Each journey begins with a single step... Two kiwis escaping from the island to explore strange new worlds and boldly go where thousands have gone before... . .

We came to a roundabout that circled a HUGE rock (una mas grande roca!) and on the other side was the old border to exit Spain and enter France. Before we knew it we were in Montrejeau and turned up a hill and ended up in a covered hexagonal carpark. Luckily for us there were both toilets and WIFI there and so we checked our messages. Unluckily for us we found that Carols friends had had to head back to England this morning in a hurry as the French are on the march about petrol prices and some petrol refineries have been blockaded stopping the supply of fuel to petrol stations. On Tuesday there was to be some sort of strike so they couldn't wait in case they wouldn't be able to get petrol to return, we missed them only by a couple of hours :(. We saw that Lourdes was nearby and knew the place was famous so headed for there but not directly but by a long circuitous route. We ended up going over two passes that are part of the 'Tour de France' cycle race, the Col d'Aspin, and Col du Tourmalet with magnificent views! We arrived in Lourdes at 6pm and found a park right in the centre. As everyone was streaming out of the place we were heading in, everything closed at 7pm. Lourdes is famous for a small cave where a young girl was visited by the Virgin Mary, and the water has been said to have cured many afflictions over the years. Nowadays the water from the cave has been made into a fountain where you can drink or take in containers the 'miracle' water and it is also a sacred place above which not one but three huge catholic churches have been built one on top of the other making one HUGE edifice. The grotto has seats outside it like perhaps services are held there and people were queueing to walk thru it (it isn't deep), huge candles were being lit at the entrance and not far away a whole area was dedicated to candles and also to small shops selling containers so you can take the water home.

We had time to go into the largest and smallest of the churches both of which were very ornate, the largest had a service going on, the middle one unfortunately closed its doors at 2 minutes to 7 and we missed seeing the inside of it. We got to know Lourdes (the town of hotels and catholic trinket shops) quite well as we negotiated it's myriad of one way roads trying to find our way out.

To see our photos  http://cjb.pascoe.net.nz/   (click on or copy and paste into browser)