16 oct

Walking in France is different than in England. There are no public footpaths. Actually, that is not true. There are public footpaths, but they are not marked. Which makes them useless.
I was going to take a walk that was advertised at the camping. 13,5 kilometres, a nice stroll around Saint Point. I even took a picture of the map that hang on a big billboard close to the lake. But the walk was signposted clearly, it said.
Well, maybe at one point in history it was signposted clearly. After about 5 minutes there was a post hanging loosely in a hedge. From the way it looked I had to go straight, but my photo indicated I should go right. I touched the post in the hedge a little bit and it magically turned right.
After another five minutes, I was almost on top of the hill, there were regular signposts for the little hamlets that were on my way. I had to go to Les Bertolles, so I took that direction, but sadly realised there were not even ‘Walk’ signposts anymore that could even guide me in the wrong direction.
Pretty soon the path had a left turn and a right turn. Without posts. I felt like the Robert Frost poem, The road not taken. I realised there would be miles to go before I could even think of sleep.
I walked and walked. A nice road. In the woods left and right there were plenty of mushrooms. Pity I do not have a clue which ones are eatable. I found a nice walking stick that just needs a little sanding around the rough edges.
But no signs. At one point there was a sharp turn to the left in the road. Straight on was a nice footpath into the woods. That’s the one I took. It was a mistake. After a while the nice sandy footpath became a little grassy, a little farther little beech trees started to grow on the path. Never a good sign in a forest, little trees on your path. The little trees became larger and suddenly there was no path anymore. I heard a road in the distance, which I imagined to be the road to Tramayes, but for the rest I didn’t have a clue where I was. I decided to go east. When lost, it is always good to stick to one direction, I decided.
Suddenly, in the middle of this forest – not a jungle, but large and dense enough to have no clue where it would end – there was a man made wall. Why on earth would anybody build a wall in a forest? To keep the deer at one side of the fence? Maybe to keep the wild boars separate? It was probably a battle over boundaries, I decided. Maybe one from centuries ago, the moss on the stones indicated some antiquity.

Thinking about boars made me ruminate about Asterix and Obelix. They love to eat wild boars. Asterix sticks to a nice piece of ham, Obelix always attacks the whole animal. Which made me realize for the first times that these boars are drawn way out of proportion in the cartoons. I mean, Obelix is strong of course, having fallen as a baby in the cattle with magic drink, but even his arms would not be long enough to grab a whole boar and eat it like the leg of a little chicken. Anyway, I was not looking forward to meeting a boar, they’re mean, big and fast.
I decided to follow the wall, giving up on wind directions. But as sudden as the wall began, it ended. The boundary issues must have been solved, somehow. But it was not the end of the woods, so I returned to walking east. After a while, I must have been in the forest for a good half hour, there was a clear path again, with prints of hooves of horses on it. Now that is a good sign. I started following it and suddenly saw a glimpse of our lake. It took another half hour to get there, but time goes much faster when you know where you are going than when lost.
I started thinking that finding my way through France, next year, might not be as easy as I imagined. I will have to go and find an app for the Camino. Otherwise the 1000 kilometres in France might easily end up being double that amount. Which is not a thing to look forward to.