The Marathon Snail

I pick up the Via Francigena, the 2000+km pilgrim path from Canterbury to Rome, in Arras, where I left off last year. Étapes 13-14 Once free from the outskirts of Arras, the Via emerged onto the agricultural flatlands of Pas-de-Calais. Vast fields of thick warm-brown soil, meticulously ploughed, alternated with waving green wheat and yellow oilseed. A heavy afternoon thunderstorm led me to shelter under some young trees in the Sunken Road Cemetery, resting place of 213 soldiers from the WWI 1916 Somme offensive, fallen in trench warfare. Thinking they might be scared of the noise, I reassured them. “It’s only thunder”, I said. “Not war”. I told them what the land looked like now - all evened out, and planted with crops, guarded by wind turbines, shepherded by friendly farmers in tractors. I described the Paris-Lille TGV rushing past on the horizon. The flowers, the butterflies and bees around their graves. How brightly green and soft the grass was. One headstone had several ...

Wild camping in France: FAQs and practical tips

What are the official rules in France? Wild camping ( camping sauvage ) and bivouacking are not allowed in France in the following locations: on private land (except with the owner’s permission) on the coast in protected natural sites at historic monuments within 200m of a water collection site Anywhere else it is permitted, and local authorities may have their own rules, stricter or less so, about the above locations too. Is it camping or bivouacking? Camping tends to refer to those in campervans or larger tents and/or who want to stay somewhere more than one night. In France, bivouacking tends to be cyclists or walkers with a small tent (like me) or no tent who are looking for a discreet one-night stop. However, in English terminology and UK outdoor practices, bivouacking tends to be wild camping sans tent, possibly in a bivvy sack. For linguistic purposes I'll continue to refer to what I do as camping. My personal rules an...

Out in the cold

Sarah O’Regan volunteers with a UK charity in Dunkirk supporting refugees “You must help them!” The man, drained with cold and exhaustion, gestured at a father holding a baby as he spoke urgently to me. “Why aren’t you helping them?” The clothes of the refugee carrying the baby were wet. The air temperature was close to zero. The inflatable dinghy used in the previous night’s attempt to cross the English Channel had developed a leak and everyone, including the baby, had fallen into the freezing, dark water. This morning, the adults were still in wet clothes – the only ones they owned. The baby, at least, looked dry and warm in its father’s arms. Another man told us that when he removed his trousers to dry them, the salty fabric ripped a layer of skin off. Later, we learned that two lifeless bodies had been found in the sea. It is February, and I am on a patch of scrubland near Dunkirk in northern France, volunteering with a refugee charity, Calais ...