Normandy – Walking without a donkey

Walking without a donkey - travels in France

Granville to Gênets – France

Granville to Genêts, Normandy coastal walk GR223. 7.5.17.

1.5 days walking. The longest walk at 9.5 hours and more climbing than any other étape (stage). 40kms

Leaving Granville just as it was getting light.

See how the colours start to appear with the sun.

Banks of soft cow parsley are dropping with dew.

My last walk was in Spain at harvest. Now it is spring, and time for sowing.

There are maps like this all along the way. Allows you to get your bearings.

I pass through the coastal edges of villages and along promenades, with a wide range of fresh-air art and information points. Of course I am not 19 years old as Laurie Lee was, but this part of ‘As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning’ resonates with me. I am lucky not to have back ache when I walk, only tired feet after a while: ‘The next day, getting back onto the London road, I forgot everything but the way ahead. I walked steadily, effortlessly, hour after hour in a kind of swinging, weightless realm. I was at that age which feels neither strain nor friction, when the body burns magic fuels, so that it seems to glide in warm air, about a foot off the ground, smoothly obeying its intuitions. Even exhaustion, when it came, had a voluptuous quality, and sleep was caressive and deep, like oil.’ Yes, that is exactly what sleep feels like at the end of that sort of a day.

A massive deck chair – part of a children’s playground.

One by one along the seashore, 10 paces or so apart.

Then I realise, these are the different stages of marine weather, famous from the Shipping Forecast.

A man in his pyjamas, dressing gown, and slippers assured me there was no bar/câfé in this village at 9.30am. I had no breakfast before I left which was an obstacle – silly -it was too early in the day to be hungry and thirsty.

With a building which was not too different from a Kentish oasthouse.

There were more hills and valleys than any of the previous days, and my rucksack was feeling heavy, but I forget that in the lovely countryside. Narrow paths split the greenery, while tough grass and golden gorse wrap around the sharp-edged cliffs.

I briefly ask myself ‘Why come away from home to walk?’ and immediately the answer is clear: because it is so very beautiful and peaceful.

There is a man with two wives and a dozen children, or so I fancy. The kids scrape past me from behind on their bikes and give me a shock. No-one says hello. The bright green ferns with their heads curled over, stand up like meerkats.

Down a picturesque flight of steps I go, into an historic dell. Anyone who does what I do knows that after 4 hours of walking, going downstairs is hard work, especially when it is slippy from the previous day’s rain, so I take them gingerly like a toddler.

It was quite magical down in Painter’s Valley, once a haunt of famous artists. I imagine them with their easels and floppy hats, just glimpsing each other through the foliage, brandishing brushes.

OMG! then 200 steps up again, followed by a rest to breathe and pull my socks back up after they had slid into my shoes.

I take two minutes for a pee, drink of water, and view of Jullouville beach with its glorious view of huts and horses. A loud male voice interrupts my musings. Round the corner, it turns out to belong to someone trying to impress the girls.

I ate my banana, bread and chocolate for lunch on a bridge. All filling the air was birdsong. There was sun on my legs, and real contentment, despite the slightly slimy seat. For a minute I thought I might see Ratty and Mr Toad of Toad Hall.

The cuckoos seem to be following me down the coast: birds which sleep in someone else’s nest.

At this stage I am further 3 hours from Genets and I am about level with Bouillon, where I was supposed to be 2 days ago. There are simple roads, simple hedgerows, and I take regular steps, my thoughts rich with the wild flowers.

It is utterly wonderful, my favourite sort of countryside.
Footsore, I remind myself to take it step by step, ‘poco à poco’ so I can manage the distance without injury.

And a caterpillar nursery which I pointed out to a little girl running ahead of the family, silently, so I didn’t scare her.

Just above my head I spot someone coasting on the wind in a hang glider. I could not tell if it was a man or woman. I watched and watched as s/he hung there, coasting on currents at a gentle pace, and I imagined what that view must be like.

The sweetest smell of earth, grass and flowers; raggedy white campion and curled up ferns. Runners thanked me as I stood aside to let them pass and was rewarded with a backlash of heady body smell. The slow roller-coaster slalom rocks are ahead of me, the oaks alongside, and hot waves of birds in meadows are on my left.

I reached a high point with more abandoned stone remains and exchanged brief French with a father coming in the opposite direction, who asked, what is the lie of the land beyond? Turns out he had a ‘poussette’, a push chair, with a baby in it. As I walked on I wondered how they had managed that far with either no path at all, or huge rocks to clamber over.

