Day 7: Nasbinals to Saint-Chely-d’Aubrac. 17.4km
A difficult day. I woke up feeling ok after my big day yesterday, though the slight knee pain I’d been coping with yesterday was rather sore today. I taped it up with some KT tape, and limped out the door.
I left my hotel at Nasbinals after a big breakfast, taking an apple for the road.
I had to walk back into town and my original plan was, as always, to buy a sandwich in the morning to take with me. But it was a Monday, and nothing was really open. There was a Spar, but they didn’t have any sandwiches so I left empty handed and left the town. Rookie mistake, I should have bought something, anything to eat.
It was another cold and rainy day out on the moors. They were still beautiful though, the rain making them a little mysterious.
I stopped off in a tiny refuge at the top of the hill to stuff some Natural Confectionary Squirms into my mouth, that was a highlight!
The pain in my knee wasn’t getting any better or worse but it was so hard walking downhill that I took a long time to walk off the moors to the towns.
I eventually made it to Aubrac and thought I would get some food there. Wrong again. The only food was sit down meals and I should have bought a sandwich from this cafe and asked for it to go but I was so distracted and tired today that I didn’t think about it. I used the loo, almost went the wrong way (thankfully I figured it out before I went too far, unlike one lady who I met later on), then left Aubrac. I stopped under a tree for shelter to pull stroopwaffels and my apple out of my pack, and stuffed a waffle in my face as I walked. I was buffeted by the wind. The poncho was snapping around me at the top of a rise, but thankfully I dropped back down into a little bit of tree shelter.
I ate my apple as I walked too, through fields and then eventually through a forest. There was a waterfall and what looked like an old mill in the forest there, all just stone walls and no roof.
Eventually I popped out on a road at Saint-Chely.
I was totally done by this point. It had only been 17km, but I was injured, it was cold and raining and I hadn’t eaten enough food. I found my gite and they hustled me inside.
It was such a lovely place and the hosts were incredibly nice. They took my poncho and asked us to bring all our clothes downstairs so they could put them through the washer and dryer which was so kind. They showed me to my room which was right at the top of the house and I went to shower.
I felt so much better afterwards but I was in a town that had a pharmacy so I hobbled downstairs to ask the hosts where it was. Oh my knee was so much worse after I stopped walking and it got stiff. But I managed to walk to the pharmacy – I wanted to buy more KT tape. I’d only brought enough for a couple of days of injury but I’d been using it on my feet as well to stop blisters so I didn’t really have enough. Thankfully the pharmacy had KT tape and it was surprisingly good – very sticky. I also stopped into the village epicerie and bought some biscuits and went back to the gite and ate about half of them. I was so hungry after my day of walking without eating enough calories.
That night we had nettle soup (delicious!), lasagne, then pears with ice cream and chocolate sauce (called poires belle Helene, as the host’s name was Helene).
The conversation was so lively tonight. I was sitting next to a German man who couldn’t speak any French, and surrounded by other French people with a mixture of English abilities but we all had such a nice time. I think it was one of the best nights so far. The other host Guillame also spoke very good English so I was talking to him a bit too. It was a great night, needed after such a hard day.
Gite la Belle Etoile. 10/10. Could have done with one more bathroom but otherwise perfect and I slept like a log.
