Sunday 12th September 2010 Day 2 Ste Columbe sur L’Hers- Puivert 9.14 miles

Great morning, reading, it dropped just a bit and was 5.3mmol.
After a breakfast of boiled eggs and bread we took down the tent. We had arranged to buy some croissants from the little shop but neither of us felt like venturing into the village before breakfast.. We picked them up on the way and they made a very satisfactory 2nd breakfast later in the morning.
Unlike the the first day we had to rely on out map reading skills, the route followed footpaths but not any official route. We met no other walkers all day so it felt a bit remote and off the beaten track. The path started on the green way

but soon turned into the woods to climb through the woods

Then sharply down into the valley to out lunchtime stop of Rives, a sleepy place with a tiny village square to have our lunch in. During the morning, my pump had been firmly down at 20% , every now and then we stopped checked levels and I ate a few chocolate apricot bits ( OH put them in at the last moment and they were excellent fairly low gi carb nibbles. Lunchtime though glucose was just below 4mmol so very much time to refuel. We ate what was to be a typical lunch of bread soft cheese, tomatoes and peaches washed down with water.

After lunch, having gone down we went up again. The path was at times even more difficult to follow than in the morning. At one time it had been ploughed up and moved to the other side of a field. Fortunately OH map reading skills came to the fore and we worked out where we were.

It wasn’t the most scenic route since for a lot of the time we were enclosed by trees but occasionally we got glimpses of the mountains ahead.

Puivert castle came into sight, to our left. It was a little strange realising that this was one of the Cathar castles but we wouldn’t be getting any nearer.

Puivert itself was a busy little village . The municipal campsite was beside the lake and for once we weren’t the only people on site. We were given a large pitch for our tiny tent but had the luxury of our own electricity to recharge the garmin and mobile phone. (on other campsites we used the plugs in the sanitary blocks)
Tent up we collapsed for a while, unused muscles were beginning to protest but not for long as we had to find food. Glucose levels with the reduced basals, extra breakfast and the odd handful of chocolate apricots had been reasonable all day but a good dinner was a welcome prospect....Tonight it was at an Afghan restaurans , a rather odd thing to find in this part of France. Sadly we were a bit conscious of expenses so didn’t go for the specialities and I went for the menu fixe of salade with lardons (OK but not as good as the night before) and steak frites. OH went for a curry which was much better than they usually are in France. It was just light when we got back to the tent but it wasn’t long before darkness fell One thing about this walking is to remember to cut the bolus insulin with evening meals, the first night was a bit low considering the large meal and it had been a less hilly day. So I reduced the bolus by a couple of units. It didn’t make much difference as when I checked at bedtime, only about an hour after the meal but it was almost dark so it had to be bedtime it was 6.3mmol. Hoping that it wouldn't drop to far during the night I slept.