Day 10. September 3, 2026. Villedieu-les-Poêlles to La Haye-Pesnel 20 kms

 The clump of my feet and the clang of my poles

Are the sounds that I hear as I march to my goal, 

The occasional rumble from far away farms

And the murmuring  dove are part of the charm.

I set out as the church bell struck nine. I wish I could convey the sound of the church bells in France. This is the best I can do:

Booooooiiiiiiinnnnnnggggggg!

Today I determined to follow the Chemin de Caen. It was lonely and peaceful. I ambled along minor roads, farm tracks, country lanes and ancient stony ways through the Bocage.

To begin the day I walked along a very old path indeed, medieval, certainly,perhaps even Roman, for I walked over some very large,smooth flagstones  that formed the base of the old road.

Happily the trail was well sign posted. Along with tblue balise of the Mont there were the horizontal stripes of the local randonné, which was also called le Chemin du Mont-Saint-Michel.

I walked along country roads with fields of corn stubble stretching out across the valley, the only sounds the clump of my feet and  clank of my poles and the occasional cooing of a dove. And I passed dairy farms where the bespectacled vaches normandes gazed at me curiously. I passed an old well and an ancient lavabo where a farming family must have done its washing for centuries.

A little lost dog ran past me and then turned around and came running back.  Happily he disappeared ahead, and I hope he found his way hom. In the past they have attached themselves to me and followed me all day. Once I did everything possible to lose my new companion for I worried about leading him too far from home and into traffic. I tried hiding, hoping he would abandon me, but all to no avail. I arrived  at a town, and was wondering what to do because I was about to cross the highway, when a lady yelled from a house: “Don’t worry I’ll phone his mistress. He does this all the time.”

Yesterday I plodded and trudged. Today I ambled in glorious peace and solitude. I once had a bet with a Norwegian woman that there were more words for walking in English, than in Norwegian. I was thinking of the public footpaths in England and the episodes of walking in English novels. But I lost.

I was glad that I had walked all the way on the Chemin and had taken no short cuts, even when it took a detour around three sides of a rectangle and forced me to wait a little longer for a cold beer.  It is worth walking 20 kms to earn a Leffe at the end of the day. And there is nothing, absolutely nothing like the first long swig

Day 9. September 2, 2026. Saint-Sever-Calvados à Villedieu-les-Poêlles. 24 kms

 I only want a little bit of butter for my bread (A. A. Milne)

Mishaps occur in threes, don’t they? If so, it is smooth sailing for the next few days.

I set out without breakfast this morning, hoping to have a croissant and a coffee in town. My landlady had promised me bread, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. I think she was a little confused. She had expected me the day before my arrival.

According to Apple Maps, my way to town was clear: continue down Beauregard Road, turn left and then right onto a track through the woods. Le Sever Calvados, it said. A delightful trail down into the woods along the creek, and then the climb to end all climbs, one of those climbs that actually get longer as you climb. Finally, I arrived at what should have been the town, but no, it was a wide forest track, obviously a fire break of some kind, and I continued for a while, quite lost. Then I realized that I was in the forest of Saint Sever Calvados, not the town. My coffee and croissant were far out of reach. 

So I sat down and ate a literal crust of bread, three days old, and the exercise in chewing it would have nullified the calories consumed.

The third mishap occurred soon after, but it’s too embarrassing and too boring to recount in detail. In brief, I discovered a marker for the Chemin but after several kilometres I found myself in the middle of the forest without an Internet connection, and thought it safer to return to the village. So I drank my café creme, and as the church bells chimed eleven, and having already walked nine kilometres, I began again.

As I left the café I was encouraged by a local gentleman who was interested in what I was doing. When I told him I was walking for 15 kilometres along the road to Villedieu-les-Poelles, he said it was a very busy road. “Beaucoup de circulation. On roule très mal en Calvados.” A true Norman!

But as I walked out of town, my spirits revived: the sun was shining, and I was walking into a cool breeze. Things could only look up.

