The sun was just rising over Nogaro, shortly after 6o’clock this morning, when 60 walkers piled onto the coach that was to take us to Bidart, on the west coast, to walk a section of the Sentier Littoral, the coastal path. The weather forecasters got it wrong; instead of blue skies and sunshine, there was quite a bit of high cloud, but that kept it to a perfect temperature for walking.
On arrival, we split into 3 groups, doing different distances and I joined 23 others to do the 25km between Bidart and Hendaye, on the Spanish border. It was by no means a flat route as you climb up and down the undulating coastline, between meadows full of wild flowers, rocky outcrops, forests heavy with the scent of acacia and occasionally a bit of beach walking. We were never out of earshot of the sea and could hear the waves washing onto the shore, as well as the sound of countless cicadas in the fields and birds singing in the trees.
By the time we reached St. Jean de Luz, the halfway point, we were all hungry, particularly since we walked the length of the bay, past all the restaurants serving delicious-smelling food; so we found some benches and stopped to eat our picnic. Not for us a restaurant meal; we didn’t have time to hang about.
After lunch we set off once more, stopping briefly to look at the ancient fort and the lighthouse, before heading out of town along the well trodden path. By mid afternoon the sun had finally shown his face; as we walked through a beautiful deciduous forest, the dappled light through the trees, along with the sound of birdsong, gave the place quite a magical feel. We stopped to admire a Victorian era chateau before the descent into Hendaye, where the final kilometre of the route went along the beach; so we all took off boots and socks and paddled our way to where the coach was waiting for us. Everyone agreed it had been a grand day out!
Sadly, my camera stopped working part way through the morning; but Christian is going to send me his photos, so I’ll put them on this page when I receive them (probably not for a couple of weeks).
