Pléneuf to St Brieuc – Just Like the Rain

Thanks Richard.

Christ it was wet last night. It started a bit when we walked up to the site after dinner but then it was a 14 hour downfall. We fell asleep to the rain, and we woke up to the rain. The noise on the canvas was intense. We were camped two or three metres apart but we had to communicate by telephone, and we decided to stay in bed and sit it out. At 10.30am I rang Tone and said that we needed to be packing, which we did under cover. The rain eased and she shot off to the showers. At that point it was dry enough to take Wilson and the tent down, which I did, and carry both with my rucksack and Antonia’s to the shower block. There I dried the canvas out a bit under the hand dryer and we packed them up. What a good chap I am? Better be ‘yes’ or you’ve had it fathead! 

Taking off at 11.30 we had an early coffee, burger and merguez sausages with chips in an open stall before short cutting across country. The coastal path would be muddy, slippery, tiring and dangerous in these conditions. It was reasonably dry now generally in the open air with occasional light showers. 

The route took us down to a ford with an ancient rock slab across it.

We pushed on, beyond the available campsites, and were aiming for a cheap hotel or a campsite in St Brieuc, the end of mine and Antonia’s journey together. In view of the deluges that we had, luckily largely avoided, and which were forecast for the next 48 hours, we aimed for a hotel.

Our route took us across a gorge, fed by a dammed lake. There was a footbridge across the gorge and a road bridge over the dam.

Footbridge.

View downstream from the road bridge towards where I was standing in the previous photo.

The next three hours were yomping with our rucksacks to get to a pmu bar for coffee and beer for Tone and me respectively. Then a 1.5 kilometre detour to a supermarket for dinner, and a three and a half kms slog uphill to the Premiere Classe Hotel. Past the fields of barley (or summat else cereal).

We ate a great meal on a bed in the hotel, including the usual grated carrots and celeri, plus bread and seafood tapas. Kismet Hardy. And as it rained outside we slept inside. Cop that!

Night night.