I passed in quick succession the remains of three creatures who had tried in vain to cross the road. A bird, a cat and the hedgehog. Busy traffic indeed!

Ode to a Hedgehog

Hale to thee, unhappy Hedgehog,

Cut down before thy time.

Hadst thou but stayed among the sedge, Hog,

I'd not have penned this rhyme.

Thou must have spied a tasty snack

And ventured on the road,

But then there came a mighty whack,

By Fate on thee bestowed.

Hadst thou but crawled into the ditch

To find thyself a bite,

Then life would not be such a bitch,

And things would be all right.

There is a moral to this tale

From which we all can learn:

We well may seek the Holy Grail,

But end up in an Urn. (From a former walk)

I’ve also been passing little piles of black scat. Perhaps the foxes have been eating blackberries.

And apart from the scat, there have been interesting things to see along the way: little tracks leading off into the bocage, avenues of trees, stately oaks, cords of wood neatly stacked for winter, bales of hay, old stone houses, fields of corn already harvested and yet to be harvested, and lots of cows, including the bespectacled vache normande. And I passed a tractor idling by the side of the road with no driver in sight. I could easily have commandeered it and ridden in style to Villedieu.

Finally, I arrived, and am staying at the Hotel Saint-Pierre.

Day 8. September 1, 2026. Beny Bocage to Saint-Sever-Calvados. 27 kms

Shades of the prison house

Begin to close upon the growing boy (Wordsworth)

 

Yes, that’s me, walking down a sunken  lane typical of the Bocage region in Normandy. These old rights of way are bordered by hedges and sunk below the level of the neighbouring fields. According to Jean, my host at the gîte, they were constructed in medieval times by the paysans who would dig down to solid ground to provide a road for their masters’ horses and carts.  It became their responsibility to keep the road open by heaping the dirt high on either side. And they didn’t want to look bad. Imagine if their stretch of the lane was blocked!

Jean accompanied me for a few kilometres along the lane, and then pointed me in the right direction to the only village with a bar en route.

After seven kilometres I arrived at the village of Etouvy to the sound of a hundred children at the elementary schoolyard screaming and running madly in every direction. Usually in a schoolyard at playtime, as well as the kids running around you see smaller groups strolling about, and one or two loners, but not here. Perhaps they were excited to be back at school. Or not. Whatever their motivation, they were happy, energized kids, every one of them. I refrain from commenting on electronic distractions.

I went into the bar for my usual café creme, for this was the only café en route, and then, as I left, occurred one of those petits contretemps that can throw the best laid plans astray. 

I turned on my phone to consult the map and I found that I had no Internet connection. Bloody hell, I thought I’ve run out of data. But how can I get some more if I can’t connect with my mobile phone provider. I had to find Wi-Fi.

I returned to the bar. No luck. I tried the boulangerie. No luck. I walked half a kilometre to the mairie. Not open. I tried the rec centre. Not open. I returned to the centre. My only other option was a beauty salon, and there I found two delightful women who were only too anxious to help. First, they had to find the password, and when they succeeded after ten minutes of searching, it was about 300 characters long. I tried. No luck, so one of the ladies did it for me and I was able to contact my provider. But I wasn’t out of data at all. I had loads left, so I did what I should have done in the first place: I turned off my phone and turned it on again, and lo and behold I had an Internet connection. The moral of the story is not hard to find. I said to the kind ladies if I had any hair, I would let them cut it in recompense.

During our conversation, the ladies at the salon had wondered if I was walking along la voie verte. No, I said, I will be trying to find the Chemin de Caen. But as I walked out of town, I came upon the voie verte: a pedestrian and cycle path along a disused railway line with a sign which said Mont Saint Michel, my ultimate destination. And did it pass through Saint-Sever-Calvados, I asked a cyclist sitting on an a bench? Yes, she said. Wary of going astray, I confirmed this with everyone I passed. Yes, it goes to Vire and then, Saint-Sever. A disused railway line is the easiest path of all. No hills.

