A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.
Camel
14.24pm on the other side of those hills is my destination for today, St Hippolyte du Fort, though I don't particularly know it's my destination, that is to say I'm just pedalling until I don't want to. Actually, that's not quite true there have been a number of times when I can't exactly say I wanted to be pedalling but I still did.
Actually, I almost didn't get to Saint Hippolyte I was a bit tired for the last little bit going up those hills, mountains they felt like by the time I was going up them. There was a camp site just before the top but it was downhill to get to it and it was more than I could bear to go downhill and then have to go back up to get out the following morning so I just carried on.
Saint Hippolyte
Just coming up to 3 o'clock, it's hot but I'm there. Actually I feel a lot better than I should given the distance.
...du Fort
Perhaps this is the Fort part of Saint Hippolyte du Fort... I'm just going out of town to the campsite that I was told is out this way by a couple of cool dudes who were leaning on a fence wondering what I was riding.
These were the lovely people I met after one them walked over and lent me a hammer when they saw me looking around for a stone to hammer in my tent pegs. Elke & Roland.
Actually, they also helped me make the fact that I'd been carrying an aluminium cup attached to my bike make sense. They offered me a Pastis but only had two glasses, I dashed over to my pitch to return, triumphant, with the cup in question.
We spent a very pleasant couple of hours chatting and drinking, it turned out we had a lot in common. It could just be that the pastis is the reason this photo is a bit blurry ;-)
Certainly the pastis, the sausages and chips with salad and rosé wine for dinner in the camp-site restaurant, helped eradicate any trace of tiredness in my legs.