Liquid gold

Lean out your window
Golden hair
I heard you singing
In the midnight air

It's comfy in my room, so I don't hurry out. I ask Sebastien where I could get a poncho and he sends me to a street of clothes shops - which are all closed. Instead I go to Super-U, have coffee and a croissant, and get a replacement poncho, bright red and lightweight, as well as some rice biscuits and an apple. As a special treat I get a pack of TicTacs.

It's a great day for walking. I start off on the GR61/67 heading sort of north east. I follow roads and rivers, heading up the occasional hill and through the odd wood. This is a holiday area, lots of hotels and gites and campsites. The river looks ideal for playing and swimming in.

Then, at Miablet, I head east on the GR70 - known as Chemin de Stevenson. It turns out that Robert Louis walked from Le Puy to Alès (with an ass) and wrote a book about it. Anyway, the French have memorialised it by naming a path after him.

I hussle along the path - there are some steep bits, some portions made up of huge cracked rocks that need to be hopped between, and some hideous descents in path-cum-ditches, paved by loose stones of all sizes.

At a summit, there's a set of three orientation tables, showing you which mountains you're looking at in each direction.

As I descend into Alès, the soil turns from dark ochre to grey. The path winds between high, walled banks and delivers me into Rochebelle, one of the less salubrious parts of town.

I head for a Gite d'étape at the south of town run out of their home by a retired couple. They tell me that Alès has had unemployment problems since the coal mines were shut. Sort of like Wales, but without the rain.

I head into town to get something to eat. The vegetarian restaurant is fully booked - what's going on with these French? Instead I go to the Galway Pub, which is not a pub and has nothing to do with Ireland.

I sit outside on the terasse, start with a Ricard and follow with a steak haché and a red wine. Steak haché is to a beef burger what a cod is to a fish finger. This one is à point and delightfully moist. Served with chips, courgettes and creamed butternut squash. I've still got some wine left, so I follow this with some goat's cheese.

I could get used to this.