After a simple breakfast, and buying GR70 tee-shirts (amazingly we didn’t see them for sale anywhere else during our eleven-day hike), we were out of the door at the auberge before nine o’clock.

Leaving Le Bouchet-Saint-Nicholas, the sky came down to meet the land; the pastures disappearing into the swirling mist some 50 to 100 metres away brought Bodmin Moor to mind. It was cold, there was a stiff breeze.

But the clouds soon lifted and we could once again enjoy the puy-pocked landscape. We were walking south-east, slightly downhill on an earthen track. So progress was pretty good by our standards. We were soon approaching Landos; on its outskirts stood Le Pont de Castier, an old hump-backed bridge travelling nowhere, crossing nothing but grass – presumably it’s a reminder of days gone by.

The village itself looked affluent and well-scrubbed with a spacious square upon which stood a pharmacy, two café-bars, a small supermarket and public toilets. We entered Chez Mimi, bedecked with the colours and paraphernalia of the village’s football team. It was a busy, friendly establishment; a great spot for a coffee break.

Our walk would follow a south-easterly direction all day, and after Landos came the hamlets of Jagonas and then Arquejols. This was farming country with cattle and fields of alf-alfa with a low density of human population. After the latter settlement, we dropped into a valley dominated by the impressive Arquejols viaduct – a great sweep of stone and mortar arches, carrying the railway which runs from Puy-en-Velay to Langogne.

The climb out of the viaduct valley was a beast, mainly because of a crosswind blowing from the south-west. We looked for and found a stretch of hedgerow and sat on the grass on its leeward side to eat our packed lunches. You will note from the map above that I discovered at this lunch break that my GPS tracker had given up at some point before Jagonas. I reconnected, but the intervening kilometres had been lost The tracking device improvised by producing a straight line to cover this lost portion!

The rest of the wind-blasted walk eventually took us into woodland and a bit of shelter. From here, the dirt road leading to Pradelles had been churned up by lorries transporting timber, which slowed us down. But it wasn’t long before we could see Pradelles, renowned as one of France’s most beautiful villages. The woodland and its very muddy track gave way to a tarmac road. This lead us right into Pradelles and the unprepossessing facade of Hotel Le Ponant, our place of repose for the night.

We had been allocated a room on the 3rd floor, up in the roof. Despite the effort involved in carrying our luggage up the narrow stairwell (there wasn’t a lift), we were frozen. Our room was just as cold. The lady concierge set the tiny electric heater to its maximum – 28.5c, but it didn’t seem to have much effect.

So, wrapped up, we went out to explore, and soon stumbled across a bar/café “Le Renaissance”. La maîtresse didn’t seem keen on our custom, but we stuck to our guns and ordered a couple of beers. We took them upstairs and fell into conversation with Fabienne, a teacher from Brussels, who we recognised from our previous evening at Le Bouchet. She was hiking the RLS Way solo and without proper walking boots into the bargain. She told us that she had been greatly influenced by a film, “Antoinette dans Les Cévennes” and obviously identified with the heroine and her plight. Fabienne was trying to walk away from heartache (and if that isn’t the title of a country song, it damn well should be).

We meandered through the village which was clearly steeped in an eventful history; but at the present it seemed to be struggling: properties for sale, shops permanently closed, signs of dereliction and neglect. The little village supermarket, “Vival”, was empty. The young man behind the till looked bored. We bought a bottle of water costing less than a Euro.

We returned to Le Ponant for our 7p.m. supper. The dining room was slightly warmer than our bedroom, but the food was bland. The entrée was a salade de lentilles, but it was just a plate of lentils! I found a sliver of onion and a bay leaf, but it was really just lentils. The room’s only customers were, like us, hikers on the RLS Way; the lack of warmth and the uninspiring fare produced a fair bit of gallows humour. A gentleman sneaked out and returned with a bottle of brandy hidden in a brown paper bag. But it was nigh impossible to create a joie de vivre; by ten to eight, the dining room had emptied.

Back in our chambre, I discovered a “boost” button on the electric heater. This seemed to work, and for an hour or so, it produced a modicum of thaw. We slept in our pullovers. Hotel Le Ponant! We’ll never forget you!