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8 September 2026 - Coirilles

Tonight for dinner I have leftover potato chips and brandy (I'm saving the orange for breakfast), as there has been no where along the way to pick up food today. Fortunately I bought the sandwich I had for lunch last night in the Carrefour. This morning was one big long hill. I broke camp around 7AM, but then I sat there finishing the Odyssey until 8. Which was fortunate, because Lionel, who I met in Caravanay two days earlier stopped by and we had a chat. Perhaps I will catch up to him again in Puy-en-Velay as he plans to spend a day there. And there were others who said hello. Then I started my trek up and up and up. At some point I found myself on a road where I started seeing what looked like train tunnels off into the mountain. I explored one a bit, but it was filled with junk and there were no tracks. Maybe they where bunkers from WWII? It wasn't until I arrived at the old train station in Saint-Saveur-en-Rue that I learned that the road I had been walking on had been traintracks for 100 years up through the 1980's. Not long after that station the trail left the path of the old tracks to go steeply up the hill. I did not reach the top until afternoon and ensconced myself on moss among blueberries to work for the afternoon.

Or so I thought. At the start of my second meeting thunder rumbled loudly and I was quickly packing up in the pouring rain and then hail. It didn't last much more than 15 minutes, but I still headed to Les Sétoux where there was a café. But, like so many French restauranters this time of year, they were on vaction. So I parked myself outside the church by the water fountain and worked through the afternoon. Everything today up to the fields around Les Sétoux had been forest, but heading out after work I found myself in open, windswept fields. It was nice to go downhill again. And soon the fields became forest until I found myself down in a valley crossing a creek before going up again. This hill was a mixture of forest and field, with a few houses along the way. Then it was down again to a creek valley and back up again to the forest where I now write these words in my tent.