I arrived at Vire. I passed through the town and found the voie verte again. Saint-Sever-Calvados, 21 kms, said the sign. Indeed the old railway line had served Saint Sever, but it must have taken a detour to serve an important town or person along the way. I was only 10 kms from my destination by the highway so I had no choice but to walk along the road. Thus my day which had begun with a glorious hike, ended with a miserable trudge. 

Day 7. Saint-Jean-le-Blanc to Beny Bocage. August 31, 2026. 18 kms

My heart leaps up when I behold

A church spire in the sky (apologies to WW).

I set out early this morning, having awoken at five o’clock. It was another windy day, and as I left town, the sun dipped between the moving clouds and lit up the landscape, first the far row of trees, and then the next, and then the next, and the fields in between, but this lighting of the landscape could only last a moment, for soon the heavy clouds prevailed. A magical moment!

I spied a couple of deer ahead of me, and when they saw me, unlike their Victoria cousins who march slowly across the street expecting the traffic to wait for them, these timid creatures frantically bounded away in opposite directions. 

And then I came upon the Mont-Saint-Michel marker, the first I had seen since starting out yesterday. This sent me down a long and leafy lane, green above and brown below, and into a valley and along a creek. This was the most pleasant stretch of the day, but when I reached the road there was no marker to be seen.

For the rest of the day I walked along the roads, passing  fields of corn, and in the afternoon, some dairy farms as well. The cows would watch with interest as I walked by. Perhaps I was relieving their boredom, as the major item of interest between milking and feeding.

It rained intermittently in the afternoon. Sometimes I could make it stop by putting on my rain coat but then it set in, and the wind was strong and driving into my face. I trudged on, head down, for several kilometres, until I spied a church spire ahead. Faint hope, but you never know, and then some more buildings, and one with a promising sign. Yes, a bar. I staggered in. “Un cafe crème,” I spluttered.

Seventy years ago, as a teenage thing, I rode my bike from Perth to Bunbury, a distance of 116 miles. Two-thirds of the way along, I stopped for a coke — ice cold, and I always remember it as the best I had ever drunk. Now it is coffee that sustains me, and the coffee I had today at Montchamp was almost as memorable.

It was a convivial bar. Everyone was shouting.  People came and went, shaking everybody’s hand as they entered, including mine. I moved outside, for the noise had become deafening. One of the tables was dry. Clouds were racing across the sky and I would sit for a few minutes in the warmth of the sun before being spattered with a few drops of rain. It was delightfully calm until a couple of smokers moved outside, and a kid raced up the street on a dreaded two-stroke, the bane of many a French village.

Another hour’s march brought me to Beny Bocage where I am staying at an airBnB hosted by Jean who speaks French at lightning speed and keeps goats and chooks in his back yard.

Day 6. Hamars à Saint-Jean-Le-Blanc. August 30, 2026. 14 kms.

 It was a sombre morning as I set out from Hamars, the little village on the Chemin de Caen where I had ended my walk eighteen months ago, and soon the somber weather begat a very somber mood. I began on the right path, indicated by a blue balise, a symbol of the Mount Saint Michel, and followed a stony country lane down into a valley and up again to meet a road where there was no indication of the chemin to follow. Or perhaps there was: a blue smudge on a post which might once have been a marker, or it might have been a blue cross indicating the direction not to go. After a few yards along the road I ventured onto a likely looking track across a field. Rain threatened.

As we were driving to Hamars from Ouistreham this morning, we talked about the role of chance in our lives, how we were together in the car at that moment because of a chance meeting in Ouistreham 40 years ago. And we were here because all of our ancestors, generation after generation, had been the lucky ones among their siblings to survive pestilence and plague, war and famine.

And just by chance, coming towards me on the path, was a group of walkers — from Ouistreham, as it happened. “You’re going back to Hamars,” they said. So I turned back to the road and after a fruitless search for a sign, I asked Apple Maps for the quickest route to walk to Saint-Jean-le Blanc.

And so I walked along country roads through fields of corn somewhat the worse for wear after the extreme heat over the summer. The cows would receive a burnt offering indeed from the maize of these corn fields.

