Port An Dro to Hôtel Le Grand Large – 20th March 2024
Well today was hard. Hard I say. It started hard and just got harder. Then it rained on me and things got slippery, so harder still. In the afternoon the sun came out and made things much more pleasant. But some twat from the plane has infected me with Christ knows what. I’ve had to drug up. A nice woman coming towards me says ‘Bonjour’ as usual – in France the French are happy to say hello. Then follows it with. ‘You’re Irish aren’t you.’ Didn’t realise I had shamrock stigmata. Turns out she got the same taxi as me and the driver was filling her in and suggesting that she’d meet me on the trail.
The start at Port An Dro and it is defo going to rain on me. I have the raincoat on but it is not as warm as my fleece which is having a day off back in the hotel.The first of many dozens of little bays that I have to climb down into and climb up out of.Looking back on Port An Dro. I shall be much less happy-snappy today.The Pointe de skeul after which I turn north up the west side of the island back to the hotel.What? How? Every where I go there seems to be some twat who gets to build where ever he likes and F the environment, a sort of a ‘Give us a go on your wife and I’ll sort your planning application,’ thing, no doubt.Plage de Port Blanc and then the turn. Everything is wet and very dicey which slows me down even more.This guy just happens to have a cannon in his hedge.A wee look back. I didn’t say that I wouldn’t take any. How else am I going to remember where I’ve been when I’m struggling to remember the way to the toilet.You know. I don’t know. I’m having to do this the old way ‘cos the Internet is so slow on this island. As a result, I’m a day or two behind and I just can’t remember.To that furthest point and beyond.This is penis rock, I think.More loverly cliffs.A good woman this way comes. Unfortunately, she can’t be made out given the resolution of the upload. She’s on the path just to the left of the rocks to the left of that brown patch at high centre. She is searching for a face in the cliffs and though I showed her my pics I hadn’t been ‘careful enough with my watching.’ I’m sure something got lost in her translation.Okay, that was a slippery, slidey, mother F er.The very rare, wild, cliff-dwelling goat has blessed me.Closer but still so far away. I can just make out the light house in the distance.I really hate these ones where you have to go about a kilometre inland before you can get back out. I’ve had enough. Google says there is a coffee shop over the hill in the village so I’m going for a big sit down and a café au lait. Google lied to me! Jean-Claude Dogo and his sidekick Marcel Pupper where having a bit of a wrestle when I came strolling up the lane. They immediately abandoned the fight in order to escort me out of town. The problem was, they just wouldn’t go home.Three miles further on. I had thought that I was going to have the boys with me all the way back to the hotel so that I could get the receptionist to sort, but a kind woman has taken them off my hands. Marcel was particularly distraught but needs must and all that. I had thought that she was in this shot, poor woman, holding a snot dripping, squealing kid away from the edge and now hands full of Jean-Claude and Pupper. I hope that she copes. My ‘Chien perdu,’ was just enough to trigger her aid.Through the triangular window. It’s nice and warm and I’ve dried out.That head on the right was the one in the great distance all those miles ago when I despaired of ever reaching it.Plage de Kérel, last but one.The very welcome sight of the old hotel. One last dip to go.Hurrah. Last downz and upz of the whole west and north. Mind you, the path along the edge to the hotel was a bitch.
I think I was so tired because the lurgy was coming on and because I’d had such a hard first day. Well, we live and learn so we won’t be doing that again in a hurry.
