Day 41: St-Lizier to Aulus-les-bains

Waking up to the horrendous sounds of a jay screeching bloody murder right outside our tent (these birds do NOT know how to sing), going back to sleep when it flew off and thus oversleeping, eating huge amounts of cake for brekkie then setting off into the wind - the weirdest wind we've ever known - it whipped around, changing direction, singling out single trees at a time then died right down, luckily we were sheltered in a typical goblin path straight up the valley for much of the morning, then there was a col covered in cows, then more wind so strong that we diverted off the GR10 to the more sheltered ski slopes on the other side of the mountain, descending down a long rocky path along one side of a valley, over a ridiculous broken bridge, then right back all the way along the other side of the valley, getting blown over by a ridiculous gust of wind, then reaching shelter again in the woods where three mad frogs hopped into Gavin's legs. We ignored the GR10's suggestion to spend three more hours pointlessly walking along another valley and back and headed straight for the lovely thermal spa town of Aulus-les-bains. Guess what my plans are for tomorrow?!

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The campsite, Le Coulédous in Aulus les bains was excellent and still rather busy in mid-September – perhaps because of the thermal spa in the town. We had a nice quiet pitch – albeit covered in conkers! The sanitaires are very clean and the campsite is conveniently located 5 minutes walk from the town where there are a couple of shops (excellent for buying food supplies), restaurants and the spa.

Despite the fact that there are a few restaurants in Aulus-les-bains, only one of them was open mid-September: La Grange de l’Agouadis. Luckily, one was enough – we ate there both nights that we stayedin Aulus-les-bain, sampling their pizza and their goats cheese salad. Both nights the food was excellent – the pizza was such a generous size that we couldn’t manage to finish even with our hiking appetites, but the owner happily packaged it up for us. Very friendly service and great veggie options!

The vital statistics:
Total hiking time: 6h
Peak: 1725m
Total ascent: 1382m
Total descent: 1376m