Step 2: The First 5 Days ~ Vézelay to Nevers
Our first night upon The Way.
We were still 9.1 kilometers from Vézelay where we would receive a pilgrimage passport and become official pilgrims of The Way. That night was the first test of all of our tents, as well as our fortitude in the face of resistance. For dinner, we had cheese and meat in baguette before turning in for the night. While we ate, across the planted field of young wheat which lay across from where we had set up camp, a Stag had come out of the woods to feed in the evening light. The birds were alive with song and the air was warm. Sleep soon proceeded the night.
Day 1: 26.6 km walked (25th of April)
Around one in the morning, rain began to fall, quite heavily. The sound of the rain pelting the tarp of my tent was quite loud before Osgar cried out stating that his tent was leaking. He then went on to ask if he could come into my tent, to which I replied that I had no room. He then asked Enoch who made an agreeable sound and Osgar went and joined him in his tent. Thunder rolled across the sky, shaking the ground as it passed. The rain soon slowed till ceasing all together, and sleep soon return upon our company. When morning light arrived, we awoke to bird song. The rains in the night had soaked the grass around our campsite. I had left the bag of my sleeping out too close to the edge of my tent's tarp and so got wet, but other than that, things seemed sound. The reason for Osgars tent had allowed water in was due to his tarp not being pulled tight the evening before. I later learned that he had been expelled from Enoch's tent as soon as he arrived, and so he had gone back to his own tent and slept in it to awake with wet legs. Enoch had supposedly been half asleep when Osgar asked to crawl into his tent. The night had been quite warm and so no harm done to him or anyone else for that matter.
Osgar's tent in the morning.
After the pack down of my tent and gear, breakfast was had of Brie with Apple before beginning the day's walk. My tent tarp had been soaked, and so I had packed it into one of my outside packs pockets, I would have to lay it out to dry some time during the day.
Breakfast
With bare feet and the pack upon my back, I set off at 7:40am. Through wood and fields of Yellow flowers, the path took me. I passed a Hamlet called Les Hérodats. With only 3 or so homes and a stables that held a donkey, there seemingly was no one yet up when I passed. After walking over the brow of the hill, I saw the first glimpse of Vézelay, her Basilique Sainte-Marie-Madeleine standing tall and proud on a hill across the valley from where I stood.
Vézelay sitting on the hill looking bright and Warm!
After walking down the hill into the valley, I looked up and back where I had come to see if the others had caught up, and across the plowed field by the bottom of the hill of which I had just come down, a dog of great size and with a dark coat ran across and into the wood. I wondered for a moment if I should be on guard against feral dogs in the countryside of France, and as I thought this, another dog ran across the bare field and into the wood, fallowing soon after the first. I guessed them to be from the Hamlet that was on top of the hill, and so continued on my way without looking back again. Around 10 in the morning, my siblings had caught up and soon overtook me. We stopped to have second breakfast at a cross road 2.6 km from the Basilique. At this point, Rose encouraged me to put my shoes back on as I would walk faster than if I had them off. So with my shoes now on, and cheese in hand, we set off. Passing a few Hamlet and saying Bonjour to people as we passed, we soon arrived before the great stone Church in Vézelay.
Work was being done to the Basilique Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, and scaffolding covered her walls, while the sound of stonemasons and their tools filled the air.
Basilique Sainte-Marie-Madeleine of Vézelay
We entered the stone building to find a small desk occupied by a lady. The sound of jack hammers from the stonemasons outside reverberated through the huge empty space, making the atmosphere quite ominous. Like the drums of Moria in Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring. The woman's desk seemed out of place in the massive space of the entrance gallery of the Church, was she waiting upon who ever was approaching the great building? With bits of English mixed with hand gestures, Rose inquired about the Pilgrim's passport. To begin with, the lady thought that Rose wanted it stamped and so pulled out the stamp to do so, but soon understood that we did not have anything to stamp, and in French gave us directions on where to go to get our needed paperwork. With a few hand gestures later, we thanked her in French before leaving the great gallery to the outside forecourt. We didn't really understand the instructions given, but guessed that it was down the main street and turn left from her hand gestures. We walked down the main street humming over where to go, and another lady saw our confused state and inquired in French on what we were seeking for, well that's what we supposed she asked. After more had gestures, she pointed to a doorway in a wall that led into a small pebbled courtyard and told us to turn left, and we would find what we were looking for. Again, all in French and probably nothing like what she said at all, but it didn't matter. We found what we were after. A dutch woman greeted us in French and after some more hand gestures, she led us into a room with a table and proceeded to asked us for our names and €5 each. She then pulled out the correct number of books and had each of our names written in them before asking our final destination and then stamping each pilgrimage passport with the Stamp of Basilique Sainte-Marie-Madeleine Vézelay and dating them.
