La Cheylard — La Bastide PuyLaurent.                                                                                                   It has rained all night and is still doing so when we surface at 7am. After the jollity of  last night everyone was concerned with today’s forecast. We watched as people left, clad in French ponchos, disappeared into the mist and rain only for some to return and capitulate to a taxi. We had met our first walker with a donkey at the gite last night and waved them off with a ‘bon chance’  It was with disappointment that as we left the village even they were sadly returning. Us Brits  are made of sterner stuff and we were soon  making good progress through the wet forest tracks. The other English couple caught us up and conversation kept us going until Luc  castle ruins. With parts dating from the 12 th century the hill top site was a highlight and a joy to explore . The climb up the tower allowed us to walk round the base of the Madonna statue erected in the same year RLS made his journey, 1878. It was on this stage he wrote  —   “I travel not to anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The  great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off the featherbed of civilisation, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints”   Walking cannot really be said to be the same in this century no matter how hard you try. Within minutes we were out of the rain drinking coffee in an old hotel, they even allowed us to eat our sandwiches in comfort.  Boring road walking took us past a 50s  building, possibly an old holiday camp. I would not have fancied staying there. Much better was our hotel for the night…