A very nice day’s walk today again. We’re really enjoying the shorter walks each day and the beautiful little villages that we are in each night. We stayed in a B&B outside of Montréal and walked in for dinner (as we had done earlier in the day for a coffee) which was nice.
Once again, we set off at a leisurely 8:40am, probably in more sunshine than we had anticipated but still pretty cool. We walked the 500m or so into town (for the third time!), through it and then ascended down to the Gers river and walked in shade alongside but not in sight of the river along great roads for nearly 2 hours before abruptly turning back on ourselves near the lake in the photos. From there to La Motte, where we stopped for a coffee just over 9kms into the day it was vines, vines and more vines, mostly above head height so few opportunities for photos.
From La Motte we descended down to a very nice flat, straightish track. Not far along the track we crossed under the bridge in the photos, which struck us as very weird because it went nowhere, i.e. there was no road on either side!
A few kms further on we came across a building with Bretagne-d’Armagnac in big bold letters on it and, just past it an old toilet block – it suddenly dawned on us that we were on an old railway easement! The easement took us all the way from La Motte to Éauze, a little bit boggy in some sections and stoney in others but flat all the way!
Éauze is a bigger town and not such a pleasant walk into the town centre but a very nice square in the middle of town where we enjoyed a late lunch in a very packed restaurant.
Not many photos today because the road was tree- or vine-lined for most of the way but a nice walk all the same – 18kms today and 542 in total. Only 9 days to go now!
We’ve got a rest day tomorrow in Éauze, so will have a look around then.
steelewalking 