Our Pilgrimage passport
As this process was taking place, an asain couple entered and asked in good English if this was a cafe, and were told it was a Hostel. They looked a little embarrassed before departing once more. We thanked the lady for the pilgrimage passports before going back to the church, in hopes that the lady behind the desk would stamp them with her stamp. But on arriving back at the Church, we found her to not be behind her desk, and after Rose had checked to see if the Stamp was easily accessible only to find that all the draws were locked, we decided to walk around the church till she should return. Only after an hour did she return and on stamping our small books we found that her stamp was the same as the first stamp which we received an hour before. After that we were on our way out of Vézelay fallowing the marks of the Camino. They were stickers of blue with golden lines coming out from a central point like the ridges of a scallop shell, and they were stuck to lamp posts, sides of buildings, and road signs.
After walking for half an hour, we stopped to have lunch at 1pm. Where we stopped was the outside cloister of the church Église Notre-Dame in Ruelle de l'Église, only about 2kms from Vézelay. Osgar and I hanged our tents out to dry while we ate our lunch. Twenty minutes into our lunch break, a woman approached us and after confirming that we did not speak French but English, asked in broken English if we wanted a hot cup of tea. It is not uncommon for locals to give to pilgrims while they pass through their towns, villages, and Hamlets. We accepted her offer of tea, and she told us to wait where we were. With in ten minutes later, she returned with a basket that carried a hot pot of steaming mint tea before telling us to leave the basket of cups and teapot on the table across the street, for she lived in the house just across from where we had set ourselves to have lunch. We thanked her, and she left us to drink the tea. What a kind and thoughtful action towards utter strangers! The tea was very welcomed, and we soon drained the lot of it before returning the basket to the table as had been commanded. We then proceeded to pack up our things and continued walking. For the next three hours, we walked through woods, fields of mustard in full bloom, and through villages and Hamlets, before ultimately arriving at our campsite for the evening. Three kilometers from where we would stop for the night, and just outside the village of Bazoches, we stopped and had dinner. For said dinner, we had cheese, salami, and some of us had cucumber and oranges and others had canned fish. Rose had the canned fish with mustard and could not stomach it, claiming that she hadn’t obviously been on the Camino long enough yet to actually want to eat the fish, and so gave the rest of the tin to me, which I pared it with baguette, cheese, and a few slices of Osgars Cucumber which I traded for a prune.
A man walking his dogs who had passed us earlier, passed us again on his return journey back into the village, he stopped as asked where we were from and on finding that we were going to walk all the way to Santiago de Compostela, welcomed us to France before telling us the name of the path in Spain. We wished him a good evening, and he continued on with his three dogs. After eating dinner, we too continued onwards to finally arrive at where we would camp for the evening at around 6:30pm. It was a small building that stood on the edge of a hill looking out over a valley and a main highway. The building was a Chappell called Chapelle Saint-Roch and was in past times a way point for pilgrims. However, it now remained empty and dark. We pitched our tents on the side facing the valley under the stone cross that stood behind the building. Our first full night upon The Way, and we had completed 26.6 kilometers.
Our days achievements in Purple
Our Second Night on The Way
Day 2: 26 km walked (26th of April)
That night we did not have any rain and it was peaceful. In the morning, I found that my tent's tarp to be quite wet on the inside due to condensation from breathing. So I again packed out in my outer pocket of my pack before again setting off before the others, knowing that they would soon overtake, and they did an hour later. Around 10:00am, we stopped for second breakfast. We had just climbed a long incline and so stopped at the top of the hill in the Hamlet of Le Chemin where we sat and ate bread and cheese. I wanted to start again before the others were finished, and so bid them fair well before continuing. After walking for 100 meters, I felt perhaps I was walking the wrong way, as I hadn't seen any little stickers marking the path, and I had passed a group of men talking away in French and when I said Bonjour, they replied with Bonjour but gave me a queer look which I thought out of place. So far anyone and everyone who I had said Bonjour too, would smile and reply with Bonjour, not a Bonjour and a queer look. So I pulled my 21st century tech out and looked at the map on my phone to find that I had indeed gone the wrong way! But after looking at the map, I could see that if I continue, I would eventually meet up with the path again and bypass the village of Anthien. So I continued, only then to have Osgar run after me and shout that I was going in the wrong direction! To which I replied that I knew I was going in the wrong direction and that I would meet them somewhere up the path! But he couldn't hear me and so shouted for me to meet them at the church of Anthien which was down in the valley, only 1.6 km from where I stood. I replied again that I would meet up with them somewhere up the track to which he heard and said OK and headed back. As I continued though, I had second thoughts on the matter and decided to jump the fence walk across a paddock that had been freshly gazed, jump another gate into a field of young wheat, and out onto the road past the cemetery and into the village of Anthien. I pulled my pack off and waited by the locked church.
