Day 14 and 15 - St. Roch and Rainstorms : Conques to Livinhac-le-Haut

Yesterday we took a rest day in Conques.  We walked around the very small village and looked in the artisan's workshops, sat in the cool and quiet of the abbey church, walked across to the Chapel of St.Roch, and got caught up on our blogging and reservations, as we had been without wifi for several days.  As always on these long hikes it felt strange not to be walking, but I think it was good for both of us to take a break.

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This  morning we left around 6:10 am, after consuming some apple tarts we had bought at a wonderful local bakery yesterday.  We started early because we wanted to beat the heat for our long, steep climb out of the valley.

As it turned out, we couldn't have timed it better.  The path was steep, rocky, and forested, but just as we reached the chapel of St. Foy, about half way up the side of the valley, the sun crested the top of the valley opposite.  It gave us a fantastic view back over Conques, and the chapel itself was also very beautiful.

By the time we had reached the top of the valley, the sky looked really ominous.  There were beautiful views of the countryside, and the path turned from muddy track to paved road, which was easier going.

We continued for about 4.1 km, happy that the cloud cover was providing cooler temperatures. We stopped for a coffee in a gite with a friendly golden lab in the town of Noailhac, which smelled strongly of bacon and eggs.

As we continued to hike up and out of the town along the stations of the cross, the sky got so dark it looked like night.  At the end of the stations of the cross we started to see lightening and hear loud thunder, and the skies really opened up.

We hurriedly took shelter in the Chapel of St. Roch, which turned out to have amazing stained glass windows.  We waited out the worst of the storm, thanking St. Roch and St. James for once again providing what was needed.

The rain fell steadily and quite hard as we plodded along, but the walking was mostly on paved roads, and the sight of clouds filling and rolling through the valleys below us was actually quite beautiful.  Just before we reached Fonteilles the rain picked up again to the point where it was difficult to see.  Once again, we happened to find a shelter with coffee, potable water, picnic tables under very waterproof roofs, and lots of information on the trails in the surrounding areas. The rest area had flowers planted in it, and it was quite beautiful.  Thank you to the volunteers who put it there!

After waiting out the worst of that deluge we again set off down the road.  Not too far beyond that point the path struck off across fields, where the wet grass and ankle deep puddles completely filled our shoes.  At this point we still had about 12 km of our 25 km day left, and there wasn't a single dry inch left on either of us :(  Water soon began filling our backpacks, and migrating throughout most of our electronics, including Sean's camera gear.

We climbed steeply for most of the afternoon, only to descend rather steeply into Decazeville, and then climb back out again on the other side.  We were soaked and generally miserable, but even so, I think there wasn't much to recommend Decazeville.  It was a modern, rather rough looking industrial town, which was originally built for the workers of a coal mine.

We climbed out of Decazeville, through the suburbs and into St. Roch, which probably would have been a nice little village if it hadn't been getting deluged, and then again took shelter with another hiker in a barn to wait out an extra wet bit.  From there we descended very steeply down a forested mud track that was more river than path, and finally found ourselves in Livinhac-le-Haut.

Livinhac-le-Haut also doesn't have too much to offer in terms of sightseeing, and has the feel of an industrial town that has lost its industry.  However, one of the best lessons of the Camino is that you can end up having a wonderful in the most dreary of places if you have good shelter, good food, and most importantly of all, good company.  Likewise you can be miserable in the midst of the most beautiful scenery.  That's just the nature of this hike.

We found the Communal Gite, and discovered that it didn't open for another 1.5 hours.  Luckily there was a place to shelter from the rain, and the gite owner did let us in early.  There were about 20 people waiting, all of which had to remove our wet rain jackets and pack covers and hang them up in an outdoor room, remove our wet shoes and place them on a rack in a separate room, and then take out only the clothes we needed for the night and place our (soaking wet) bags in another area, while we took our belongings upstairs in bins.  While this routine is usual in gites, it leads to a certain amount of chaos, especially when everyone is wet, cold, and wanting to get on with fixing up their situation.  This was an occasion in which the friendliness of Gite owners and operators was a bit trying, and some of us found the expectation of an introductory chat very frustrating indeed.

When we got in Sean discovered that many of the scrap booking materials he has been collecting had melted in the rain, and he was literally able to pour water out of his camera.  Despite the ensuing despair, the owner of the gite let us wash and dry our clothes in the machine, and we managed to find food.  First we visited a nice bakery, and got a couple small tarts.  They also offer sandwiches, but they closed around 4:30, which we didn't know.  A word of warning if you find yourself in a gite in this town that does not provide food - make a reservation at the restaurant.  There is only one in the town that we know of, and you need a reservation to eat there.  We were incredibly lucky that they had space for us, and fed us with only half an hour notice - otherwise we would have been hungry.

Today was long, wet, and full of challenges, including the greatest combined ascents (1139 m) and descents (1212 m) of this hike so far, but in the end we were continually very lucky and everything worked out okay.  As usual nothing happens on the Camino without reason, and if you give it some time things tend to work out - even if not in the fashion you would have originally planned.

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Practical Information:

Accommodations in Conques (night 2): Auberge Saint-Jacques

Stage: Conques to Livinhac-le-Haut

Distance: 25.8 km

Cumulative ascent: 1139 m

Cumulative descent: 1212 m

Max Temperature: 17˚C

Accommodations: Gite Communal