In Reverse

Day 6 - Monday, 30 September 2024 - Nasbinals to Saint-Chely-d' Aubrac (Bonnefon) - somewhere around 20 klms Total to date ~138.6 klms.

Life can only be understood backwards, but must be lived forwards [Søren Kierkegaard]

Sometimes truth is way way weirder than fiction. Today was a day of adventure - nay misadventure - that was beyond planning.

But even before the mis/adventure, today's title - In Reverse - was totally prescient. I had decided on the title and the quote from Kierkegaard very early, based on a previous discussion; nothing to do with how things actually panned out.

Here the day in summary. We left Nasbinals at 10am - a planned departure because today was in theory a very short and easy day. (And I reinforce yesterday's comment that Nasbinals is a lovely town, as was our accommodation last night.) About 3 klms out of Nasbinals the road comes to a t-junction - a right turn is the official path to Aubrac whilst a left is the variation for anyone who is walking with their dog. Janet and Trish were a little ahead of me and so I did not see them turn. I turned right and perhaps half a klm onwards realised that they were indeed not ahead of me. No problems; a quick call ascertained that they'd turned left, and that we'd all end up in Aubrac a little over an hour later.

The walk through the hills into Aubrac was quite solitary, and what that meant was that I spent an hour and a half or so just wandering along by myself. I find that this time alone on the path allows one to think about the important things in life; that's one of the great benefits of a camino. In my case nothing is/was planned, just what pops up. Today my thoughts turned to my relationship with my daughter. Those of you who know me very well know much of the story and I’m not going to get into it here other than to say that it remains a point of great sadness for me. I guess when important things go awry it's pretty natural to ask oneself "where did I go wrong?" and "how might I have played things differently?". So the hour or so wandering through the hills were spent just pondering those questions; trying to "understand life backwards" as it were (and remember, none of this was planned).

All the same it was a beautiful walk though, as today's photos will show.

I arrived into Aubrac at around 12:15 (not bad timing for a 9 klm walk), and went looking for the girls. Nowhere to be seen. I knew I'd made good time so I wandered and waited. But after 10 minutes they were nowhere in sight so I called - "we'll be there soon" was the answer. Another 10 minutes, another call. Ahh.

In what I suspect will remain one of life's great mysteries, they had circled back, literally, ending up in a deserted town 4.5 klms north of where we'd started. Instead of just about to come into view they were now some 12 klms away from me and where they were supposed to be. How far they'd actually walked in circles is anyone's guess. See the map below to get a sense of the end point:

So I really do marvel at my prescient "in reverse" title which had been decided, and written down, some hours earlier. And despite my initial emotional reactions to the situation we'll laugh about all this one day. The solution was: them - hitchhike back into Nasbinals, go to the bar, charge phones (there'd been a lot of power-sucking video calls), catch a cab to tonight's accommodation; me - walk the rest of the way and eventually meet up. I got in around 4:30 - they'd been here for a hour or so. (There's actually a bit more to the story, but I won't complicate it further, so that'll do.)

So without further commentary, today's photos:

Snow shoes needed

The last sighting before the deviation ...

In one of the many forest walks

Mixing it with the beasts ...

Reminded me of roaming the ancestral moors ...

I think this was a very fancy gite, just out of Aubrac.

The monastery and surrounds at Aubrac.

The next few are just a selection from the rest of the path today:

Lastly, here's a few from Bonnefon, where we are putting our heads down for the night, a somewhat strangely deserted town:

In closing I won't tempt fate by making any comments about the ease or otherwise of tomorrow's walk. It's only 16klms, but then so was today meant to be ....

(And here's a ps if anyone gets this far. I received some technical feedback from a reader (thanks Steve) that his anti-virus software is flagging this page/blog as containing suspicious links when I hyperlink something. To the best of my knowledge the page is safe and none of the links are dangerous. Please let me know if you have any problems.)