19.04.2010 La Motte du Caire to Urtis – 20km

Hard day! Possibly the hardest day since the last hardest day, I am losing count. After deciding to leave the GR/Chemin de St Jacques in preference for a route that would be more suitable for long distance, as opposed to day-walkers, we had an easy start, but then everything went downhill, or to be more accurate, up hill, from there. After spending an hour fighting our way through fallen trees, literally moving trunks that had fallen across the path after the recent storms, we discover that we have in fact missed a turning and should have gone along another clearer, but entirely vertical path. With no alternative, we can only look at Nellie, leave it up to her and keep out of the way when she gets up speed because without speed/velocity there no way she is going to reach the top. 500 metres up in under a kilometre is a steep climb. I am a shaking heap at the top, but we have made it and Nellie is the heroine. Later, when we finally start to go through snow, she surprises us again, this time by the way she heads for a choice patch and starts eating it - we suppose a a remnant of her previous life in the mountains. In the evening we decide to camp 'sauvage' and find an ideal hideaway in a group of trees next to a small river that I try to persuade Nellie to stand in (cooling therapy for legs). She is not keen, it is too small and too deep, so instead she jumps clear over, many times, but I am equally determined so we fight on and finally reach a compromise where she agrees to stand with two hind feet under water. After this she simply leans across to hang her head over my shoulder and dribble gently down my back. Perhaps she is saying sorry, or perhaps she is giving me the chance to say how sorry I am. Either way, we have made up and are friends again. Meanwhile, Paul is setting up camp, pitching the tent so that we have a row of primroses in front of our door and a fireplace close to a rock we can sit on. If it were just slightly warmer, I would say we were as close to heaven as Paul and I are ever likely to be.
Accommodation – free, though the bed was rock-hard.