Camino v3 - Day 15: Onesse to Mons (76km)

For breakfast, my piece of baguette is rock hard as expected (it's probably already two days old) but once toasted it's edible, and it goes well with the black coffee I have (there's no milk, of course).

On the road out of Onesse I see a guy who clearly wants me to stop; he wants to talk. Turns out he and three of his ex-Fireman friends are planning to ride to Santiago and they plan to leave in a couple of days. They haven't done anything like this before and he's looking for reassurance and advice, and when he sees me approach I suppose it's too good an opportunity for him to miss. He asks where I stayed last night and when I tell him his response is "It's not very clean, is it?" Which I find somehow hilarious, because that is exactly what the two Frenchmen said yesterday when we had talked about the gite in Onessa. A bit later in the conversation he says: "The woman that runs it is a bit, uh, special, isn't she?" So it's not just me.

Eclectic decoration in the pilgrim gîte

I reach Escource, which is about at my usual 10km rest point. It's the town where I saw the older couple riding folding bikes with their dog-in-a-basket. So I plan to get something more substantial to eat at the boulangerie whichI know is there (it was the couple's destination, you may recall). When I get there however, I find that the boulangerie is closed. Of course; it's Monday so I should have expected that. It's going to have to be an emergency muesli bar this morning.

I'm on the (round) square in the middle of the village. There's the boulangerie (closed), the bar tabac (closed), a little café restaurant (closed) and a hairdressing salon (also closed) and the church, which isn't open. It's a good example of a typical small village in rural France. The key businesses are all here, and on this Monday morning (it's actually after 10:00 already) they are all closed. It never ceases to amaze me how even tiny places will have a hairdressing salon. That and a bar tabac, the latter often playing the role of dépot de pain when there's no boulangerie. So there you have it; the priorities in life: coffee and wine to drink, having your hair done, and bread to eat. Seemingly in that order. Actually, there's one more business to add to the list of places even small villages have to have, and that the pharmacy.

Well-trained trees form an overhead green canopy

At Labouheyre I know there an Intermarché supermarket so I head there to buy a few provisions for breakfast/lunch and I have my 'breakfast' in the impressive main square underneath the pruned and trained trees. These are old trees that have been trained in such a way as to form a continuous green canopy overhead. Exactly how they maintain that is a bit of a mystery, but it's impressive nonetheless.

From Labouheyre I am deviating from the route to avoid what I knows is a boring and rough forestry track. My chosen route turns out to be a beautiful tree-lined, but rather busy, road. At least it is until Commensacq after which the road becomes rather less beautiful and more like the other boring paths through the pine plantations.

At Pissos there's an almost certainly Dutch couple riding a tandem (nobody seems to ride tandems except the Dutch) who are coming the other way. I slow down and say hello with the idea that we might stop and chat but they ignore me and ride on. Not a good look for the Dutch.

The route passes around Pissos and along an essentially abandoned large camping ground complete with chalets and a large swimming complex. From a distance it all looks impressive but when you get a bit closer it's clear that this project was too ambitious. Everything is empty, including the pools (there's even a children's pool). What an amazing waste of resources. Time for another break.

Moustey Telegraph Office

Out of Pissos there's a bike path to Moustey, where I plan to buy some provisions for the evening since I'll be staying in a pilgrim gîte with no restaurant anywhere nearby. No anything nearby in fact. This is one of the few places where I've called ahead and the woman told me that Moustey would be the last place to stock up on groceries. She also mentioned there would be three others staying at the gîte (there are only four places) so it's just as well I called. When I arrive in Moustey I find not only the boulangerie but also the épicerie (grocery store) are closed (of course). I've arrived at 14:00, the town is effectively shut from 13:00 to 16:00. This is unusually late, even for France. I can't afford to wait until 16:00, so I'll have to ride to the town past my destination, where I know there's a larger supermarket which should be open, and then backtrack. It will add maybe 8 km to my trip today, but luckily on a bike that's not really an issue. Just as well I'm not walking.

