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16.07.08 Wednesday.
Marciac to Montaner via Maubourguet.
After breakfast from Rob Robinson at the great little campsite run by him and his wife, and advice as to possible next stops, and being very aware of the distance to be covered in order to meet up with our friend Graham with George the dog on Friday evening, we set off for Maubourguet. The first few miles took us through the usual mix of woods and field and past the chap in the photo who we heard long before we saw, sadly he did not want a walk to Spain.
There followed a slightly tedious bit across the floor of the valley of the Ardour river - notable as the most easterly river off the Pyrenees that does not join the Garronne but flows to the sea at Bayonne. We reached Maubourguet at lunch time and were fortunate to find one of those places that do a standard Menu du Jour with wine for 12€ , we sat at 12 05 bread, water, wine and a tureen of potage (veg soup) arrived almost immediately. After 2 helpings of that we then got a choice bayonne ham or egg basquaise followed by a main course of duck, steak or lamb chop with frites, followed by cheese or dessert. It was not surprising the place was full of everyone from the plasterers next to us to the Electricity de France men we later saw removing a high voltage insulator from a pylon, very sensibly they were not touching the wine.
After a very pleasant 2 hours we went back to the tourist office that had just closed when we arrived and tried to find, with help of a pleasant girl there, a campsite slightly closer to Tarbes where we are due to meet Graham - there is one Rob, and we think the one you were trying to remember, it’s in Montaner a very small Municipal right in front of the Mairie and next to the bar restaurant. It took us till 19:00 to get there, a bit over 25 miles but with a very sensible 10-12 miles to do tomorrow.
We had just missed the festivities at Montaner, as the previous weekend there had been a medieval weekend. The village boasts a large field on a hill which from the amount of horse droppings must have been fairly covered in horses, and a moated castle at the top of the hill. There were also recreations of medieval buildings at various intervals up the hill. It looks like we missed by just 3 days an exciting weekend, but I suppose if we had been earlier then the campsite would have been full rather than empty as it is.
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