GR65, the le Puy Camino days 5 to 23

This is a long-delayed post finishing our story of the walk.

In April after the snowstorm on the walk I wrote a brief note reassuring everyone that we were OK:

We survived the snow! After a difficult day of walking in snow that sometimes drifted waist deep, we took a shuttle bus the next day (still snowing) to get down from the Massif Central into rain rather than snow.

Since then we’ve been too tired, or too busy, or having long dinners with other walkers to find time to post to the blog. The weather has improved with one day warm enough to walk in shorts and t-shirt. Rain today but back to sunshine and warm temperatures tomorrow.

We’ve also been slower than expected due to some problems with my (Roy) right hip. It seems to be muscular rather than the joint and is starting to clear up, but we are revising some of the long stages we had planned.

The rest of the walk was less eventful and in better weather, although we did shorten it. To give some context, here is a map of the route:

Our original plan was to walk the full 750km route from Le Puy en Velay to Saint Jean Pied de Port. Instead, we ended our walk after about 500km in the town of Condom as my hip pain was not going away and I was feeling fatigued at the end of every day. (We now know that I was suffering a relapse of PMR, something I had four years before. I’m much better now.)

The rest of the walk was pleasant. While it was early in the season and there were not many others walking the trail, we met some interesting hikers and enjoyed evenings dining together. The landscape was often scenic but there was more road walking than we like (we’ve been spoiled by our long walks in the Alps). The weather was good.

Here is a gallery of photos from day six to the end of the walk. (Click on the first image to open full size, then click on the arrows to move through the images.)