3rd August.

Raining this morning but by the time we finished breakfast it was so, so. Pack covers on and off out of town walking through farm land.

Into the forest and pleasant enough walking with tracks going everywhere. Some a bit muddy.

This is where the iPad with the gps works it's magic. Not sure where you are, stop and turn it on and up pops your location on the map. Take a copy of the image on the screen and you have a ready made map.

Stopped for morning tea where the wood cutters had been busy.

Off again and we spotted two walkers coming towards us just like us, with packs. Once we were off the pilgrim trails we have see no other walkers with packs. Stopped to have a chat and they were from Queensland. Took us a little while to work it out as they were both French born and still had French accents.

Walkers all their lives and still going strong, so there is still hope for us after this trip. Time for lunch and the usual drying out of the tent.

Out into more farm land and came across these two plowing up a field.

We had noticed that there didn't appear to be any burning of the stubble, including the sunflowers. It just appeared to be turned over then had a rotary hoe type machine put over the top. I hadn't seen this being done before. Up one way completely burying the stubble then the machine turned over so it could go back the other way.
A couple of old carts just going to waste. Pity.

Into Chaumont-sur-Loire and set up in the caravan park with the washing hung out to dry. Off to see the Chateau de Chaumont-sur-Loire overlooking the river. Nice looking place. Here we got to walk through a lot of the building including all the unrestored servant quarters upstairs which reminded us of our house when we purchased it. It even had the same sort of smell an old house has when it hasn't been lived in for some time.

The sitting room.

Even the old toilet was on display.

The rear courtyard.

This was the stables. The big round bit on the end is a ring where they taught people to ride. The top half was salvaged from an old kiln. Impressive.

Just enough time to visit the pretend farm buildings that were built near the chateau. Then off to check out the domain, gardens. These were set out in all different rooms and the arty types had a hand here as well. This area was to remind us how fragile plants are and how we should treat them with more care. I couldn't help but notice how the plane trees were being pruned. I wonder if they saw the irony or not.

Some sections had small bells hanging everywhere. Another had plants in 44 gallon drums which were floating in water. Starting to get the drift? Some of it wasn't too bad, some so so.

Kicked out at closing and back to the caravan park. This is the view looking back towards the town.