Huitième jour - Wedesday 24th June, Lectoure - La Romieu - 17.5 klms (running total approx 149.2) I had thought that I had used this title once before, years ago. I had, almost, but not quite (see Sunflower). I grew up on the music of the Beatles, and this one from George is one of my favourites. Hard to pick favourites of course. But I think for today the variation Here Comes the Cool would be even more welcome. We continue to walk through agricultural land, and the emergent

Septième jour - Tuesday 23rd June, Lectoure - rest day It's a sign that the trip is going well when you have to ask your wife what day it is, and she has to look at her watch to confirm that today is indeed Tuesday 😉. I could have figured that out because yesterday the shops were all shut, which of course meant it was Monday. But that would require some thought. Our apartment here in Lectoure is nice, even if unfunctional. There are at least 4 heaters in the place, and one s

Sixième jour - Monday 22nd June, Miradoux to Lectoure - 16.3 klms (running total approx 131.7 klms) I've said this before. Janet and I get on very well. We are quietly comfortable in each other's presence. Sometimes we chatter as we walk, sometimes we just wander along in silence. She is often in front as I dawdle along stopping to take photos. Today she asked me what I think about as I walk. Often it's about what's going on around me, perhaps influenced by whether I should t

Cinquième jour - Sunday 21st June, Auvillar to Miradoux - 18.2 klms (running total approx 115.4) I don't really want to turn the blog into a daily weather report, but sometimes one has to acknowledge the elephant, in this case, outside the room. Today was a relatively easy day. But in the middle of a severe heatwave, relatively takes on a different meaning. We arrived into Miradoux a little before 2pm. Elapsed time about 6 hours; walking time about 4 hours 30 mins. Here's a w

Quatrième jour - Saturday 20th June, Moissac to Auvillar - 20.7 klms (running total approx 97.2) An unusual typographical day. Whilst the previous three days had total accents and descents in the 500/600 metre range (both ways), today’s was about 100m up and down. In other words we walked our 20 klms pretty-well dead flat all day. That was a real bonus in the circumstances. I can divide today’s narrative into three sections. Part one – exploring Moissac. The tourist highlight

Troisième jour - Friday 19th June, Lauzerte to Moissac - 29.8 klms (running total approx 76.4) There were many potential titles for today’s blog, but after an elapsed time of just under 10 hours on the road, of which Strava tells me that we were moving for 7 of them, I chose this one, for reasons which are probably clear enough. Before I go one, here's a link to show today's journey (and if one of my kind readers who does not use Strava can tell me whether the link actually w

Deuxième jour - Thursday 18th June - Lascabanes to Lauzette, 23.6 klms (running total approx 46.7) Beast is probably a bit harsh, even though the heat was rather beastly at times ... For reasons we can’t quite fathom, even though it was much the same distance as yesterday, today's journey took a good couple of hours longer in time, and that's with a bit of cheating 😀. As arranged Nathalie drove us back to Lascabanes around 8am and without much mucking around we hit the road.

Premier Jour - Cahors to Lascabanes, Wednesday 17th June 2026 - 23.1 klms Well, what a day. I think we’ve both done very well. But more of that later ... Before the day started, I had a plan as to what I was going to talk about today. But as regular readers of the blog will know, often – indeed usually – a theme emerges as I walk along. And today was no different. But before I get into today’s theme, let me briefly talk about that which I had planned to say. Today is a good

Monday, 15th June, somewhere in the southern French countryside. I'm writing this from on board a fast(ish) train from Paris to Cahors, where we will start our walk on the day after tomorrow. We're whizzing along at around 130 kph. We've passed bigger towns, pretty little villages - the one a moment ago had a Rapunzel-like castle, open fields with freshly rolled hay bales, little local roads wending their way through the trees, the occasional industrial site and lots of wind

The ever-increasing, exorbitant cost of airfares generally combined with our somewhat extravagant preference to undertake long-haul flights at the pointy end of the plane meant that we had to make some concessions. The concession was that rather than fly either direct to France or even our normal Perth-Singapore kick-off on Qantas, we chose the somewhat convoluted route of Perth-Kuala Lumpur-Bangkok on Malaysian to pick up Finnair to Helsinki and then onto Paris. The Finnair

I quite like being Australian (too bad if I didn't), although at times I don't like elements of modern Australia, which is another story for another day. It's good to be here and it's also good to leave occasionally. [As an aside, three years ago when we were walking the Via de la Plata I made an intentional and overt comment on a particular matter of Australian politics about which I was most bitterly disappointed; and was then fully bemused to have one of my readers post a

Sub-title: there's only so many years left I don't think that it's equivocation to keep one’s options open. My justification – if indeed that’s what it is – is that one can’t be certain what’s around the corner. With a few fundamental exceptions, locking yourself into a closed position may not necessarily be all that smart. That’s not to say that I’ve haven’t actually done it a few times – the most notable being when, in 2010, after an incredibly special trip to the Himalaya

The blog you’re having when you’re not having a blog. I don’t usually write a blog for our domestic travel. But then we don’t normally...

May 2025 Warning: no photos here, just words ... I commenced drafting these thoughts just over a week ago at the end of my month-long...

Mysuru, Monday, 13th May We spent today exploring Mysuru, the local name I have preferred to use in my writings. That name can be seen...

Mysuru (previously Mysore), Sunday 11th May. Travelling in India is an intense experience. I can understand how some folk who’ve never...

Friday 9th May - Ooty (full name Udhagamandalam), South India I will start with a bit of social commentary, well, social observation...

Wednesday 7th May, Bengaluru, South India We’ve actually left Bengaluru after 4/2 days (4 days me/2 days J) of very gentle exploration of...

Bengaluru, South India, Monday 5th May 2025 I start today's post with much happiness that I will see J this afternoon for the first time...

In times gone by I have attempted to write a daily blog - at the very least to do a catch up every other day. This journey has been very...