Despite the headache from my dessicated sinuses and a poor nights sleep today started well. There was a gentle change to the landscape and I decided to stick with Le Lot and not to visit Figeac. However this was the first time my map let me down and really its a question of detail. I wanted to stay with the river, but could I find the road I wanted? Platform 9-3/4 at King’s Cross is probably easier to find. I ended up most of the way up to Figeac and should really just have continued the last couple of kilometres but the descent gave me a better view and allowed me to head for the most likely looking road, an unassuming cutting that looked more like someone’s driveway. It was to my great satisfaction and relief the road I was searching for as I had long ago grown tiered of Capdenac-Gare, Capdenac-Port, Capdenac-left bank and Capdenac-round-the-corner, Capdenac-further-on-a-bit etc. Soon I was beside the railway on a small access road unluckily the road was out, there had been a landslide and unusually for France they had closed off access quite effectively.

I stood for a while considering my options, I had no desire to fight my may back up the track to the main road but there was a fence and barbed wire on both sides of the landslide. I eventually elected to cross on foot and scout  ahead for further landslides.

This photograph is from the “other side” I should really have taken some shots of my solution for moving seven bags and a bike  across this obstacle but was concentrating too much on the job at hand to be bothered. I will leave you ,dear readers with some homework as to how you would cross such an obstacle with said equipment.

At this point I should probably mention my sister Anne and her husband Alan, who gave me a Leatherman Wave as a gift for standing around at their wedding ineffectively showing people to their seats, thanks.

I finally got on my way again to enjoy another delightful part of France, few cars sleepy collections of houses it is quite special here,this old mill would be near perfect if it were not just so close to the road.

This small intentionally unnamed hamlet is prime film set material full of buildings like the one below and then crossing the river there is the fortified Church and Toirac.

It was pretty late when I arrived in Carjac and I had a few concerns about making the next town, I had slept here the last time on the Camino, the town is nothing special but the area is quite fabulous. As it was late I decided to buy a few essentials for dinner and milk for a cuppa and  with the bike further loaded I headed on. There is just outside of Carjac a fabulous tunnel for barges and ships that  allows the canal to pass through the mountain and effectively blocks the route when the gate is closed so I had to return to the town and join the main road again.

As I had followed le Lot to Figeac the last time, I hadn’t crossed the Causses Du Quercy, which is a national park. Despite having a couple roads running through it the area has an otherworldly feel to it. I would love to return here on foot and head off into the national park and camp for a week or so, had it not been winter I may just have done so this time. The presence of the forest and the wildlife was palpable. These few photographs do not do the area justice, cycling through this landscape  in the gloaming was a wonderful experience.

Sadly its also a BASTARD of a cycle and with the light failing at the end of the day, I switched on my lights and tried not to get too anxious at my lack of progress.The last 14km were tough, I find this area tougher than Switzerland especially Gers. You descend from one climb and immediately and I really do mean immediately begin another climb. As a cyclist training area I think it would be difficult to beat.

Luckily the Limogne-en-quercy Gite is at the beginning of town and is just brilliant. The woman who runs it is very relaxed and there was only one other person staying -  a grumpy old Frenchman who I eventually got on with very well. He was quite a sensitive old sod and I think the grumpy thing is just a cover. My arriving spoiled his scene and he had to hurriedly  to go and hide and lock his laptop in his rooms lest I steal it!

After dinner I decided to open my Christmas cake as Dominique had described it. It was actually a biscuit mix, mostly based  on marzipan and almonds! What an excellent way to end my day.

I had all but decided to spend a second day here as it was fun with the old French guy,  whose name Ive embarrassingly forgotten. “One meets so many people” but in the end I decided to head off around 2pm towards Vaylats where the was a Christian retreat and  perhaps an iNet connection.

A warm greeting from a Spanish bloke  signalled my arrival and I asked if I could use the iNet and was told yes but later, so I prepared a little and as I had heard nothing by dinner decided to ask afterwards.

Dinner was an absolute hoot. I had dinner with a group of older French people, they were here  in Vaylats for rest and recuperation I think. The food wasn’t bad and they all kept insisting that I have more of everything, at the end when the biscuits came, they were all passing me the extras from their part of the table.

We really had some fun, from the youngest guy who was clearly ill and kept asking me what is”xxy in English” to the old dear that still thought she was a catch, so I could not resist flirting with her causing no end of consternation between two other old girls. They all drank water with the exception of my drinking buddy a rather robust 70 year old  woman who had the most wonderful facial expressions,  she could have been on tv. There was an old guy in the corner who was just tiered with life and  constant pmediacation. Ssitting beside me an old dear who was more Spanish than French and seemed to my eye to be dressed in a collection lace doilies.

There were other dining rooms and I suspect the Nuns thought I had drawn the short straw as there were other French Pilgrims who I dint meet at dinner, but I was very happy and most entertained my only regret  is that I didn’t have my camera with me.

The only negative to my stay was the head honcho, a woman I will describe as being of a certain age and institutionalised. When I asked about the iNet after dinner she took me to an office and a computer. I sat, she departed and I read one email, by which time she had returned and was hanging around behind me like a bad smell so I asked if she need to use the machine urgently.

As I stood there she started to read the website of the community and look at the train timetable with an intensity that belied belief. She obviously had little idea of what she was doing and having witnessed this behaviour before I knew that she was way way out of her depth. I didn’t care, I just wanted peace to use the connection for a couple of hours so I suggested I leave her to counting pixels and I would bring my laptop and utilise the printer connection to which she appeared to agree.

Well, when I returned and began to reply to my email this didn’t suit her and an argument whose foundation I didn’t really understand followed. I suspect my ability to hit two successive keys in the intended order within a minute was disturbing her.

After my last iNet connection I wondered what was going on, who the God of connectivity was and how or why I had annoyed them? I decided to depart as I didn’t understand what the issue was, leaving her free to destroy what left of her eyesight and I went for a walk.

I had some difficult words for her that I fortuitous could not translate into French and it is probably best that I don’t start here Ill leave scathing attacks on myopic Christian communities to others.

For some reason the next morning she had elected to serve me breakfast and I suspect she expected me to be all sweetness and light in response to her “tra la la bullshit”. I think my “feck off and shove it up yer arse” countenance shocked her, but hey – I’ve never been good in the morning.