-fi a bit, then fell asleep quickly.

Kind of chilly, rainy morning, so didn’t do yoga – just packed up and got ready to go. We first went southwest then turned onto the A6 highway going southeast. Passed over and through mountains with lots of trees, got rained on from time-to-time, saw a rainbow over a windfarm.

We went to a campground in Carracedelo that Colin had looked up but there were signs that dogs weren’t allowed! Colin asked at reception if they would make an exception and the guy just pointed to the sign – this has not happened before and was a bit of a surprise. Colin looked up the next closest campground, which was about 20 km back up the highway near Vega de Valcarce, so he programmed that in and off we went.

We missed a turn at some point and went into a small village, where the GPS directed us up and down and around some very narrow streets to get back in the right direction.

This is a very busy area for Camino hikers – it’s part of the main route and there are hostels and cafes everywhere catering to the hundreds of hikers a day that come thru.

We did see signs for a campground, but Miss GPS told us to go up the very steep road to the right so we followed her directions. After we’d negotiated several hairpin turns she announced ‘you have arrived at your destination’ – we were several hundred feet directly above the campground we’d seen the signs for.

Drove along the narrow road until there was a spot to turn around, then headed back down. The campground is almost 1 km along a narrow dirt road and is very lovely. It’s like we’re on a farm – cows in the next field and everything, right on a creek (they call it a river, but I’d say it’s more like a creek).

Got the tent setup and had pasta for lunch, then went for a bike ride back to the village we’d ended up in by mistake. It’s a really pretty ride, and there are two supermarkets and a bread shop. Got a few supplies, then continued along for a bit before turning back. There are some cyclists following the Camino, and they all waved or smiled at me as I passed them in the opposite direction.

I rode about 1 km past the turnoff to the campground just to see what the Camino was like on that side, then turned back and returned to the campsite. Colin wasn’t back yet from his walk with the doggies, so I took my ipad up to the restaurant, which was closed. I just wiped the rain off a chair and sat at a table drinking red wine from my flask and eating chips I’d just bought at the store in the village.

There are a few other campers here – two campervans and a cyclist that arrived after us. One of the campervans has two very small dogs – a chihuahua and a baby yorkie or something, and there is a siamese cat that belongs to the campground folks. They were looking for the cat when we arrived – it was on their roof.

They have really good wi-fi at the campground so I got pretty well caught up on everything – had a long face-time chat with Dominic. Listened to TMZ-live in the tent with the earbuds, then fell asleep.