Farewell Canal du Midi, hello Mediterranean! The start of my journey around the med started with me running away from the med. I'm a countryside boy at heart so this leg of the journey was always going to be an interesting one for me but I have very quickly learnt about two things that I am not so fond of:
1 - Resort towns - they are not for me. I can kind of get why other people would like these places but they just seem to put me off. What I mean by resort town is what I saw when I stayed at Cap D'Agde; hundreds of apartment blocks interspersed with theme parks. And this went on for miles! The worst part was when I looked up the coast and could just see these type of towns for the next thirty miles - that definitely led to a rethink.
2 - Big Cities - they stress me out. The difficult part is that I actually quite like the centre of a lot of big cities. Some of the photos below are of Montpellier which was fascinating and beautiful for about two miles in the middle and a pleasant in a few parts of the outskirts. The problem on a walking holiday is that I ended up walking about 15 miles in total through Montpellier, and the noise, the traffic, and the ugly sides of city life all just added up to make me stressed. I have had two wobbly moments on this holiday where I have wondered what on earth I am doing here, felt exceptionally lonely and have been massively tempted to throw it all in and run home. Both of these occurred in cities so I should probably listen to that. Both times, just a few hours later, I have been back to loving life and loving this adventure so definitely something to work through. The good news is that this is my trip and I can go where I want and avoid the rest of it (hopefully).
After the structure of the canal walk I was also desperate for some hills and some rugged footpaths so I decided to head for my first Grand Randonee (one of the long distance hiking trails that go across large areas of France). I headed north to find the GR653 and passed through some beautiful hills and rough, stony countryside to get there. My legs were burning, my eyes couldn't take all of it in and I even got to do my first bivvying of the holiday which was exactly what I was hoping for. I am not going to lie, I have actually been getting quite nervous about bivvying, even though I have bragged confidently about it to anyone who will listen and even though I have done quite a bit of it before. It was the unknown part of it for me that was scary. For a start, the rules on bivvying in France are incredibly vague. In essence, as long as, you are doing it as a traveller (not staying in the same spot for multiple nights); you don't do it right next to the path or someone's property; and you don't do it in areas you are not allowed, such as national parks, near important monuments or on private land, then you are ok. Having said that, loads of the multi-day footpaths go through national parks and you are pretty much allowed to do it there anyway. As I say - so vague! And in practise really difficult: how am I supposed to know what is private land? Where are the actual borders of the national parks?
(Challenge for all you keen botanists - what is that flower? It is tiny - about the size of the end of my little finger!)
I have also scared myself with stories of people getting robbed whilst they sleep or getting mauled by wild boar whilst trapped in their sleeping bags. All of which I knew were complete rubbish as long as you are careful but were still playing on my mind. Anyway, I found an ok spot (kind of close to a creepy derelict building) near to a river, set up for the night and had a wonderful time. And for everyone who has asked why I don't use a tent (thank you to the beautiful people who even offered me their own tents for the trip) this is why:
You lie back, look up at the sky and watch it change. You get transfixed by the clouds. You dream of the stars. You see shooting stars, satellites and planets and it just makes you realise what a small part of the universe you actually inhabit. It sounds cheesy but it makes you feel at one with it all. Completely insignificant in the grand scheme of life, but in a nice way as that really takes the pressure off of you.
The problem with doing it this early in the year, however, is that the middle part of that picture was there for about 11 hours. And even with a comfortable set up (as comfortable as I could get whilst staying lightweight) that is a bloomin long time. I woke up at 4.30 having had a decent 7 hours sleep and still had an hour and a half until it was light. Thank goodness for my Kindle! Luckily, even by April the nights will be much shorter so expect to see more photos like these later in the walk.
I eventually reached the trail I was looking for and found it hilarious that I had just walked about 50 miles in two and a bit days just to find a footpath! I have discovered that I love following the GR trails as they are easy to navigate thanks to the signs. These are quite simple and are found all the way along the paths. The two parallel lines basically mean, well done - you're not lost. The cross means, stop you idiot, you're going the wrong way! These are painted on many of the possible wrong turns that you could take. And the final one that looks like a flag shows you that there is a turn coming up and points either left or right. I hope the UK adopts this system as it is so easy to follow.
I also like the planning that seems to go behind a lot of the paths. They take you to the best views, the best parts of the towns (they go right through many towns) and they also pick much nicer paths than I would be able to without having an abundance of local knowledge. They also take you past some of the places you need to visit to stock up on supplies which is very useful compared to the canal walking. I am even considering a change in strategy for the trip and wondering whether I should pick a few of these trails in areas that I like the look of and then do them from end to end. It's what a lot of the hikers do. Doing this also gives you a goal to keep pushing towards as you can monitor how much of the trail you have done and how much you have left to go. The downside is that they don't always do all of the bits of France that I want to do and I would also need to take transport to get me to the start of the next trail. Good job I've got lots of time to think about this!
After Montpellier the countryside was beautiful, a mix of forest and farmland with gentle hills and yet more pretty towns. My favourite of which was Entre-Vignes. I also managed to find a great little place to stay made special by the hosts who helped me with my french (one of them is American so was able to share his stories of learning the language) and even shared some of their dinner with me! Definitely worth a visit. Click here for their AirBnB page! Near to Entre Vignes runs the Le Vidourie river which I am becoming rather obsessed with. It has some stunning gorges (guess you could call them gorgeous??) and it just keeps on throwing up new views as it winds its way towards the sea.
Overall I have been piling on the miles, 107.5 of them in the five days since I set off on this leg of the journey and I'm up to 333.1 for the trip so far (536 kilometres) and the good news is that I am still feeling good at the start of each day so I must be getting fitter - let the miles keep on rolling!