Wed 30 Aug - foggy, sunny, climbers, ridge walk, Cameroon vegies, tomatoes

The morning started cool and foggy, but by late morning it had cleared to a fine sunny day, which allowed me to capture the beauty of the Rochefort mooring, with the river and barrage on one side and the steep cliffs on the other side.

As often happens here, some climbers were at the base of the cliffs running a class for newby climbers. We resisted the temptation to join in with the class, and instead went for a walk along the ridge at the top of the cliff. We walked for about one kilometre and, just as we were about to turn around, we saw a lady tending to her vegetable garden which bordered the cliff walk. Rita struck up a conversaton with her, and we discovered that she was originally from Cameroon and was now working as a nurse in a local hospital, and tending to her vegetables. She was very willing to share information about her vegie garden, and as we werw about to leave, she insisted that we shared some of her vegies as well, and gave a bagfull of varied vegies.

We returned to the boat in the mid-afternoon, where I started reading a new novel "How to Kill a Client". After dinner we went for a walk up the river to the next ecluse. Along the way, we met up with another lady tending to her garden with some evening watering, and Rita again struck up a conversation. As the sun set and the sky darkened, we figured we should move on, but not before being given a bag of cherry tomatoes from the garden. The country French people are really friendly and generous. We completed our walk just in time to sit on the rear deck with a drink as we watched the full moon rising.