Freshly-cut grass aromas ahead

At one point I stop for a break, only to instantly have clouds of mosquitoes  hovering around my head; it makes me think of the hardships the early pilgrims must have faced when this area, Les Landes, was considered a dangerous mosquito-infested place and malaria was rife. I ride on. A little later I pass a sign; Fauchage. Grass cutting. Up ahead the tractor is at work cutting the roadside grass; it will mean a bit of noise and dust as I ride past, but then I'll be rewarded with the lovely smell of freshly cut grass as I ride along the already-cut verges.

The last part of the ride is getting a little tiring; partly because I know I'm getting close and partly because the route is over rough and slightly undulating little back roads that have the advantage of no traffic, but the disadvantage of having to concentrate a lot on where I'm riding.

At the supermarket (which, as expected, is open) I stock up on supplies for dinner, getting a few things I figure that walkers won't be bringing, like eggs, tomatoes and onion and, why not, a bottle of wine to share.

I arrive at the gîte to find the first walker already there. It's Celeste from Germany (now living in France) who has arrived very early. The other two walkers arrive quite a bit later and are Elisabeth from Switzerland and Faye from Melbourne, the first Australian I've encountered on this trip. We are an interesting group, each with a different story and reason for being there. There are some interesting conversations, including one about tractors which is rather unexpected. I don't recall exactly how the conversation starts, but at one point Celeste mentions that her husband had a tractor and Elisabeth immediately demands "which brand?" This is not a question I had been expecting anyone to ask at this point in the conversation. Elisabeth is from a small farming community and is a fan - it runs in the family apparently - of tractors, in particular Massey Ferguson. She shows me an old photo of the original family tractor, a Massey Ferguson. "See, this is the green one" she explains, even though it's an old black and white photograph. Apparently up until 1953 (?) the tractors were green and then they changed to red. Most people have photos of their spouses or children with them; Elisabeth has a photo of the tractor.

The walkers unpack the supplies they have brought. Celeste, who is returning from Santiago and so has followed the same route I have, passed through Moustey while the shops were still open, but all she seems to have bought is some dark brown bread from the artisanal boulangerie and some dried sausage. It's virtually all she eats for dinner and breakfast; no wonder she's as skinny as a rake. Elisabeth, who is heading south, has shopped at the same supermarket that I did, and has bought a pre-made salad. Faye, who has also stopped at the supermarket, has bought an assortment of salads and, to my surprise, a bottle of red wine. Which she's had to carry the four km to the gîte. What each person has brought says a lot about their personality I conclude as the evening progresses.

There's no coffee in the gîte, which is an unusual omission considering we're in France. No oil of any sort either, as I later discover when I start to make dinner. While we are sitting chatting at the dining table, a women appears at the door, walking in and beginning to explain that they have a camper-van and their planned campsite is closed and do we mind if they set up their van here tonight. Naturally it's OK with us, there's lots of room and there's already a van in the area anyway. Besides, it's not really up to us, but it's nice of her to ask. I take the chance to ask her if she would be able to help us out with a bit of coffee, which is no problem of course. I go round to their van later with my cup (borrowing a cup of coffee from the new neighbours and not the more traditional sugar). I meet the husband, who rather disconcertingly has a nose which is sideways on his face. It's very distracting (although I can't begin to imagine what it must be like for him). Birth defect? Industrial accident? The result of over-enthusiastic boxing? I'll never know.

Faye seems to have had rather a lot of adventures and from her tales has certainly done more than most people would in their lifetime. For example it turns out that both Faye and Celeste are into spinning and wool-related things. But Faye has gone one step further and had learned how to shear a sheep; not something most people who spin or do other things with wool are likely to have done.

I make a dinner of fresh pasta with a tomato and onion sauce (dry fried due to the lack of oil, I am putting the non-stuck coating to the test). Faye contributes her salads and her bottle of wine. Both Elisabeth and Celeste join in although there's an impression it's a bit reluctantly. We all drink the wine though.

Discussing tractors

After dinner, Faye immediately insists on doing the dishes, not unreasonable since I cooked, the others don't offer to do anything, most un-pilgrim-like.

I am the last one up, even though I want to leave early in the morning.