Uh Oh, Route Barree!

A significant watershed (at the Col du Minier)

Our high point for the day

Awkwardly placed pile of rubble



The sign at the far end of the closed section was more informative than the one at the top



Agricultural machinery in need of modernisation 😃

I really ought to take more notice of these road closed signs! Usually they are no big deal for a bike, or even a tandem. We weaved around the bollards at the top of one about 85km into our day today. Within a km or so the road started to drop into a steep sided gorge leading to some concern that if we actually couldn't get through then we would have a big climb to get back up and follow the diversion route. Also, with the road being so steep and 'clinging to the hillside' in nature I started to get an uneasy feeling that to attempt to walk across any landslipped section might be dangerous, especially for Steve. After quite a bit of desending we came to the place where they were working on the road - it looked pretty major. The workmen didn't pay us any attention as we shifted the fence to gain access to their 'site', I think they were busy discussing what they were going to have for lunch. We took the bags off the bike and lifted everything across a pile of rubble (see pictures). We walked with the bike, now reloaded, down a rubbly ledge past the working digger. Then, at the eleventh hour, when I could have literally spat on the intact tarmac the other side, someone appeared and told us we would have to go back - back up the rubbly ledge, past the working digger, over the pile of rubble, back through the fence (which we had closed behind us like good children), back up several km of hill and then around the diversion route which was just bound to be further and more arduous than the route we were supposed to be on! And all of this within a yard and a half of the intact road beyond the closure 😭. Like I said before, backtracking isn't a word we entertain in our vocabulary so Steve brought his white cane to the fore and we appealed to the 'jobsworth's' better nature until he let us through. I noticed a dead car on it's roof in the pit below us as we walked through - it would have been nice to take more pictures but we thought it sensible to get the hell out of there and off down the mountain before anyone changed their mind.

Today we have had another great day of cycling covering 136km with a climb of 2657m. We would have liked to have ridden a bit further but, again, a dearth of accommodation precluded this. The people at last night's hotel told us to expect a wet day but it had been great.

Tonight we will rest up at L'Esperou, which is at over 1000m and has a bit of a 'frontier town' feel to it.

If you are enjoying this daily drivel please don't forget our Justgiving page - we still have a way to go to meet our target for Cancer Research UK.  Thanks so much if you have already contributed.

 https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/100-cols-for-cancer