Now shall I walk
or shall I ride?
"Ride," Pleasure said:
"Walk," Joy replied.
~W.H. Davies
or shall I ride?
"Ride," Pleasure said:
"Walk," Joy replied.
~W.H. Davies
I've had the joy of walking over the Aubrac Plateau twice. This photo was taken on the second day of the crossing in 2012. The weather was brilliantly fine- almost too hot! Four years previously, in 2008, we'd been advised to walk on the road rather than the Chemin because of heavy rain the previous day. Even on the road, which runs at a slightly lower altitude than the Chemin, it was very cold, and the fog soon came thickly down. I could barely see my hand in front of my face. So imagine my joy walking this route again under clear sunny skies, where I could see all the views. I felt like I was on top of the world, close to heaven!
Strangely enough though, my joy was all the greater because I had walked the route twice- the first time in awful weather.
I had not realized that you had walked the road instead of the Plateau in 2008. If I remember correctly you were a bit ahead of us at this point (we had not yet met) and I know when we arrived in the Aubrac Plateau, it was cold and there was some snow here and there. Must have been the results of a storm not long before we were there.
ReplyDeleteI love this blog, so retrospective, so calming. Thanks!
Michèle, I re-met some people in Conques who had walked over the pass the day after me, and they had walked it in snow. I had seen the towers loom vaguely out of the mist at Aubrac- and thought they were 'round'. It was only this year when I saw the whole towers that I found out they were square! The people who walked in snow hadn't even known there were towers, as they could hardly even see their noses.
DeleteThe first day in 2008 I walked on the chemin- and came close to gettting hypothermia in the cold rain and wind before I stopped at Rieutort d'Aubrac because of the weather. It was there we were advised to take the road next day. Having now walked Day 2 by the Chemin, I am so glad I never did it the first time in the fog: I think we would have had huge difficulty finding the poles and route markers.