Tuesday 1^st October

Camped on a mixed arable farm tonight 80 miles south of the Pyrannees, the landscape here is changing to rolling hills with fairly steep valleys but the rivers are starting to run south to north coming off the mountains. We crossed the last of the big rivers running east to west when we crossed the Garrone and headed on down south.

The farm we are staying on grows soya beans, green lentils, sorghum, onions, garlic and sunflowers for sunflower oil and the white cattle that are all over the place. I cycled up to the top of the hill at the back of the farm and looked at the mountains to the south, some of the peaks are over 10,000 feet high and don’t look like they are over 80 miles away, I would love to be able to go down and climb them.

The farm is a couple of miles from the nearest village, Maubec that was founded in the 10^th century and is on the top of a hill with walls built on a limestone cliff around it. Most of it was destroyed when France was engaged in religious wars but quite a bit remains and it was very pretty like a lot of the perched villages and towns we have seen.

Autumn is definitely on the way here as the leaves are turning and the walnuts are falling and we can pick a basket load by the side of the road in no time. The sunflowers are looking a bit sorry for themselves though, some are still green but the majority that have not been harvested look black and shriveled with heads bowed instead of following the sun. I like the French name “Turnosol” which means flower that follows the sun.

Wednesday 2 October

Before setting off we bought some garlic, onions and lentils from Beatrice and Jean-Pierre Pointu the farmers and thanked them for letting us stay. Beatrice said they had only had two or three English camper vans all season which seems a pity as it was such a lovely spot.

We set off for Montgaillard with the intention of cycling around a trail relating to 17 ancient potters and their sites. We found the first no problem but after that got lost and cycled 12 miles around some very pretty country side in 30 degrees plus heat with some rather steep and long slopes and didn’t find sight nor  sound of a potter or pottery. We got by by scrumping figs, melons left in the field after the harvest and walnuts.

On the way to our next campsite we passed a small “Lavoir” in a village called Mauroux, it was a communal wash site built in 1550 and had a stone circle with a wooden roof and was fed by a small spring coming out of the hillside through two stone troughs. It was too good an opportunity to miss so saw two Brits dip their hot heads and feet in to cool off, the locals driving past must have thought us daft paddling about in their wash basin.

Tonight we are camped at Parleboscq on a farm that grows grapes, kiwi fruit and hazelnuts. On arrival the farmer met us and treated us to sampling the local Amangnac and wine, Kiwi fruit liquor and a very nice duck and mixed pepper and onion confit. Apparently it takes 10 kilos of Kiwi fruit to make half a litre of liquor. We had never seen Kiwis growing on trees before but they were full of large hard fruits that will ripen in another month or so.

After our tasting we went fossil hunting as there is a small cutting in the forest just behind where we camped that has shells and shark teeth dating back to the cretaceous period, we found lots of shells but unfortunately no shark teeth. This would have been an ideal place to have had Gareth and Leah with us as she has always been an expert fossil finder and I bet she’d have found a shark tooth. Gareth would have loved the site as we had a small irrigation pond next to us full of fish and as we got back to the van we noticed we have a neighbour a nice small Coypu who seems to like a tree stump about 20 feet from the van. We watched him swimming about whilst supping our beers and heard him calling as we settled down for the night. The following morning as we opened the curtains Viv spotted a Kingfisher sitting by the Coypu’s stump.

Cycling under the village walls of Maubec

The farm with mountains in the background

Sunflowers

Cooling off in the Lavoir