Day 10: Estaing to Golinhac. 15.3km
I’m not going to lie, today’s 14km was a struggle to get into. Thankfully it got a lot better. But I called my best friend on my way out of Estaing and said “What am I even doing?? Why am I doing this?” and it made me think about why I was here. I’m glad I pushed on.
Anyway, the day started in Estaing and Ellen and I packed up and left our bags at the gite so we could go look around. It was another very dark and grey morning. We went into the church and poked around the little roads of Estaing. It was great, it’s so photogenic, even in the bad weather.
We went back to the gite and Ellen left straight away but I wanted to buy a sandwich. She was going a different route to me so I wouldn’t be walking with her anyway. The bakery, however, didn’t have any sandwiches and the lady was so rude – "do you see any sandwiches?". Another moment where I should have bought some food. Any food. I didn’t know what to do for lunch without a sandwich. I should have bought some bread or a quiche or something but silly me.
Anyway, I left Estaing, had that phone call with Josh and then listened to some podcasts. The route out of Estaing was along a road, which wasn’t very interesting and occasionally had cars. It was raining and I was so uninspired.
I bumped into Wolfgang from Germany who had stayed in our gite last night so I had a chat to him and he picked berries off the trees and gave them to me to eat. It was weird foraging – we learn in Australia that you can’t really eat the fruits of plants in the bush and forests, and some of them are toxic without cooking them. So it was weird, but he was also eating them too so I figured it was ok! There were a LOT of wild blueberries around, as well as apples and walnuts. Plus it was nice to talk to someone and distract myself from my sore knee and failing motivation to keep going.
He went on ahead while I spotted a squirrel and went looking for a place to do a wee.
I eventually caught up with him again and he was walking with a French man named Guy. We walked on, with Wolfgang finding apples and Guy picking some grapes. It was bitterly cold at the top of a hill though, and I had to dig out my jacket in the cold and rain.
We chatted a lot while we walked, with Guy teaching us the French names for things like blackberries (mûre) and wall (mur) (yes, they both sounded the same to me!). We were looking for somewhere to eat lunch. I still hadn’t bought anything but Guy had some bread and cheese he was willing to share with me which was kind. I had my apple too so I ate that as well.
We wandered up to Golinhac – it was only a short day so there was no rush. We got there much too early and the gite hadn’t opened yet so we wandered into the church, waited for a bit for Guy’s friend to show up, then we went to the cafe where I ran into Bea! She bought me a cup of tea and we sat and talked using Google Translate.
At 3pm, we went back to the gite and Bea and I asked to be in the same room. It was a really beautiful gite and our room had two beds in it which was nice. We cleaned up and washed clothes etc (the standard routine every day when getting to a gite) then we looked at the next accommodation. She was stopping in Conques, so booked her stay in the Abbey, which is a big deal on the Camino. I’d already booked mine a few days earlier.
We went to dinner and there were three Swiss girls there, as well as Guy, and these ladies who we’d been seeing the whole day and who Guy was friendly with. Wolfgang was staying at a different gite to us.
The gite owner was a little gruff, apparently the ladies had been a bit rude about the accommodations. But the food he made was delicious, and he had a nice fire so we were all warm and the clothes could dry. It was another fun night of random English-French conversation with the other pilgrims.
Gîte d'étape Saint-Martin. 8/10. Food was great and the accommodation was beautiful. Could have done with another toilet.