Pilgrim's Progress – Long Distance Walks in Europe and the UK

Life is a marathon, not a sprint and in the end the race is only against yourself.

It is only when you walk 43km (or 26 miles) that you realise what a superhuman effort running a marathon entails. I ran the London Marathon nearly 20 years ago in 2005. It was gruelling and not hugely enjoyable. Even if my body was up to it, I can’t think of many things I’d like to do less nowadays than running another marathon!

Walking a marathon though is an entirely different kettle of fish to running one. Although today was a long one (almost 11 hours of, at times, lung busting ascents) and I did have the occasional twinge in my calf muscles it was incomparably more enjoyable than running the London Marathon in 2005 where I suffered the ultimate indignity in the closing stages, of being overtaken by a man dressed up as a public lavatory!

Before heading off after breakfast it was time for a group photo. Nicholas, the owner of the gite, was mightily impressed with my thumb stick. So much so that he insisted I take a photo of him standing next to it!

It would have been easy to spend the morning in Nicholas’ genial company hearing about his pilgrim encounters. Sadly time was of the essence with 40km to my night’s accommodation near the col de la Bûche. So with a heavy heart, I bade farewell to Nicholas and the four other French pilgrims I shared the gite with, and headed on my way.

Ouroux (4km from St Jacques-des-Ârret) has a funny name but a long history. Originally a Roman settlement, its name derives from the Latin oratorium – a place of worship. Apparently Louis IX passed through the village on his way to the Crusades in Egypt. There is meant to be a window commemorating the event in the church. Sadly it was being repaired and I couldn’t get it in to see it. Instead I popped into the village bakery for a pain au chocolat to speed me on my way.

The morning passed agreably apart from my taking another wrong turning which must have added 3km to the day’s walk. I didn’t encounter any pilgrims but there were a lot of trail riders out and about.

When I reached the col de Crie at around midday I began to panic slightly. Thanks to my detour, I’d only covered 12km of the route in 4 hours. I had another 28km to go – if I repeated my morning’s progress, I’d be lucky to get to my host’s house by midnight and would probably be less than welcome, particularly as he (Gilbert) had kindly offered to pick me up in his car and ferry me 3km down the valley to his house! It was time to turn the afterburners on and raise my game!

At Mount Rigaud I came across a holy spring that was meant to cure all manner of maladies. The spring water was refreshingly cold and delicious. I filled both water bottles to the brim!

Thankfully I managed to cover the 12km to Propières in 2hrs 45mins, somewhat faster than the 4hrs 30mins that my guidebook suggested it would take me. En route I sped through the inauspiciously named hamlet of ‘Le Mort’, not wanting to tempt fate unnecessarily!

Although the village bakery was closed by the time I arrived mid afternoon, there was a supermarket which sold all sorts of tempting local produce. I plumped for a ham sandwich and another large bottle of diet coke.

The final three and a half hours to the col de la Bûche were a bit of a slog involving quite a few lung busting ascents that I could have done without. My previous night at the gite l’Oreille du Pèlerin had been spent on a bone hard 5ft 6inch sofa that wasn’t designed for easy slumber and after nearly 11 hours walking I was beginning to feel like a robot on autopilot in urgent need of an overhaul.  

At 6 45pm I finally reached my destination for the day and sent Gilbert an SMS to come and pick me up.

Gilbert took me down to his farmhouse to meet his son, dogs and wife. Over a beer in the courtyard, Gilbert explained how he’d come to buy and renovate the farmhouse after a peripatetic career in the military. Gilbert had been on quite a few pilgrimages including Compostella and Mont St Michael. An active member of the local pilgrim host family community, he was also busy ensuring that waymarking on the trail was well maintained.

Over supper we chatted about long distance walking, dogs and family. The perfect end to a marathon day’s walk!