Saturday, June 26, 2010

Day 43. Dust.










The first day of the seventh week of VBW. I have walked for 43 days without a rest, although today was the shortest walk so far. 13 kms – I should have walked a further 2.5 to bring the total so far to 1200 exactly. As it happens, the total is 1197.5 kms. Tomorrow should be 22 kms, which should bring the sum for the French leg to not much over 1200 – the estimate when we set out was 1300 – Gay’s navigation has chopped it down.

As you know, we are just dallying around because we are ahead of schedule. We could have caught the ferry a couple of days ago, but this would have made a mess of all sorts of arrangements in England.

We have fetched up on the edge of Fleury-sur-Orne. There is no campsite available. In fact we have spent the last two nights at Thury-Harcourt because there seems to be nothing in the campsite line between there and (almost) the coast. We are heading off to spend the evening in a layby outside the house of a new friend we made as a result of him making a donation to Pancreatic Cancer UK through my blog. Dale and Thėrèse have also invited us for an evening meal. And tomorrow Dale will be walking with me the very last section of the French segment of VBW.

The pictures show the monument to miners in May-sur-Orne, which I walked through this morning.

And the dust? For the first time in weeks, I ended up with dusty legs. It’s the first time in weeks that I have walked somewhere with really dry ground. The weather is hot and sunny – I think we have had about a week of dry weather now – and I am informed that in England it is 30 degrees C - hotter than here, and expected to cool off only by 4 degrees C. - and remain so for the foreseeable future.

Ascents scaled down today to a measly 422 metres.

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