This was theoretically a very long stage, because I had not quite made it to Bapaume the day before so a few extra kms were added on to make it a total of 28 km. Before setting out, I realized that I was still carrying too much on my shoulders the day before, so I got rid of the front pack I had been using and loaded everything onto the chariot, using only a small waist pack I had bought in Amsterdam. I put the water reservoir in the chariot but wasn’t quite sure how that was going to work out, since I would need to stop and pull out the tubing to drink… To be revisited.
I set out, feeling lighter, on the main departmental road and about 15 minutes out I realized I had forgotten to wrap my knee. By the side of the road I entertained the nearby cowshed by half undressing to take care of this, then carried on. My host had suggested a quieter route, through very small country roads, and it was indeed quieter, but with all the rain the day before, even though it was now sunny and windy, there were many puddles and soft and sticky agricultural mud – on shoes, on wheels, making for slower going. I was very glad to see tarmac when it reappeared. He had thought there would be a café in Combles, which was the halfway point about, but there was not. I was feeling particularly tired and was thinking I might like to start carrying a little camp chair since it’s impossible to sit anywhere when it’s so wet on the ground… Along the way, chapels began to be replaced by crucifixes at every crossroads. It’s an odd sensation to see them when you know they have become historical monuments for most people and have no other meaning.
At Clery sur Somme, I had walked 22 km. I saw a small café! And a bus stop! But the café owners informed me there were no buses. So I had a coke and called a taxi. When it came, I was so, so glad I had not tried to walk the last 5 kms, which consisted of nothing but ups and downs that seemed to go on forever. The taxi deposited me at the Auberge, and after he left I realized it was not in fact open. We had had a failure of communication – mostly mine, in that I had not read through the instructions to understand that this was more like a hostel than a hotel, with limited opening hours. I had also missed a message that the card I used to reserve had been declined for whatever reason and I had not updated the payment method in time. I stood on the street and looked up the nearest hotel that was not excessively expensive – a Best Western (sigh) right on the plaza, about 10 minutes walk. And so I went. I sent a message to the auberge. I had a salade niçoise and frites at the local bistro next door. Although I was exhausted I spent the next couple of hours trying to plan the next stages and coming up against lack of housing or stages too long. I woke up anxious at 3am and was awake for more than an hour trying to parse this situation. Finally I realized that if I just gave in to circumstances, there was a bus to the local train station at Chaulnes, and from there to Laon, a city a few stages on. And so that’s what I decided to do.
This was a turning point for me in terms of how to manage the challenges of the route in France, and perhaps beyond, when the stages were either too long for me to handle, or the only available lodging involved more kilometers at the end of the walk, which again made it too long to be manageable, or there was no housing available at all. The other variation that I accepted was the need to sometimes skip stages in order to be able to at least walk part of the way, and then take a regional train, which usually went from some somewhat major provincial point to another, where lodging was more readily available as well.