Terry stayed at the apartment for foot recovery, but walked around the town, checked out where to do laundry, did a big grocery shop without thinking of having to lug the groceries home, and got excited at the idea of dumping a few more pounds from her pack, only to find out that Canada Post has asked countries to not ship any parcels to Canada because of the Canada Post strike. Grrrr.
Because we had this place for two nights, the idea was for Ken and Scott to walk the next stage and then come back by train. But in order to avoid the stress of having to reach Mussidan by a specific time, it was decided they would train there and walk back to St Astier, and they could go at their own pace. It was to be 27 km but Ken didn’t want to walk that far so we arranged a taxi to take him about 10 km from Mussidan to shorten his day while Scott planned on doing the whole thing.
I will let them tell their story.
Our house was in the building with the black rectangles. Lots of construction.
Look how cheap their orchids are.
More October Rose month. For cancer.
Ken here. This was a hasty shot of the station at st astier after Scotty and I hustled our buns from our domicile. 2 minutes later we were on the train. Very slick or lucky timing. Pretty much the only ones on the train too!
Happened to notice this graffiti behind the shelter. Funny but a bit political too Scott figured.
Trying to live up to Terry’s instructions to take lots of pictures I took a shot of the Mussidan station and a kind of moorish restaurant across from it. Scott had already quickly buggered off with a confident stride. As i finished poking my nose in (too rich for my blood) I heard a rough approximation of my name being called. Turned out to be my taxi driver so off we went to Douzillac.
This as a close as we could get to the church where I wanted to go as they were ripping up the street. So off I went, up the hill out of town, (of course) stopping only to take a shot of a flamingo, cause Terry would like that and I’m a sensitive guy.
This is where the trail started for me so I thought I’d leave a marker for Scott so he’d know I was there. Apparently he saw it but thought it was some local weirdo. Started well but I have to say navigating backwards when all the very small trail markets face the other way is tricky. I took one wrong turn but corrected fairly quickly.
Some photos of the landscape,a cool little unlocked shelter set up by the local hunting club and used freely by locals and hikers. There was also a very sensitively constructed road that diverted around a majestic old tree.
However right about the 7 km mark in my walk that pulled groin thing kicked in nastily so that I could only walk about 500 meters at a time before it stiffened up my entire left leg like a wooden thing. Slowed me down tremendously and was painful enough so I didn’t take any more pictures. According to the MapMyWalk app I stopped 34 times to sit, which seemed to help. Uphills were ok, so it actually came to be that I looked forward to climbing but the downhill really did me in. I was in a fair bit of pain by the time I hobbled in to the house in the rain but I did complete the plan.
Scott on other hand got lost early, spent half an hour on the side of the road crying for his mama, and then took the train home.
Walking back from doing the laundry on a dark street…all by my lonesome. This was not written by Ken or Scott.
Hope the 3 musketeers can make tomorrow’s trek considering our challenges of the day!
VF Britannica Via Campaniensis Voie de Vezelay 2025 