106.4km, 8hrs 27mins, 2870m total climb
The GPS said 3200m total climb for the
day. Our knees felt sore just reading that number.
The climb out of Valence started almost
immediately after rolling out of the town, and we could see where we
were headed, up in the misty hills above us. The gradient was less
than the passes in the Alps, but so continuous that the climbing
speed we achieved is almost the same. We plodded along, up and up,
and saw maybe thirty fast cyclists coming back down towards us
overall, going about ten times faster than we were climbing. They
looked like they were having fun and I hoped our route down was just
as good. The weather was also getting better.
The hills were now rolling and we
recalibrated ourselves, finding that pushing a higher gear was
actually possible. We didnt take much food with us, expecting many
bakeries on the way but wer ut of luck. We ended up eating pears and
our set yoghurts without spoons. The trick is to shake the hell out
of them before drinking otherwise it just keeps covering your face
unsatisfyingly.
We got to the campsite in which was
just before LePuy at twenty-to-seven which we worried about as it
closed at seven. We could have just pitched and paid in the morning
anyway. 13 euro for the night. We already had decided that we would
stay an extra day here as the weather was supposed to be good, and
this was our own real beginning to the Camino.
We chose from all the empty plots, and
took one near the showers. We pitched the tent, had showers and
rolled out looking for a restaurant as it was Saturday evening and
the supermarkets would be closed. All the tipped restaurants were
closed but we found a Kebab place with a sit-down option which was
nice. Good food.
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