Day 2 Saint-Gilles to Gallargues, 30 km

Long day for day 2, but everything feels fine! There is really only one thing to say about today: the wind was incredible, all day long, though it calmed down a bit in the afternoon. During the morning, the windspeed was around 50, gusts over 80. It was spectacular and annoying and scary, all at once. It is so noisy. The howling and the freight train noise and the noise of all the things blowing around or straining at their moorings. I wished sometimes I had noise cancelling headphones. I kept looking behind me because I thought there was a car coming, but of course it was just the wind. You can really see how people could inbue this force with personality and spirit. It presents with a lot of agency and has a lot of effect on the world around it. The times I walked down into a hollow or behind a thick hedgerow, it was instant relief.

This morning, the path made big zigzags across the countryside. So for a while, I was walking into the wind, which had its own ideas about how much ground I should cover. Then I would turn a corner, and get pushed sideways into some bushes or towards a canal. The few times the wind got behind me, I flew, trying to avoid puddles and deep ruts, not quite under control. Halfway through the day, my legs felt exhausted, not joints or any specific muscle, just legs, from, I think, having to work so hard to keep me vertical.

The scariest thing was walking alongside power lines. Instead of making nice straight lines between the poles, the wires were making huge, vibrating arcs over the track I was on. Which way would they fall when they snapped? You could have bodysurfed on the canal, where big swells were alternating with white caps. At one point a banana was blown out of my hand. But somehow birds — including the egrets I scared by a creek — still managed to fly. I spent the entire day with all the layers on.

The terrain was a bit more varied today. There were even a couple of small hills. A good size village for coffee and a bakery and a few benches.

Tonight I’m I’m staying in a chambre d’hôtes, like a BNB without the breakfast. Beautiful, beautiful stone house with covered patio and a courtyard terrace with a small pool. My room is huge with very good heat. Sunday evening in a small French town, pizza was the only option for dinner. But it was really good. Tomorrow is a tiny bit shorter and I will stay in a pilgrim gîte. I think probably with some other people.Read more