Every so often a church spire signalled  that I was about to pass through a village. Would there be a bar or a boulangerie? No, only a church and a mairie that opened for a few hours each week. At the little village of Le Plessis-Grimoult I sat on a bench and ate my lunch. A polite little boy walked by and said bonjour. His grandmother followed. That was the extent of the village population.

After another hour’s walking, I reached Saint-Jean-le-Blanc, a full two hours earlier than I expected, because I had taken  a more direct route along the roads. 

A word about my gîte, Le Temps de Cerises: a little appartement, very comfortable, kitchen and living room downstairs, two bedrooms upstairs. My only quibble: the wifi had the longest password I have ever seen. It took me several goes.

Day 5. March 29, 2025. Evrecy to Hamars (22 km)

 

It was a glorious  day, cool but sunny. Yesterday, I wore my down jacket; today, just a light pullover.

I spent much of the day walking across, or between, fields, some with a wheat crop under way, for I was on la plaine de Caen. I walked through woods as well, along lanes, rural roads, and when I could not find a balise to save my life, I plodded the last five kilometres along the D36 into Harmars. There I waited for Dominique, kind soul, to pick me and take me back to Ouistreham.

Just in case anyone thinks I am not walking a real camino, see the evidence to the left. Perhaps not along this particular path, but pilgrims would walked to le Mont-Saint-Michel, and then continued on to join the Chemin de Tours near Poitier, on to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, and along the Camino Francés to Santiago.

Only one misadventure today, a misadventure with a moral! 

I was walking down a country lane when the road turned suddenly to the right. In front of me was a farm gate and on the gatepost was the balise, indicating my path across the field. Or was it? Was I instead to go right, whereupon the balise had been put on the gatepost because there was nowhere else to put it and only a fool would climb over a closed gate to enter a farmer’s field? I turned right and walked a few hundred yards to the end of the lane, hoping to find a path to the left around the field. No luck.I returned to the gate.

It was a large farm gate with three heavy horizontal bars. It was roped closed, but embedded in the ground, so I couldn’t have easily opened it anyway. I mounted the first bar, swung my leg over the top, balanced precariously, and dropped down on the other side.

I crossed the large field, and then another, but could see no way out. And then, far across

to the right, I could see, sitting on the ground, a large sign, what seemed to be a large version of the mont bleu. Escape at last, I thought, and headed across the field.  But it was a rather colourful pump.

Back across two fields to the rusty old farm gate, another climb and perilous balance, and back to the end of the lane. What had I missed?

There on the other side, in the direction I had not expected to go: a little opening and a balise.

And the moral, the lesson relearned: Never Assume. And perhaps another couple as well: Things are not always what they seem, and, Look carefully!

And as I walked across one of those large fields, alone in a wide open space, I heard the song of the larks.

There are two bird songs that I love beyond measure. One is the Australian magpie. The other is the European lark.

I saw one once, a small unassuming bird that you wouldn’t give a second glance. As I recall the photo I took, I am reminded of a small, unattractive Pekingese kind of dog, the sort that would stand a good chance in an ugly dog contest. (I hope I’m not offending any birders here.) Normally you don’t see  the larks, but hear them singing far above you as you cross a field. Some birds glide effortlessly across the sky, but the larks flutter frantically to keep aloft. How can they sing while expending so much energy? To me, their song is not one of beauty like that of the thrush or nightingale, but one of endurance, hope, a struggle to survive, and perhaps faint joy. Birds have become important national symbols. We all know what nations have adopted the eagle as their symbol. I leave you to imagine what countries might be symbolized by the lark. Sorry to wax avian, but I would visit Europe merely to hear the song of the larks.

And speaking of small, nondescript dogs, one managed to get into my photo of the daffodils.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils. (Wordsworth)

This is the end of my walk for the time being. I hope to continue and walk across the bay to the Mont-Saint-Michel. I shall find a guide. It is one thing to misread a bus or train timetable, but quite another to miscalculate the movement of the tides.