I continued with a light heart. If you look carefully you will see how often nature intertwines plants of contrasting colours.

I take donkeys as a sign that I am on the right track, given the name of my blog.

Reminding me of the Camino. I add a stone in memory of Hugh.

At 2.30 I started to think about a cup of tea again, and St Jean le Thomas was my reward.

And today’s French elections to read about.

Then at 4pm, oh, the first sighting of Mont Saint-Michel in the distance.
I began to ask ‘How far to Genets?’ which was a mistake. Either my walking pace was slow or they did not really know. It was just frustrating to think ‘just 20 minutes’, only to discover it was actually a full two hours later that I arrived at the Auberge de Jeunesse. I do so by the road from the beach at Bec d’Andaine, even though a kind beach-surfer type stops his car and kindly suggests I take the path. I think I was too tired to risk taking the wrong way. As Laurie Lee puts it, I was walking ‘in a mirage of solitary endurance’ by that time.

Darkling, it was such a relief to arrive at the youth hostel, where I had to book ahead because of the bank holiday weekend. What a great welcome from the guy in charge: amazing service.

I shower, change, wash out my dirties, settle in to my ‘private’ room with wonderful crisply ironed white cotton sheets (as usual I am the only single woman, so I am again lucky with accommodation). And then I walked, well limped a little, into the immensely attractive village. There are streets of brown/grey-stone houses, all with climbers and gardens full of flowers. They have white-rimmed windows with lace curtains, and there are 3 restaurants which all fill up quickly.

The votes are starting to come in, and the man on my right is checking his phone every few minutes, arguing with his wife, and updating the rest of us round the restaurant. It is very tense with folk scared that Madame Le Pen will win, but as the evening goes on Macron seems to be the victor.

Food tastes so delicious after a walk! A very salty, ‘gallette’ (pancake) with chips, salad and cider is 15 euros. Almost all the bars and eateries I have been to have played songs in English. Is it for tourists? I am not sure but this evening I think I was the only non-French speaker.

When I get back I fall into conversation with the host. Inevitably Brexit (so embarrassing), and ‘Don’t you celebrate the end of the war on 8 May?’ I tell him that many of our school children (my daughter and nephew for example) come to Normandy to see the beaches and the mass graves and find it very moving.

As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, by Laurie Lee.

Auberge de Jeuness (youth hostel) website: http://www.hifrance.org/auberge-de-jeunesse/genets–baie-mont-st-michel.html

Walking without a donkey - travels in France

Agon-Coutainville to Regnéville – France 3

Agon-Coutainville to Regnéville 3rd May 2017 22kms approx. 8 hrs.

View from my bedroom window at Agon-Coutainville.

Goodbye to Carla and Nicholas, the Tsubook couple.

I leave Agon-Coutainville at 9.15am and it is quiet as I make my way along the promenade. There is the sound of my feet, and of the sea in the distance. It is low tide and there is a smell of seaweed.

Along the promenade the evening before I leave Agon-Coutainville.

The air is cool on my skin, and I am getting into a rhythm, with a dull, white-grey sky overhead; and swirls of brown, shining water with almost yellow sand to my right. In contrast are the massive stones nearby where they are fortifying the sea wall. It is ‘home from home’ really, reminiscent of Edinburgh / Scotland.

Can you see Nicholas hiding? Also taken the day before.

It is the beginning of this new walking meditation, with lighthouses on both edges of my peripheral vision. There’s a man with a cigar between his lips, his dog trotting along in a blue harness; clear instructions on a municipal sign not to collect too many shellfish and to beware of the right season / size when you do; and a bike cycling over the do not cycle sign.

‘Doucement’ (gently) says a woman to her wolfhound. There are 100’s of child sounds, like a grounded flock of seagulls, who turn out to be from a sailing school, with its neon orange and white sails.

Now the thumb of one hand is hot and the other cold. I think it is something about the details I notice when I am walking.

Historical photo of children on the beach in 1956.

Snippets of my bad dream come in and out of my head. Worries: Will my knees hold out? Is my backpack too heavy? But then it is like someone is holding my hand once again, and I am reassured.

I wasted 10 minutes looking for someone to ask the way. Note to self: look with more care and if in doubt, keep going forward!

As I cross the dunes, a horse and rider cross my path. It’s the first time I have seen someone on his mobile while riding! It is slow walking on deep sand with the smell of the cedar trees, and the sounds of crows cawing. The sun is trying to come out, and it is windy. Once again I am reminded of home, this time the links at Gullane.

