Conques – Marcilhac-sur-Cele
89.1km, 5hrs 52mins, 2253m total climb
We snoozed the alarm a few times and
eventually started moving at 8.30. We had a coffee and the rest of
the giant loaf with butter and honey to fuel up and started
dismantling the tent. Weather looked fine but it was cloudy and cold.
We packed up and got the bikes loaded
then Jean-claude and his wife came over to say goodbye. They even
waited by the entrance to the camp-site to wave us off as we
reluctantly covered the first few metres. Felt a bit like kids going
off to school!
We stopped to take a couple of pictures
of Conques from below, then headed along the river again.
After that, it was a day of pedalling
where not a lot happened! We saw the same view a hundred times of the
river alongside short fields with a backdrop of stone cliff. Each
time we rounded a bend it was a re-run of the previous 2km. Not
unpleasant but not photo worth nonetheless. There were sometimes some
little ornate houses built into the cliffs, we wondered why, and who
built them. The road sometimes went through towns and we stopped at a
couple of supermarkets, looking for various things: superglue again
to fix the crap GPS mount that has split like the lines on a compass,
proper shampoo for Johanna (her hair split as well) and to try to
find cod liver oil for our ageing joints (the French don't seem to
need it!). Also got the ingredients for some fajitas for later.
The campsite was a bit tricky as had we
found out on the internet the night before that the planned camp-site
was still closed so we found another but didn’t update the route on
the GPS as it was on the same road. Of course we began to doubt the
location as the kilometres passed and we didn’t find it, but found
others that were also closed and couldn’t remember the name of the
site when we asked puzzled looking locals. We shouldn’t have been
so nervous as it was where it was supposed to be, and we arrived at
4pm. The place had a small pool but again it was too cold to be
interesting.
It was quiet but there were a couple of
big German groups of divers. We had seen a guy in flippers and wet
suit earlier on the cycle in a lay-by and thought it was a bit
strange, but it turns out that below the cliffs where the river runs,
there are 80m depths, and 300m deep caves under the shelf. The divers
come from all over Europe to check out these deep caves. I don’t
know what they come to see - but I bet there are some freaky sights
down there. The river is the Lot (le Lot), we want to come back and
have a look some time.
The deep but narrow river definitely
runs slowly, and we got a spot right beside it at the far end of the
huge camp-site. We cooked and ate up the extra spicy fajitas in some
unexpected sun at the end of the day. I saw some otters diving in the
placid water as the sun went down. Splendid.
Also, we passed the 2000km barrier
coming into the campsite for the night! Only 3000km left to go!
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