George & Mostyn - Walking the GR10

Wednesday, 11th June 2008

George:I slept OK, but not brilliantly. I suspect that I may have cracked a rib in my fall yesterday.

The day started with very low cloud. We bought a breakfast snack at the Boulangerie and started to climb. It was very humid again which made the going slow. We were both soaked with sweat when we stopped for breakfast after a hour.

The route seems to have been varied from that shown on the map but we eventually saw the path up to Munhoa. Since the top was covered in cloud we decided to stay on the road. We stopped for some soup for our lunch. While eating, an enormous thunderstorm started up with very heavy rain. We kitted up and decided to wait it out. One lightning strike was only about 20 meters away on the road, we could smell the ionized air. It was very frightening.

Once the centre of the storm had passed we walked on in torrential rain and then hail. Most of the walk down to St-Jean-Pied-de-Port was in heavy rain. We did see a large eagle during a lull in the rain. It might have been an Imperial Eagle - but I could be mistaken.

We sheltered for a while in a church porch in Lasse but the rain continued so we walked on to St Jean PdP and checked into the Gîte d'Étape (but only after a much needed beer!) The gîte is quite basic with only one shower/WC between all 14 bunks. It was very difficult to get a shower. We did some laundry in a nearby launderette, mainly to get things dry and, while it was drying, had our evening meal.

Mostyn:We started at about 8.30 am, first buying pain au chocolat and some bread. The weather was very humid and after about 100 m climbing we were soaked, with another 759 m to go! At midday we stopped and had a cuppa soup, which was very welcome.

The clouds kept on rising over the road from the valley below and there was thunder in the air. Just as we were finishing our lunch I noticed a number of flies swarming around us, so I sprayed myself with fly repellent, which seemed to work. Strangely enough, there were no flies around George either. It was then that the storm broke all around us. The flies obviously knew it was coming and took cover. We donned our waterproofs and almost immediately afterwards lightening struck the road about 15 m away from us. That was a bit too close for comfort. We did the sensible thing and squatted close to the ground until the eye of the storm had moved away. By this time it was raining hard so we decided not to go over Monhoa, where we risked being struck by lightning, and instead stayed on the road. It started hailing very heavily, which stung our hands and head. The road was like a stream in no time. It continued raining and thundering on and off (more on than off) for the next 3.5 hrs. The redeeming factor in all this was that we saw twelve vultures and a possible Imperial Eagle.

When we eventually reached our destination we were fortunate enough to find that the town had a laundrette, so we were able to clean and dry all our clothes. We had a hearty meal and went to bed, having decided that, if the weather was as bad the next day, we would have an early rest day.