Well almost sorted.  route almost fixedStarting at the wonderful http://www.twilightchiens.com/   run by the lovely ex pats,  Leeanne & Michael  Whitley at  La Peyzie, North Dordogne. This lovely couple cater for elderly dogs. I will be taking a van full of stuff out for them, so take a look at their wish list  http://www.twilightchiens.com/how-to-help-collections  & shout if you can donate anything.

Our route will be via various ‘randonnes’ to Carcassonne, (with a planned stop ,  a shower/bath, meal & a real bed in Castanet, Midi-Pyrenees),

Then we join the GR 36

To the GR 83, at Prades, into Spain near Beget.

Then  bits of various GR routes

Carte-de-France-des-itineraires

To join  back  onto  the GR7 , then a long long way and a bit of fiddling to get to El Verger,  then back to the GR7 , choosing either the north or South route and see if we can reach Granada

We don’t know how many walking hours a day we will have,  as its going to be hot, maybe we will be walking mostly at night? So I’m not setting daily distances, just making sure there are as many rivers, lakes as possible on the route. I do have to set a date to arrive at the Animal Centre at  S.C.A.N Costa Blanca  . (They are working really hard within their community, and Spain as a whole to improve the lot of dogs & other animals, and deserve all the support they can get), at El Verger in Valencia. However we will have the tracker on so you can follow our progress.

My next jobs are to select the maps I must have, sign up also for online mapping. Pare down our gear to the absolute minimum,  mountain walking is going to be tough on my knee, and weight really will matter. Last years load, with 3kg of dog food., was just over 17.5kg. It was only the minimum, but included warmer clothing than we will need this time . I want to get that down to less than 15kg. 

Get Syd sorted with a new harness, he is a much bigger chap now he has fully matured and muscled up.

Oh & lastly convince myself its not desperately extravagant, to buy the tent I’ve seen that weighs less than 1kg. The one we have weighs in at 2.3kg, and would be a saving of 1.3kg

The countdown begins. We leave for France on the night Ferry from Portsmouth to Caen on  the 25th May, and after visiting some friends we made last year will start walking a few days later.