Looking through the locked mesh door into the Church at Anthien
After waiting close to fifteen minutes, my siblings appeared and were badgering me for taking the wrong turn and that I had said that I would see them further up the track. We continued onwards for another hour or so before stopping at where two roads became one. There was a picnic table in the shade of the trees, and so we stopped for lunch. By this point within the day, we had walked fifteen kilometers. At some point in the morning, we had passed a couple who were in their 60s, they had been sitting down eating breakfast, they now passed us while we ate our lunch. They were Dutch and seemed to be fellow pilgrims upon The Way. Again, I wanted to get ahead, and so after eating lunch, I quickly began walking, telling them that I would meet them at Aldi which is a small supermarket and was in Corbigny, a village that was 3.5 km away from where we had stopped for lunch. Osgar had pulled out his sleeping bag and tent to dry in the sun across the road from where we sat. I continued on. I was running low on water at this point. We did have a look for water as we passed through Anthien, but had found none. I should have stopped and looked in the Cemetery that I passed coming into Anthien as Cemeteries always have water for people to water their flowers around their loved one's grave. So during lunch, Rose had halved her water supply and gave me half. As I entered Corbigny, I passed a cemetery and pulled in and filled my bottle before continuing. The village of Corbigny was of good size and had a school, a church, quite a few shops as well as a bakery which I brought a hazelnut croissant before walking up to the post office where I found free Wi-Fi to contact family back home in New Zealand.
The Hazelnut croissant
I never got to Aldi, but sat for a good hour, using the Wi-Fi and waiting for my siblings to walk past me on their way to Aldi. Unbeknownst to me, they had taken a road from the church that went up behind the post office to Aldi and so walked right past where I stood waiting as two men worked on the surrounds around the trees on the footpath. They were laying new stones into the ground around the trees. After and an hour of waiting and watching these men work, I decided to continue onwards, and perhaps catch up with me siblings a day or so down the route towards the town of Nevers. I hadn't walking more than 700 meters up the road till I saw Enoch. I had begun walking and ended up walking down the wrong street and while about to turn around a man pulls up in his Renault and puts his window down and asks me a question in French. I apologized in English for only knowing English, to which he then apologized in English and began speaking in English. He asked if he could take me anywhere, his English wasn't very good, either that mine wasn't very good, because I then proceeded to tell him that I was walking the Camino de Santiago which he did not understand, so I said Vézelay de Français and he went 'ah Vézelay! You want to go that way!' And he pointed back in the direction I had come. I didn't want a ride, nor needed direction, and so I thanked him, and he continued on his way, and I on my way. So when I was walking back up the street to the main road, I saw Enoch followed by Osgar and Rose coming up the main road out of Corbigny. The man then pulls up to me once again and starts to explain the route I should take to get to Vézelay. I have just come from Vézelay! I thanked him once more, and he seemed happy and went on his merry little way. Meanwhile, Enoch, Osgar and Rose demand on where I had been and why I hadn't been waiting for them as I supposedly said I would at Aldi. It was beginning to get late in the day, and so we continued another 6.6kms till we arrived by a cemetery, where we pitched our tents by the field next door.
That evening, I went to sleep with what felt like the beginnings of a sore throat. Enoch had been under the weather for the past two days, and it appeared that what ever he had was spreading to his companions.
