Day 7 Sunday 29th September 2013
It started to rain, heavily, on Saturday night. By midnight the sky was illuminated by sheet lightening. For most of the night rain pounded onto the roof like a stampede of wildebeest whilst night turned into day with a Son et Lumiere of nature's making. I'll admit it was a little scary, being in an exposed position at the edge of the 'field', close to, but not underneath trees but worryingly near to what had been a small fast running river the previous day. You read stories in the news about flash floods & we fully expected to be afloat in the morning.
On opening the blinds on Sunday morning, the sky was blue & the field, was well, green. No floods, no puddles, nothing. The site was, it turned out, on a free draining, sandy soil & the river very rarely flooded.
Seeing as it was a Sunday & the weather looked to be good plus the fact that we were suffering from a lack of sleep, we decided to stop here an extra night which would enable us to explore the immediate area by bike. The castle itself we had visited back in 2002 on a family holiday to the area.
With today's chore of clothes washing out of the way, l packed up a picnic of fresh bread, pate & some extra stinky goat's cheese, which is where my new purchase of wire bicycle came in useful, we peddled off down the tarmacked cycle trail down to the village of castelnaud en chapelle & the banks of the Dordogne.
So here we sat in the Autumn sunshine tucking into bread & pears whilst watching the world slowly float by. 'Grey Brigaders' negotiating the 'rapids', a golden retriever showing off his swimming skills, a group of English students wading across the river to an island before reloading their canoes with their belongings rammed tightly in waterproof containers & pushing off heading to, well no idea but guess they could, perhaps reach Bordeaux.
After lunch, with the weather still holding up, we headed back along the trail, past the camping site following the route further up the river valley for several miles. The path wove its way through picturesque villages with some very expensive looking holiday homes, past walnut orchards, small wild flower-filled paddocks of grazing Limousin cattle with calves at foot all very relaxing & peaceful.
On returning, we spent the remainder of the afternoon watching rock climbers dangle precariously from the rock face just above the wooded slopes opposite.
As evening approached, it began to rain but with none of the previous night's fireworks! When travelling, we try to keep abreast of the local weather forecast, & tonight's showed a large low pressure system swirling in across the Bay of Biscay heading for south west France, but, & it was a but, the weather looked OK further south down towards towards the Languedoc & Mediterranean.
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