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01.06.08
Sunday Port Brillet to Laval or St Pierre le Potier just south.
Comfortable night spent out of the rain in the Auberge, started walking at 08:00 after le petit dejuener. Got a different baguette from the boulangerie opposite, with seeds (Les Grivels I think) very good for lunch.
Tony got fairly stressed when his HTC Kaiser (phone, pda, gps, camera et al) refused to boot up at the start of the route, but after much bad language, and a phone call home to discover how to do a hard reset on the device (how can you press all those buttons with only 1 pair of hands), he finally got the machine going again and all the software reloaded. It’s amazing what you can do when you are walking along.
Uneventful walking along green lanes paralleling the main line into Laval, until I was startled (Tim) by the TGV to Laval that crept up behind me, I thought I was being run over.
At one point the pathway did a detour of ½ mile or so to get over the A81 autoroute. Why? The path was there first! Why wasn’t there a suitable bridge over the motorway similar to the superb bridge that takes the Pennine Way over the M62 in Yorkshire?
We walked through Laval and down the River Mayenne which is navigable with quite large locks and weirs and a superb chateau close to the river.
Our first choice campsite had closed - taken over by a Macdonalds and a van sales yard - such is progress. We also chose to sit in a bus shelter like 2 vagrants for 15 minutes or so when the rain got particularly heavy while waiting for the rain to ease. Why does the 2 km you don’t feel you should have to do feel the worst?
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