Tour de France

Coverage of this year's Tour de France includes a couple of stages which go close to the GR10. Thursday's stage went through Bareges and Luz St. Saveur on the road which you can see while on the route. Today's stage of the Tour de France finishes at the Plateau de Beille - this was one of locations to die for on last year's walk - almost exactly a year ago when I was there (July 18th to be precise). Some photos below. The first one was the view from outside the bar/cafe. It had been a fairly early finish, about 3pm so just a wonderful place to relax in the sunshine. The place looks quite empty - it's normally a Nordic Ski centre so it's peak time will be January to April but I suspect it will be rather crowded tomorrow afternoon. ITV4 has live coverage from 2pm day (correction - it starts at 11am for this stage) and I guess the winner will finish at around 4.30 BST. If you miss it live, ITV4 has a highlights programme which goes out at 7pm BST andis available to watch anytime on ITV Player.

Adventures on the GR10 e-book now available

The book is finally complete - but no doubt I will pick up the occasional errors and correct them over the coming months.

The book is 167 pages (A4 size) and contains over 300 photographs. The file has a size of 82MB so please be patient when downloading. I can create a version with more compression of the photos if requested.

If you would like a copy, the link is gr10story.pdf

The best way is to right-click and download the file.
It is password protected. If you have already made a donation to one of the two charities, please email me and I shall provide you with the password.

If you've yet to make a donation, the links are below.

Guide Dogs For The Blind
British Heart Foundation

Ebook now complete

I've just finished correcting the typos (that I've seen - no doubt there will be some that I've missed) and emailed Parts 3 and 4 to a limited distribution. If they've not spotted any errors in a week, I shall make it available to a wider audience.

At 167 pages with 318 photos, it's not exactly small.

Part 1 of ebook now out for feedback

I've now completed putting together part 1 (Pays Basque) and part 2 (Pyrenees Central - Arrens-Marsous to Bagnères de Luchon).
I've sent Part 1 to a few selected people for a bit of feedback and will send out part 2 later today.
With a bit of luck I may finish lining up all the photos and proofreading part 3 (Ariège) today and Part 4 (Pyrenees Orientales) during the week.

If you want me to send you a copy, please post up a comment.

Missing email addresses

Thanks to Jean Guy for spotting that I'd missed a letter from my email address in the previous post. I've now corrected it.

First part of e-book now ready for review

I've now added over 300 photos (from the 900 I took) into an ebook of the walk. To reduce the filesize (but still keeping a reasonable quality level for the photos), I divided it into four parts, matching the four regions (Pays Basque, Pyrenees Centrale, Ariège amd Pyrenees Orientales) traversed by the GR10. I've proof-read and captioned the photos in the first part (Pays Basque) and sent it out to a few of my fellow walkers for feedback. I'll make it more widely available once I've incorporated any feedback.
Meanwhile, I'll work through the rest over the next few days.

First draft now finished

It's taken longer than the actual walk but today I finish writing my first draft of my story of my adventure on the GR10 At over 25,000 words, it will take a while to review and to choose photos to include. Even if I include only two per day that's 100.

Missing email addresses

I have either mislaid or mistakenly disposed of notes of some email addresses.

I have some photos of them that I would like to forward to fellow walkers from my GR10.

So if you happen to look at my blog and wonder where are the photos that I promised please let my have your email address again (email to gordon at(@) soulfulhorwich.org.uk

From the first two weeks :
Alexandre, Sophie & Sylvain (any one of you)
Gerard and Jacques (should be in my mail client but isn't)
Yannik and Josephine from Toulouse
Jeangüe & Brad (from Perth, WA)
Ryan & Fabrice, from the US (don't think I have a photo but if you want to get in touch)

from Germ : Marc

From Bouillouse Refuge :
Katrina from Lyon/Paris (if you've now moved)
George from near Prague/Praha

Anyone else that I've missed

* * * * Targets Reached * * * *

Even though there still some donations to come in through sponsor forms and I am sure there are some people who would love donate the price of a pint or a packet of fags but just haven't got "round tuit" yet, my targets of £500 for both Guide Dogs and British Heart Foundation has now been reached. But don't stop donating - if it could get towards £1000 for each that would be even more wonderful.
I want to thank each and everyone of you who has made donations.
A big thank you must go to Brian who covered the cost of the satellite phone rental and has donated the balance to be divided between the two charities. Luckily I didn't need to use the satellite phone (at about £1.50 per minute!) so this was a major boost to achieving the targets.
I'll filter a few photos through but the bulk of them are being saved for the e-book which I need to get on with sharpish.

Where I've paid the money in on behalf of cash donations (Bev and Richard I need to send your cheques direct), if the amount is not showing and you want it to show, let me know. Conversely if it is showing and you want it hidden, let me know, and I go in and amend.

Not forgotten about the blog

Currently very busy preparing for my PGCE course but I am also writing up the whole adventure from my notes - now up to start of Day 13 and already over 5000 words!
I'll be asking those who met along the way to have a read of relevant bits and give me some feedback - but probably well into September before I reach that stage.