Samoens - Saturday 6 September -after three lovely rest days.
Thanks to Simon and Derval Jenkins for the use of their lovely house in Samoens. We have had perfect weather here each day and have done a variety of things, apart from eating and drinking!  Yesterday two friends of mine, Mark and Wendy, from Kidderminster came over from St Gervais where they have an apartment and happen to be at the moment. We watched a bit of the Mont Blanc to Morzine car rally blasting down the steep roads, then had a snack lunch. It's always rather nice to see 'local' friends out of normal context.
Today we each did something different.  Paul did a walk on part of GR5 a long distance path from Nice to Geneva. He went to the Cascades du Rouget a pretty spectacular waterfall a few miles away. Kevin also went there, but by bike via the village and ski resort of Sixt.
I cycled slowly up to the nearby hamlet of Le Mont (up being the operative word here) then, after hiding my bike in bushes,  carried on walking up a long steep path towards a distant summit. Sadly it remained distant however much I climbed. At 1393 metres there was the last chalet and a guy living there with three dogs, a goose, a land rover and two horses, sold me a welcome coffee. I carried on up for another 500 metres, still in forest, then my ankles decided they had had enough (I was using my cycling shoes) and I turned downhill for home. I had hidden the bike so well I had a job to find it! Glad I had taken it though as the last few hundred metres and three miles descent passed very much more quickly than they would on foot. I promptly fell asleep for half an hour when I made it back to the house!
We had a last meal and drink in Samoens in the evening then got busy cleaning the house and making it presentable to leave.
The journey back may be a bit of an epic as we have to take 3 trains from Cluses to Annecy then Lyon then Givors where we will hopefully meet the coach at 2145hrs this evening to take us overnight and drop us at the Northampton services on the M1 tomorrow afternoon!  From there we cycle to Northampton and take more trains back to Kidderminster. Hope that all works out! Next time I'm flying back!
Thanks for the many messages and texts. It's been good to hear from folks while en route and thanks for sponsorship. I think I will have raised over £1000 towards the work in Gambia so am very pleased with that.  I will do a final post from home to round off but thanks for reading the blog. Hope you've found it of occasional interest. Au revoir!