Our Camp by the road and Cemetery in a Field
Day 3: 26 kilometres walked (27th of April)
That night I slept terribly. For the first quarter I slept soundly, but then was awoken by a troubling dream which troubled me greatly, and for the rest of the night I was terribly cold. In the morning I thought to my self that if that night was to repeat on a regular basis throughout this pilgrimage, I would surely parish, for I do not weigh very much and knowing that my body has less fat to burn to keep me warm at night wasn't an option, I would have to buy a sleeping liner as soon as I could. Since a decathlon was in Nevers, we knew that we would need to call in to buy silicon spray for the Roses, Enoch's, and Oscars tents. I hope to buy a liner while there. I was the last one to have my tent packed down, and the others had to wait on me as I packed up. I had a sore throat, blocked ears and was tired and so slowed the whole company down that morning. We walked for an hour in which Rose had me try her walking polls to see if they would speed up my pace. I was grouchy at this but used them for a kilometer. Also in that hour, a fellow pilgrim passed us, which later I learned spoke little English. After an hour, we stopped in the Village of Guipy for a second breakfast before continuing. We stopped for lunch at 12pm in the village of Saint-Révérien. It was splendid! The sun was shinning! It was warm, and we had all our gear out drying. I popped into the church and had a look around. Some interesting art on the walls before going back out into the warm sun and laid down and rested for two whole hours and listening to the church bells announced the time passing! I was feeling a lot better, though my sore throat still insisted that it was still there. When the church bell chimed 2pm, we continued to walk. Rose had done some laundry using the tap by the cemetery, and we filled our water bottles. The public toilet was used and we then began. The weather was hot and sunny. After an hour of walking, we came across an old laundry station that had been turned into a fishpond and an outdoor library. With in was a basket of scallop shells, free for the taking. We all took one before continuing upon our way. After walking another hour, we stopped in the Hamlet of Vilaine where we had dinner on the small triangular plot where three roads cross to each other. There was also a cross upon this small piece of grass in the Hamlet of Vilaine. We ate before continuing. We needed to find a place to pitch our tents but were finding it hard to find somewhere somewhat out of sight. After walking another forty minutes, we walked up a farm track that led us up to some woods between a field of young wheat and some Mustard in bloom. We pitched our tents around 7pm. I had wanted to get to the village of Prémery, 3.6 km away from where we camped for the night. I wanted to get to the Carrefour before the end of the day, but it had to wait till tomorrow.
Day 4: 30 km walked (28th of April)
I got up and out of my tent by seven am. I had slept quite well and was ready for a day of walking. I packed my tent down and in my haste, I forgot to have breakfast. I left while the others were still packing down their tents, saying I would meet them at the church in Prémery and began walking. The town lay 3.6 km up the road. I got as far as the post office and my siblings caught up with me and found me using the Wi-Fi. "Ah," my sister exclaimed in a mocking tone as they approached from behind, "he said that he would catch up at the church, is this the church, is it?"
Most amusing. As soon as I told her that I was using free Wi-Fi, she was the one left behind with Enoch as Osgar and I went off toward the church. We passed a bakery on our way and I called in and brought a Pan Chocolate before continuing. We found, however, that the church was all locked up, and so we headed back the way we came, and I popped into the bakery once more and brought a loaf of bread which the baker behind the counter sliced for me before putting it into a bag. Osgar had wanted coffee, as he was coming down with the cold which Enoch had, and I had, but we didn't find anyone selling coffee. The both of us headed to the Carrefour to find Rose and Enoch waiting for us there. We spend close to two hours there, if not more. I think we left around 10:47am. While using the Wi-Fi in the Carrefour, a friend of mine from back in NZ gave me a ring, and we talked for a bit. I also brought an esim and 30 Gigabytes of data, so we didn't have to rely on finding free Wi-Fi in towns that we passed through. We all resupplied our food supplies in Prémery. I brought 6 apples, 6 bananas, 3 tins of fish, a bottle of water that held 1.15 liters, four rounds of cheese, a stick of dried meat, and a cucumber. We began walking and once on the outskirts of the town, we could see three pilgrims walking upon the road ahead and thought them to be the Dutch couple and the fellow we passed yesterday morning. For some reason, I was ahead of the company that day, either the others were not feeling so splendid, or I had found my legs, for I shot a head by quite a bit and was able to catch up to these pilgrims that were ahead of us. There were not the ones we thought them to be. But instead were a French couple who were vets, accompanied by a friend of theirs. I greeted them in French, and they responded with a greeting before asking something. I said that I could only speak English in English and the woman went "English, ah". To which I thought to myself 'If they know English, they will probably not talk to me thinking that I am English' for I had heard tales of the cruelty done to English folk when visiting foreign lands by the local inhabitants, one most spiteful trick was to pretend to not know any English when the English was around, but in fact they can speak perfectly well in English. My suspicion was correct, for when I said I was from Nouvelle Zélande which is French for New Zealand, the lady who had spoken to me said "Not English, that's OK then," and we ended up having quite a conversation in good English. Herself and her husband were vets, and he would do surgical procedures while she performed animal acupuncture upon pets (not while the surgical procedures were being taken place, obviously). She did not tell me what their friend did, and if she did, I did not hear her. They had a seventeen-year-old son who was also walking with them but had walked on ahead of them. She was saying that she had sent him a message earlier in the morning telling him to take his headphones off and learn the language of the birds, for there was plenty of bird song and was quite beautiful to listen to. We talked about the state of the world in the past twenty years and also on the topic of Ukraine. We walked together for quite a bit till I saw my opportunity to scoot ahead when we came across a beautiful scarab beetle.
