We’ve reconnected with family, meandered the curves of the Lot to her source, Brexit bit us on the bootie and we’re off to Morocco.  The ever changing world of travel.  Its been a lot, on the Lot 🙂

Our journey to the Dordogne stayed wet.  Exploring overgrown cycle ways from the seemingly never ending rain. Deserted country roads, rolling hills and shaded forests from snippets of sunshine.  Cycling in France is up there with the best we’ve done.

The Thompson family reunion was bliss.  Catching up face-to-face after two years, 11 since we’ve all been together. A wonderful reconnection and break from the video chats, the necessary substitute of a family separated by the equator.  Floating down rivers with my father.  Making meals with my mum.  Chatting through life’s ups and downs with my siblings.  Being grateful for what we have. Our relationships and love for each other, always the cherry on the cake. And the Dordogne our setting.  Castles. Medieval towns. Crystal Clear Rivers. Campsites. BBQ’s.  Hot tubs – thanks Papa T for booking these 🙂 = Poifect!

Heading south west from the Dordogne, we again traversed the lush hills of Perigourd to rejoin the Lot.  Camping first outside Cahors in Cayx, then on to the famous Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, (voted France’s most beautiful village) before arriving in Cajarc.  Cycling down to Cajarc our wheels mingled with the walkers on the French Pilgrimage route for the Camino de Santiago.  These sacred trodden veins, another reminder of the history and culture which has bound Europes’ people.

Rolling from the Dordogne to the Lot river made me reflect on the personhood that can, or perhaps should be, attributed to natural resources like this.  In NZ, through the instigation of Mana Whenua (Māori people), the Whanganui river was given it’s own legal identity. With the rights, duties and liabilities of a legal person. Designing and facilitating workshops to rebuild peoples connection to nature is part of my environmental consulting work in NZ.   As we’ve meandered up the Lot, I’ve reached a far deeper understanding of this intrinsic relationship between nature, people, economies and culture.  Rivers that have and still define how, where and by what means people live.  The ‘ecosystem-services’ derived from natural resources is part of our shared lifeblood and history. The balance to not exploit these and remain in harmony, is our collective lifetime challenge.

The Dordogne has its gold-white cliffs reflecting and holding the days light.  It carved the caves and grottos which hold the Palaeolithic paintings of our ancestors. Inspired gentry to build castles and palaces on it’s banks, basking in the bends of golden splendour. It’s regal.  It holds the land.  It’s shaped the conurbations and culture of the region.

The Lot at her lower end. Boarded by striated rocks and lush green vegetation, like a silver-gray and green Mille Fueille.  A darker more brooding water.  In places, more practical towns and managed water ways in the form of weirs and locks. She enabled trade.  Beautiful in a more simple way.  Beautiful in her difference. To the life she sustained and culture she moulds. 

Our day off in Cajarc was a welcome break before beginning some climbs to the West, and a chance to look into extending my French visa.  Aiming to return in September after a visit to the other half of our family in Ireland.  I assumed the visa extension would be straight forward but hadn’t bargained on the ‘hard-brexit’ rules.  We weren’t in the UK for Brexit, but it feels like a huge loss that future generations will now encounter the same red-tape to travel freely in Europe.  Something I previously took for granted.  In a world that at times can feel more isolated as the political right has gained ground, this separatist decision by the British public is very hard to swallow. Getting the visa meant visits to consulates in the UK. So after a stressful 48 hours of ‘computer-says-no’ trying to navigate UK and French bureaucracy and re-thinking the way forward, we’ve changed our itinerary. Plan B was always Morocco.  So our wheels will take us to the Atlas mountains in Sept-October.  Win win.

Cajarc was a bustling wee town.  Along with the steady flow of Camino walkers it’s 19 century cobbled lane ways and squares draw an artistic crowd.  Walking the alleys to the sound of live drum and bass one minute to piano runs the next. Adorned by artists galleries and posters for upcoming festivals.  We camped on the opposite side of the river.  Baptising ourselves in the Lot to start our french wild swimming. Watched cheeky otters gobbling goodies on their tummies in sunset waters mirroring the walls of the valley, and feasted on fresh wild cherries from trees dropping their ruby pearls as summertime starters to the river and campers alike.

Heading on up the lot, we saw the different sides to her personality.  Banks morphing from silver green Mille Feuille, to black boulders, to open farmland, to the life-source of Unesco heritage towns and villages. To experience a river becoming more concentrated as you traverse hills and re-join it’s banks, is a unique and wonderful thing.

Ascending the Lot to the Auvergne region, immersing further in her world, houses become a vision of symbiosis.  Rickety walls built with boulders from her bed. Tiles of roofs mirroring the scales of fish.  Medieval bridges and buildings hugging and leaping her banks.  You can feel, hear and almost taste the history and days gone by.  Stepping into a Beauty and the Beast movie moment each time our wheels landed in new villages. From Livinhac-Le-Hault, to Golinhac to camping in Sainte-Eulalie-d’Olt on the banks of the Lot for a well earned day off, and being looked after by the magical Mathieu 🙂

Today was our last day on the Lot. She turned into a mountain stream, with the banks becoming wee foothills of the Alps. Meadows and mountains await to the north, to be explored another time. From here we head south again, diving into Gorges du Tarn Causses and ascending into the Parc national des Cevennes before a night of love and laughter with our friend Meg (also a Camino de Santiago veteran, respect!) in Carcassone.

On meeting 600-700 metre daily climbs again we’re reminded of the banging mental health benefits of cycling.  Also, now in our mid-forties, the pure gratitude that our bodies can still get us there.  As someone who has anxiety present, real life can sometimes be a lot to process (let alone the rise of digital life through COVID).  I do things 110%, I’m always ‘all in’.  I feel things deeply and want to know what makes us all tick. I love life with a capital L. And balance this with exercise, meditation and mindfulness (and years off cycle touring #checkmyprivilege). The Brexit-bollocks, the changing itinerary, a life in a tent, living outdoors 24/7 often in the rain, the 6-8 hours cycling each day could be things that tip the balance.  But getting on the bike each morning, letting everything fall away as the world rises to meet me, my mind opened and expanded by the horizon and what lies ahead and the cycling, always bringing me back to the here and now, is a simple and tremendous tonic. We’re both feeling grateful in this moment for the freedom and presence our chosen life brings, albeit pretty soggy at times!

Until next time amigos.

Bisous Bisous

T&B