Day 6: Aumont-Aubrac to Nasbinals. 27.55km
What a day this was!
Multiple people had warned me about the weather - it was supposed to be storming and raining all day. I tried to book the Compostell'Bus but it didn’t seem to work, so I guess I was walking through the storm!
It was my longest stage yet, 27km, across the Aubrac plateau which I had heard so much about from people and books. So I started out as early as possible, to try to get as far as possible before the storm.
I was maybe 45 minutes to an hour in before the heavens opened up. I quickly threw my poncho on, then me and some other people made a run for the nearest shelter, which was a public toilet. So there we all were in our ponchos, dripping wet, about 7 of us squeezed into the loos. Thankfully it was a big one! The rain was hammering down, with thunder and lightning cracking across the sky.
Once it seemed to have eased off a little, I set off. It wasn’t so bad at the moment.
We followed the road then visited this little church, which had the most gorgeous interior, considering how small it was.
It was then a case of walking alongside a road for a bit. These ladies I was walking with for a bit turned off to go to a coffee shop but they were closed still (it was about 10:30am).
We walked up a hilly section and I saw these two sisters who I had been bumping into every day since the start of the camino. They had sent their bags via La Malle Postale, which was clever of them in the weather. I walked past them, with one of them exclaiming that I walked really fast (no idea how they got that impression!). But they were impressed that I was walking that quick with my full pack on too.
I finally made it the Les Quartre-Chemins, a four-way intersection, where there was a cafe. I didn’t go in, I wanted to push on so I kept going, and it was time to head into the Aubrac proper.
It was pretty, but god it was miserable. It wasn’t much different to Dartmoor too, and while I love Dartmoor, I couldn’t escape the nagging voice that kept saying that I was walking 27km in rotten weather just for something that looked like Dartmoor, which I’ve been to loads of times. I’d read so much gushing online and in my books that the Aubrac was this incredible place, but to me it was much like places I’d been before. That’s not to say it wasn’t beautiful. It was. They even had two stiles in the middle of nowhere, which, with a 7kg wet pack on, was quite a challenge!
But one thing that existed in the Aubrac plateau that wasn’t a part of Dartmoor were the adorable Aubrac cows. They really were the sweetest things.
The weather was still miserable when I walked past a cafe, which was choc-a-block with people. I was looking for shelter so I could stop and take my bag off to retrieve my sandwich. In the end, I trespassed. There was a little shed with a rope across the driveway, but it had an awning. I hadn’t found anything else the entire day, and I was starving so I went for it. I lifted the rope up and walked in to huddle under the awning and quickly scoff my sandwich. It wasn’t very far off the road so I kept getting odd looks from pilgrims but I didn’t care.
I finished, picked my pack up and walked through the little town, where there was also a toilet - hooray. I popped out the other side of town, and saw a Land Rover with a Deus ex Machina sticker (Australian shop, in the middle of nowhere in France) and a poor, sopping wet donkey.
It was then time to walk along a road, which was busier than I would have liked, since my sense of hearing was knocked out by the sound of rain on my hood. The cars were all going to this place on the moors that was holding a photography exhibition - it turned out that it was the last day of the exhibition of photos of the area in multiple locations.
I crossed an old stone bridge, looked at an altitude marker (1145m above sea level) then walked off the road up a muddy path. I ended up walking past these cows so of course I stopped to say hello but two of them seemed pretty curious so I kept talking to them. I put my hand out and let the bravest one come up and smell me, before I booped him. They were adorable. This car stopped to take photos of them and I was talking to the lady who spoke very good English. They were all so surprised that an Australian woman would travel so far to France to walk the chemin.
I hadn’t felt tired all day, but the last few km off the moors felt like a slog. I got to the main road into Nasbinals and the hotel I was staying at (such a great call to book a hotel!!) was to the left, while the town was to the right. It was too early to check in so I walked to the right and all the way to the town to complete the stage at the church. Then turned around and walked back up the hill to the hotel.
There was no receptionist when I walked in and no one around so I called out a few times then went to stand outside and wait as I was a little early. I was waiting outside when I heard “Alison!” being shouted at me - it was a couple that I had been staying with and bumping into for 6 days already! They were so happy to see me, they had heard that I was ok after my heat exhaustion. They were off to walk to the waterfall, as they had caught the Compostell’Bus to Nasbinals and hadn’t walked. They were very impressed that I did. The woman also told me that she was going to learn English so that she could talk to people like me - I think she was quite taken with my guts and courage.
I finally went back into the hotel, only to be followed by someone else. I was yelling out Bonjour! when the lady who had come in behind me said “Alison?”. It was another Australian. She had heard all about me from other pilgrims and we hadn’t met before now. So we were having a chat when finally the receptionist came over.
She was ruuuuuude. She couldn’t find my name and booking, and I told her my name. Apparently, as she told me off later, I should have said “Richards, Alison”, as that’s how the French do it. But how was I to know?!
The other lady, “Williams, Michelle” was staying in another one of their hotels not this one, so was sent out the door to walk another 2km to town and then some. We made plans to meet up at the hotel in town for dinner. I finally got my room key and went up and turned the heater on blast. Everything came off, I had a shower, washed everything, made a cup of tea, and set to dry everything. Oh it was heavenly feeling clean and dry and warm again. We were meeting for dinner at 7 so I had a few cups of tea then the receptionist, who had started being nicer to me, drove me to town. I was a little early so I had a glass of wine at the bar and waited for Michelle. She turned up and we went to the restaurant to have dinner. She was getting the half-board and I just ordered duck with aligot. The culinary highlight of the region, aligot is like an extremely elastic potato and cheese concoction, which went lovely with my duck.
I’m pretty certain they overcharged me though, as they charged me half board but I only had dinner, and it was too hard to explain so I ended up paying it. Strangely, you had to pay for the hotel at the restaurant if you wanted to use card, which seemed like a flawed system.
I walked back uphill to the hotel and went straight to sleep. It was bliss having a room to myself again.
Hotel La Bastide. 9/10. Simple, but warm and with a good shower. Definitely needed it after the day I’d had. Loses a point for the weird way of paying, and the rude receptionist.