As she was showing it to her companions, I made my getaway. After walking for another half hour, I stopped by the side of the road to wait for my own companions to catch up. I wish the three pilgrims well upon their road as they passed by. They were only walking a week's worth of The Way, from Vézelay to Nevers, and then back home they go, where ever that might be in France. They hoped to do a week a year, and continued from where they had left off the year before. This was their first year doing it. At that rate, it would take them 12 years or so to do the whole trip.
Our days progress in Purple
I waited for a while and soon figured out that my siblings must have stopped for lunch, for they ought not have taken so long to appear. So I pulled my tent out to dry along with my sleeping bag before sitting down to a spot of lunch. After an hour, they appeared and we soon continued. We walked for an hour before resting in the shade of a forest. We needed to walk 30 kilometers this day to get to the place where Rose knew to be a good camping spot. Furthermore, we were all nearly out of water, and it was very hot in the sun. If we wanted more water, we still had to walk another 5.8 km till we got to a cemetery in Guérigny. I told my siblings that I would wait for them on the outskirts of the village by the woods edge, which I did. While walking through the woods, I came noticed an ant trail alongside the tarmac, and kept an eye on it. It went for 380 meters before ending. That's quite long, compared to the little ones we have at home that lead from our sugar jar back to their nest in the wall.
Once arriving at the edge of the wood, I waited for the others to catch up. It was very warm and Enoch and I kept an eye out for a tap that might be on the edge of one of the homes, as we had just entered the outskirts of Guérigny. When we did find one, we found when turning it on that it was dry. The cemetery was not far, only another two kilometers up the road. As I passed people by who were working either on their lawns, garden, or homes, I would greet them in French, and they always replied with a smile and a greeting in French. There was a man who looked to be in his 60s working on placing some gravel down on a driveway. I greeted him, and he smiled before returning the greeting. After seeing three others accompanying me, he asked in French and through hand gestures if we needed to refill our water bottles. We responded with a yes, and he gestured for us to fallow him back up the road once we had come to his home. He took us around to the back of his house, where his wife was working the dry soil of what should be their Vegetable Garden. France was in a drought. His wife spoke poor English, but more English than we spoke French. She could translate what her husband was saying, and our words to him. We took our packs off before being led into their kitchen, where we filled our bottles at their kitchen sink. They then had us sit down and proceeded to give us cake and sweets, before sending us on our way in due course. The man fallowed us back to where he had left his work, before bidding us Farewell. As we continued walking, we passed by an old factory complex where Osgar wanted to rest his feet. I continued into the town towards the church, passing our fellow Pilgrim who had passed us two days before. I greeted him in French, and he returned the greeting, before saying something else which I did not understand. I stated that my French was very poor to which he replied in broken English that his English was not very good, though we were able to communicate well enough to convey where the both of our destinations were, Santiago de Compostela. He then asked if I was planning on staying in this town, to which I responded that we had tents and plan to camp in the wood along the road. We then bid each other farewell before continuing on through to the church of Guérigny. As I approached, a car sat outside of it and an old woman drove it and was about to drive away. However, when she saw me approaching the church, she opened the door of her car and asked something in French. I did not understand at the time, but looking back, she had the keys to the church in her hand and had just locked it, and was asking if I was heading to the church. We tried to understand each other for a few moments before the others managed to catch up. I thank the lady in French before bidding her a good evening and continued on. It was getting late, and the reason for our continuation was for two reasons, one was that Rose knew of a good camping spot, and so we were aiming for there, and secondly, the next day we would try and get to a decathlon in Nevers. We walked for an hour more before arriving at our final destination for the evening. We camped behind the wall of a cemetery and between that and the woods for the night.
Day 5: 14.4 km walked + 10 km (29th of April)
We packed down and were on the road by 8am. It would take us over an hour to walk to the center of Nevers. When we arrived in the square before the great Cathédrale Saint-Cyr et Sainte-Julitte of Nevers, I removed my backpack. It had been decided that Enoch and I would walk from there to Decathlon, while Rose and Osgar looked after our bags. It was an hour from where was had decided to stop, and 4.6 kilometers one way. So it took us over two hours to get there and back again before checking out the great church where we would receive the Stamp of Cathédrale de Nevers. Though when we went into the church, we found that the woman who was normally behind it was currently giving a tour to a French family, and so Osgar and Rose looked through her desk till they found the stamp, where we then proceeded to stamp our passports. No harm done.
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