Cheating? More like being adaptable.

Day 6 Sunday 2nd May

St Etienne de Baigorry to St Jean Pied de Port 9 Miles of walking plus 2 in the car.

We stayed with Pantxo at his Chbre d'Hotes just outside St E de Baigorry. His late father's 17th century house, Pantxo had beautifully restored it and opened it as a chambres d'Hotes in April this year. In an earlier life he'd been a chef and the meal was definitely up to expectations, but not cholesterol friendly. He was also very good for my French - he didn't stop talking all evening. He also offered to drove us to St Jean Pied de Port the next morning. When we expected another long day with around 1000m ascent and descent and over 11 miles of walking we were tempted but in the end settled on a lift to 800m, just below the highest point of 1012m, which reduced the distance to about 9miles.

It was a beautiful walk - a steepish climb and then a long and initially steep descent into tje valley but the ground was easy and largely grass. We saw a number of what we think were buzzards flying over the tops.
We were still glad to arrive at our Salon de The where we quickly made ourselves clean and comfortable before searching out a meal and enjoy the anticipation of a couple of days rest.