Towards The Mountains.: Carcassonne to near Arreau

August 7, 2015

The day dawns grey like it'll soon be raining. And I remember Ian the dour Scot staying in the hostel when I's here a year ago. Surely that guy is the same person, still here. Browner skin now than a year ago. The pale Scotch skin having tanned. The likeness is uncanny.

Ian having filled his tray at the breakfast counter, is now coming out to the courtyard to my table. He recognises me, perhaps.

"Can I sit here?" he asks. It isn't Ian. Ian wouldn't ask. He would sit down without saying a word. "Yes of course" I reply and he lays the tray on the table and at the same time pulls out a chair and is seated.

Close up I see certain differences, dark eyes and more talkative, which says surely not Ian.

"Martin" he says when we exchange names and adds "I'm from Argentina."

He tells me he started in Barcelona and is working his way north. Wants to visit Amsterdam because the Dutch girls are beautiful.

I tell him I'm cycling. I tell him five times I've cycled about eight-thousand kilometres. He keeps replying eight-hundred, in a way thinking he's misunderstood; and surely, eight-hundred is a realistic distance. But eight-thousand?

Then having understood he asks the usual questions I get asked. I answer mechanically, being tire of listening to my own voice like an old record say, "I ride eighty to ninety kilometres a day. I camp. And, haven't had problems with my bike yet, touch wood." It's getting nauseating. But Martin is a nice guy. Once I've finished, he says looking firmly ahead "You have now put an idea in my head" then looks at me and adds "I am going to do this myself, next time. When I return to Argentina, I will buy a bike and start training. Where I live is very flat: a thousand kilometres from the Andes to the west. Santa Fe.

The Auberge de Jeunesses in Carcassonne is a laidback place: check-out is eleven, so I waste an hour on the internet, eventually leaving just before ten.

I know the D113 south to Limoux from before, which is a bit hairy.

The sky is still dull with rain cloud low on the hills ahead and there's a few spots of rain on reaching town after nineteen kilometres.

If it does rain, it'll ruin my brakes and speed up the wear in my chain. It's just awkward when it rains.

I continue along a crowded pedestrian street to the central square where there's a market selling children's and women's clothes, rolls of fabric for making curtains, books and an assortment of household items.

As I write I'm sitting in a café on my second coffee seeing is it going to rain. While looking like it will, it is holding off.

It brightens up somewhat although remaining a day of full cloud cover. I continue on D618 southwest, gradually climbing all the way pass fields of tall maize, sunflowers and wooded hills.

Saint Benoit where the road swings left and climbs namesake col.

Looking the other way at the same spot as previous picture.

Doh-doh-doh, another tube bites the dusk. And another, and another tube, another tube bites the dusk.

Saturday

There's the patter of rain on the tent this morning and because of thick cloud cover I'm unaware of how late it is when I get out of the sleeping bag: looking at the watch, it has gone ten to nine. I quickly breakfast, pack and wheel the bike out from my Electricity France campsite shortly before ten.

There's ten kilometres more to Tarrason, a town where autoroute and other major roads converge. I follow signs for D618, or "Le Col du Portet" and shortly see a SuperU supermarket on the left just as there are spots of rain.

I shop for two days, tomorrow being Sunday. Once I've packed all on the bike, I return inside to buy a six-pack of snickers. When I return outside, the rain is hammering down.

I get going after ten minutes or so in the shelter of the supermarket front, the rain having eased leaving a wet sheen on the road. But starts to rain down rightly as the road climbs above tree level to where the hillside rising on my left is steep and bracken clad and disappears into low cloud further up. And up there I hear motorbikes one by one decelerating as each reach a hairpin bend. Then they drop out of the cloud zooming down a diagonal stretch across the bracken hillside to the next bend bringing them round and down toward me. Each wave on passing down supposedly at my bravery on such a miserable day.

Further the misty cloud rolls away as the rain lets up as I look to my right down upon switch-backs curving up the treeless hillside from below. And soon as the rain starts pelting down again, I reach the summit with a café and car park and tourist information office just as the road starts to dip down, where I wheel the bike into the sheltered veranda front. A young family are already lunching here, chatting about the ham and baguette they eat "le jambon......"

I open a can of cassoulet, lentils with sausages and lunch too. Presently, looking out thick white cloud has enveloped all and I can just about see the car park across the road as it continues raining and I know when I finish eating, I'll have to continue rather than get colder waiting here.

It doesn't feel too bad once I get going again. The descent is steep so I'm constantly touching the brakes causing a lot of wear in the splash on wet road. But it's warmer on the bike than back in that shelter.

