Joanne's long walks: Italy to Santiago II Part 1: Via Domitia Day 24 La Motte du Caire

Life is now, this minute, it's all we have. It's all we need.

- Raynor Winn, The Salt Path (2018)

If you've ever done any walking on the GR long-distance walking trails of France, you may, like me, have wondered whether "GR" doesn't actually stand for "Go Round". I can just imagine the good people of the Fédération Française de la Randonnée Pédestre sitting down round a table at their annual meeting, getting out a map of France, and plotting out the longest possible route from A to B.

This morning's walk from La Motte du Caire to Nibles would have taken me climbing 250 metres up into the hills, only to come back down and rejoin the road in the bottom of the valley. When I came out of the village of La Motte du Caire and saw a road sign indicating 8 kilometres to Nibles, and a GR trail marker indicating 12 kilometres to Nibles, I had no hesitations about choosing the road! In order to minimise highway walking, I had decided to leave the town along a small road through the apple orchards to Le Plan. Le Plan sounded like a nice flat place, and it quickly became My Plan; from there I would follow highway D951 the rest of the way into Nibles, where I hoped to find some nibbles (to carry on with the place-name puns... my apologies to my Italian followers if the puns don't work in translation!)

When I came to the little road to Le Plan, I saw that it was signposted as a hiking route, albeit a secondary one, with yellow waymarkers; this reinforced my conviction that I had made the right decision.

What the Grande Randonnée people wanted me to do, vs. what I actually did!

I have mostly been faithful to the Grande Randonnée route of the GR 653D on this walk, leaving it only a few times to take a shortcut along a road for the final few kilometres into a town (and often by mistake, not intentionally). So I didn't feel too bad about staying down in the valley this morning. In fact, I felt rather smug, walking my flat, easy path through the orchards to Le Plan while gazing up at the hilltops high above, where I would have been had I followed the GR!

There would have been one advantage to walking on the hilltops, however; at least they were in the sunshine. The valley was entirely in the shade, and there was frost on the grass. My fingertips were too cold to activate my phone, but the route was straightforward so I put it away in my waist pack, tucked my hiking poles under my arm and shoved my hands deep into my jacket pockets.

When the sun finally shone through a gap in the hills to the east, the frost on the grass sparkled; it was like walking across a field of diamonds! It is moments like this that I walk for.

At Le Plan my little road fizzled out, and there was no alternative to walking four kilometres along the D951. But D-roads in France are small, local highways, which are usually all right for walking; this one had a broad grassy verge most of the way, and even a roadside picnic spot with tables and a drinking fountain! It narrowed in a couple of places, as in a bend in the river, where however signs warning of roadworks and a lowered speed limit ensured that no-one would come tearing around the corner at full speed. There was no work actually taking place, but the warning signs worked in my favour. I was wearing the bright orange high-vis vest I had been given at the Abbaye de Boscodon - I figured I might as well use it, having carried it all this way, over all those mountains!

There turned out to be no nibbles in Nibles, though the locals had come up with a pun of their own, that only works in French 😁

I sat in the sunshine in front of the little church thawing out, until I felt quite hot and decided to go on my way.

My idea had been to follow this road for 25 kilometres, all the way to Sisteron, thus getting a day ahead of my original plan. But Sylvie of the Amis de Saint-Jacques discouraged me, saying there would be more traffic further down the road and it would be a pity not to take the scenic route, and not to stop and visit the nuns in Châteaufort. She went ahead and contacted the nuns on my behalf, so that was that! Two easy days of walking to Sisteron, rather than one long and boring day walking 25 kilometres along the highway.

I had seen sheep, and sheepdogs, across the valley from my stopping-place in Nibles, but I wasn't too worried as sheep and their sheepdogs are normally kept in enclosed fields in France, unlike Italy, where you are sometimes liable to find them right on the path. These enclosures may appear flimsy, but they are electrified, making them an efficient barrier for animals of all kinds. As I walked across the fields, following the official GR route again now, I saw a man laying out new fencing across the pasture. While simultaneously training his dogs, apparently; he kept shouting commands at them. I called out Bonjour! and waved, but both man and dogs ignored me.

There's a man under that roll of electric fencing

I made my way uphill to Châteaufort, where I left the GR once again to follow the winding road up to the convent of Les Sœurs Contemplatives de Saint-Jean. The day turned out to be a splendid one, and the views back toward Châteaufort were amazing.

I had been told that before reaching the nuns, I would come across the monks, so when I saw a little church beside the road I knew I had come to the monastery of the Frères de Saint-Jean. Hearing chanting inside the chapel, I opened the heavy wooden door, went in and took a seat at the back. Two elderly monks, hidden from view in the transept, were chanting the rosary; two women wrapped in woollen shawls joined in. The door opened and in came a nun, bearing a large wooden staff; she genuflected, sat down and joined in the prayers. I could have been transported back to the Middle Ages! I closed my eyes and listened to the rhythmic chanting; when I opened them again, a bearded and robed figure was leaning over me, smiling and holding out a large hand, which he placed on my shoulder. It was one of the monks. "Are you just passing through?" he asked me in a whisper, over the prayers. "I am walking the Chemin de Compostelle," I whispered back. "I am going to stay with the nuns today." The monk nodded and disappeared through a door marked "Frères seulement".

When the prayers were over and we were back outside in the sunshine, the women who had made up the little congregation all flocked round and asked if I was going to Compostelle. We chatted and had a photo taken together before I continued on up the road. The nun (Soeur Colette) offered me a lift, but I told her I would walk as it was such a beautiful day and the convent was not far away.

Sister Colette and another woman from the congregation passed me in a four-wheel drive on the rocky road up to the convent. I waved and carried on up the road, passing below yet another fascinating rock formation (I do wish I had my geologist friends with me!).

Following the nun's instructions (and my GPS track), I turned onto a smaller dirt track and then cut through the nuns' vegetable plot and lavender garden towards the convent. The sœur hóspitaliere greeted me by name through the window and came out to meet me and show me to my room in the guesthouse beside the chapel. She showed me all the rooms and facilities I could use and, since it was lunch time, offered to bring me some things to add to the meal I was planning to make. I boiled the last of my lentils with some rice I found in a cupboard in the refectory, and fried a couple of eggs to put on top; I made a salad with lettuce, tomato and cooked green beans the nun had brought me, along with fresh bread, a basket of fruit, yogurt and pudding. Then I made myself a cup of tea and walked up the hill to sit in a sunny lavender patch a little way above the convent writing up this account, as there is no phone signal or Internet reception in the convent itself.