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Dull, cool, fresh and quiet except for the horse whinnying and galloping about outside.
We watch two of the vans leave and have a lazy morning, setting off around 11:30. As we are packing up we find one of our purpose made high quality Italian plastic ramps has cracked pushing itself into the hard packed earth. Yer man's brick and plywood don't look so funny now
The track out to Lanteuil and the main road is shorter at 1.6 miles, but absolute single track with grass in the middle and not even a skeleton on a skateboard could pass by.
Mountains fade into distant haze as we climb through lush woods to Beynat. We park on the edge of town and Ali is just in time for the Sunday morning market to get some bread and pickled vegetables.
From Beynat we follow the road to St Chamant and Argentat, which climbs and falls through the Dordogne landscape of woods, valleys and streams. In places we are driving up against rocky cliffs, in others we can see way across the valleys to distant woods. Near St Charmant we pull into a layby to let traffic pass us, when we notice a memorial laid with fresh wreaths and bouquets. Closer inspection reveals it is in honour of five Resistance fighters who were killed on 31st July, [today] in 1944, and clearly they had been remembered this morning.
From Argnentat we join D12 which runs along the valley floor, with the river Dordogne alongside for much of the way. There are numerous campsites and canoe schools and plenty of jutting rocks to steer around. We saw some of the Dordogne in 2014 and always said we'd return, and we are not disappointed.
We arrive at Beaulieu sur Durdogne, written up as a beautiful historic town. The entrance to the aire is a bit elusive but we finally locate it and park at the end of a row of a dozen vans right beside the river. A lovely peaceful location.
As it's late on Sunday afternoon we decide to explore properly tomorrow, but Ali does a quick recce to confirm it is worth visiting.
In the evening, standing at the cooker, Ali enjoys the view of the river through the back window as she prepares pasta for dinner.
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