Somewhere as the road gradient levels out the rain quits and soon I reach Masset with it's sixteenth century church's round belltower and gothic windowed chancel looking it's age with black and orange mould on crumbling plaster. The roof is new and doesn't quite fit with the rest of the edifice.

I stop at a café and sit under a parasol at the front.

Another cyclist on an old seventies fawn colour touring bike, travelling light with two ancient rear panniers and equally old bar-bag coming up the road rolls to a halt at the front. He has an unkempt ginger beard and goes inside where I hear him order in broken French, a sandwich. Then come out and takes a seat simultaneously with phone in hand logging onto wifi. He makes a phone call, speaking in Norwegian "Jeg star i fjell til sant." There's a pause then "Du finner son i skapet bak noen....." He'll be late and his wife or whoever is asking where something is. Once he finishes he sets off again.

The late afternoon has brighten up or maybe now I'm low down the rain hadn't been so bad here. The road has dried out. In Saint Girons I pull into Intermarche to buy more weekend supplies.

Then on the road onward the cloud come down again, And as I begin climbing Col du Aspet while looking out for a level spot in the forest to the side, it come on rain again. The sun to the west though is a hallo through the gloom.

Not far further I come to a track in off the road and the rain isn't as bad in under the trees where I'm off pushing up a rutted slope until I come to a level turning place with grass to the side where I quickly get the tent up.

This is the only time I took the camera out today.

Sunday

There is blue sky through the treetops when I open the tent first thing, which is late again and I don't get on the road until half nine.

The climbing continues where I left off: it is only the beginning and once I've passed through a small village, the road tilts up to ten per cent gradient, winding up round a serie of hairpin bends. Nearing the top a cyclist passes and shouts in French something to the effect, only a kilometre to go.

Crossing the summit at 1069m, the descent is steeper with sections of seventeen per cent, scary as my brakes aren't working too well after being chewed up in yesterday's rain. A few kilometres down with my front brake squealing holding me from running into a stone wall all along the outside on corners, I pull in upon a wide lea and tighten up the rear brake so it locks the wheel when pulled fully and also adjust the front brake so it squeals less.

I descent more coming to a tee at an angle, where the left is uphill to Luchon. I decide it better to go right, also straight on, downhill and have a day of flatter riding. And a few kilometres more I'm in Aspen where there's a Sunday morning market in the square. Every available space is laid out in stalls selling all sorts of household items. There are people walking around with newly purchased lamps and the like and there's also a stall selling locally produced cheese. I take an only seat left outside Cafe Francais. Many of the cliental are pension-age English couples and a band is preparing to play in a space to the side. I drink my usual two café creams while writing my diary.

The road on continues gently downhill, but because ahead there's a path of autoroute, busy roads and big towns, I turnoff left at a roundabout upon D26, two parallel lines and white between on my map. Turns out a good move as it meanders through low wooded hills with cow pasture and fields of maize and sunflowers in the valleys.

I lunch coming up on two o'clock at a roadside picnic area in the centre of a wide flat field dissected by the road, where I hang out my sleeping-bag and raincoat to dry.

Setting off again at half three I eventually come to those busy roads earlier mentioned and stubbornly remain on a shouldered N125, instead of turning left at a roundabout. From the next roundabout this road turns to autoroute, but there's the D8 alongside, which I lift the bike across the crash-barrier to. The D8 takes me astray, back east, and I spent time looking at the map until I find my bearing again getting on the right road.

On the way back I stop to get a photo of a farmer ploughing. A renewal of crop-cycle, turning over the stubble left after harvest in readiness for sowing a new crop.

I cross the Garonne river and climb the stiff uphill street of Montreieau town centre, taking me out upon D938 for twelve kilometre west, where at a roundabout, against looking at low cloud on the hills to the south, turn left on D929, a red road on the map and with a sign "Espagne par tunel", a road which will take me to the turning for Col du Aspin. I plan to camp before Arreau from where that road on the map twists off from, so I can buy food in the morning.

The traffic is not too bad, but it is heavily populated as well as rising ground on the right side and drops into a river on the left, making possible camping spots limited. But I come to a place without any houses near with a sloping hayfield on the right but level at the bottom where there are four round bales in a row parallel to the road. There is no gate barring entre and I ride off in and cross to the bales which will provide enough cover to hide my tent from the road.

Dairy Herd producing creamy milk for cheese making.

Today's ride: 280 km (174 miles)
Total: 8,333 km (5,175 miles)

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