The End of the Road

Despite the best efforts of the storms, the snow, a bear and a load of mountains, I arrived back at sea-level yesterday at 16:20, just over 7 weeks after leaving Hendaye. The journey (which was roughly 800km with 40,000m of climbing) took 50 days, 20 hours and 50 minutes in total, including 6 rest days.

In keeping with the theme of the trip, the weather threw one last curve-ball, and I spent the morning in gloves and a wooly hat. Despite being only hours from the Mediteranean, the bitterly cold northerly wind made it feel like winter. I set off in sun feeling reasonably warm but soon arrived in cloud, and after an hour or two my hands were so numb I was having trouble turning on the GPS! I was also regularly blown off the path, sometimes by three or four steps, so it wasn’t quite the easy stroll to the sea I’d hoped for!

It was fantastic to see the sea getting closer though, and during the afternoon I slowly dropped from 1,000m down towards Banyuls, with the temperature gradually increasing as I went. The wind wasn’t quite so violent lower down, but was still pretty strong even down in the village.

Klaas and I had discussed what it would be like reaching the beach and we’d both got quite emotional just thinking about it, but I think spending the last nine days on my own gave me time to prepare, and the emotions weren’t nearly as strong as I’d expected. When I finally walked across the stoney beach, picking my way through the sun-bathers, my main feeling was “these guys must think I’m a little strange, standing in the sea in my boots…”

The beach itself was very crowded, so I retired to the promenade and sat for a while, made a few phone calls and considered things. The guidebook warns that it will take weeks to let the achievenment sink in and work out how you feel – right now that seems pretty accurate.

I had the obligatory Coke and Magnum in honour of the Dutchman, inspected the artwork on the Hôtel de Ville commemorating the end of the GR10, then waited for my friend Al to arrive.