More detail now I am getting into my stride: a snail precarious on a stalk of grass; swifts darting across my vision; hearing a cuckoo. There are so many familiar flowers from hillside and garden: brambles, buttercups, veitch, and the sweetest smelling hawthorn, which I suspect is the scent that, in years to come, will take me back to Normandy.

There is a bird with equally sweet tweets, intermittently, above my head; and very, very loud crickets which are competing with the chattering mini birds.

The ‘randonnée’ signs I am starting to get familiar with – sometimes tricky to spot.

At the Pointe d’Agon, one rather slow hour later, there is a soft brown bird with white stripes which flies 360 degrees around me at eye level – you know, those birds which do little, repeated, staccato swoops.

A memorial to the young men lost in the war.

Tightening the straps to stop them chaffing my shoulders, I stride on, fire-engine-siren bird calls to my right; neat turf, wet to kneel on; and uneven pits of soft-sand bunkers. The world seems to be all a-tweet and I think to myself, I could walk along here like this forever.

The sweet almond scent is continuing to surprise me if I am looking down. A bird whistles at me, challengingly, through an avenue of pines. I can feel my tummy relax.

An oval of standing stones, a modern sculpture.

There are not many insects compared to all the birds: a wispy white flying something, a stubby black fluffy caterpillar, but not much else.

One of the many lighthouses. This one on the edge of the main estuary between Agon and Regnéville.

When I am amongst the trees I can hear the wind, but not otherwise. Here begins the long sweep around the bay, and I could do with a cup of tea.

One of the many attractive signs to help you position yourself.

The tide is way out, so there are beached boats balancing on their rudders; sharp marine grass; and broken shells underfoot. Buttercups totter in the cold windyness. I hear a distant church bell and smell the sheep as they say ‘huh huh huh’.

These signs are getting familiar and give quite accurate indications of distance and time between stages.

Here are the first group of fellow ramblers/randonneurs coming in the opposite direction. In all my walks to Mont-Saint-Michel I do not see a single other backpacker.

This poster shows the different sorts of shellfish.

Washes of miniature, dead crabs, and piles of oyster shells litter the path. Fields of broadbeans are beside me. At noon there is finally sun and butterfly #1.

Now there is a gorgeous odour of cow parsley, scuttling spiders on the clay, and pods of empty cells the size of my hand – dry and papery. Ah, I am stiff now, tireder, and assailed by the smell of dung!

Crossing La Sciene river, after 3 hrs, and a most welcome cuppa (I will come clean: I had to go back for my baton), I then realised my beloved Coquille Saint Jaques shell had broken off and gone forever, but I was given an alternative by the kind hostellier at La Bonne Auberge at the same moment.

I cross and skirt around the mouth of the Est, pass Tourville sur Siene, and there is a stretch of long, wet grass with a very narrow gulley to walk in. Here I suffer my first fall – I think I topple when I am hungry.

Flat, white-ended little birds are bounding through the reeds like rabbits. Carla’s delicious sourdough pizza is a welcome mid-day lunch in the sun. Yes, of course I am lying in my bra – there is no-one for miles around and I am sure I need the vitamin D.

After my sunbathe when I watch the art-deco Marbled White black and white butterfly (symbol of transformation), I feel re-energised, taste some wild garlic, help myself to a leaf of wild mint, chew a sprig of fennel (to remind me of last year’s Camino), and enjoy the church with a cock on top. Now it is time to get the pole out and I hope there are no tics.

The lilac and honeysuckle are both out, but the map showed I was actually in the sea, and I started to feel lost. It is now extremely wet underfoot. The smartly coutured ducks cheer me up, but there is a lot of improvising having to go on on these wetlands.

Nature is wonderful isn’t it? I spot urea coloured dungflies blending in!

There’s time to reflect that I forget conversations quite often, even though I hear myself denying that I have; and I realise once again that I have absolutely no idea of the future and how it will turn out.

By 4.30 I am so stiff and glad to arrive at Regnéville. Last night I searched Shiatsu practitioners in Normandy. The lovely Sophie Blondel was at the top of the list and miraculously lived at my next day’s stopping place. I phoned her on the off-chance ( in French btw!) and not only did she pick up the phone, but she immediately said ‘yes’ I could come and stay with her in return for Shiatsu.

So that’s what I did. What a star! How amazing to be the sort of person who just says ‘yes’! We had the best evening, what with the session, chats about our work (it turned out that we share the same teacher in Suzanne Yates), and her adorable cottage.