Tuesday, April 28, 2026
End: Provisions Pond
Kilometers: 27.7
Total: 189.5
Thankfully it was not cold at night up on the old earthen wall. I had to step out of the tent in the middle of the night, and there was a gorgeous moon shining down on us.
We packed up all of our gear in the morning and walked down to Parc Samara, an attraction where a prehistoric village has been made to show off what life may have been like here thousands of years ago. We didn’t see the inside, we just hiked on past.
It was a nice little walk along the canal, a bit different as the canal is not straight for this section. I had marked the grocery store near Picquigny on my map, so we briefly departed the trail to pick up food.
With our backpacks now full again, we went through Picquigny, and saw our first hiker of the trip, though I don’t think she was on the GR800, as she was going in the opposite direction. Though this trail is beautiful and was featured on the program Mon GR Préféré, we hadn’t seen anyone else hiking on it. One person mentioned that most people bicycle the route.
I took a picture of Miriam at the old Picquigny castle, and we hiked back out into the countryside. We didn’t take many breaks, as it was morning and we try to cover a sizeable distance each morning. We took a short break where the trail descended to the small village of Saint-Pierre-à-Gouy, then climbed back up a hill.
A large tractor passed us before we left the dirt road and passed by the Gard Abbey. The path passed through a slightly less-traveled area with taller plants, and we were careful to avoid contact with any rash-inducing plants.
From there, I tried to keep Daniel going, but he was very slow. I got frustrated and hiked on without him leaving Alex to deal with him.
Miriam was not far behind me as we finally arrived back at the canal at Hangest-sur-Somme. There were a couple of hikers there, and we found in them the first confirmed GR800 thru-hikers on the while trip. Like us, they had started at Fonsomme, and were hiking to the sea. They left us to continue their hike as I set up our tent and Alex cooked lunch.
We had felt a few raindrops, but ultimately it didn’t rain. The kids had lunch, and I ended up taking a short nap before we packed up and left at 3 in the afternoon.
We had alternated back to the canal, and we stayed there for awhile before leaving the water to enter L’Étoile. Here the path took a bit of a weird path behind some houses, and I couldn’t find it, not convinced it wasn’t private property. We stuck to the street and rejoined the route in town.
The climbs have been rare on this hike, but here we had to go up to a high point before going right back down. We were soon back on the dirt roads traversing the farms of Picardy. Our goal at this point was to get to the next store for food before it closed. Google Maps said there was no store in Long, the next village, and the small store, SPAR, in Fontaine-sur-Somme would close at 7PM. We kept moving.
By the time we got down to Long and descended down to the canal that we have come to know so well, it was clear we wouldn’t make it to the store at this pace. I left the others and set off at a slow jog. It was hard work running three kilometers with a backpack to the village. I monitored my time, and made it a few minutes before 7PM. When I got to the spot, there was no store! I talked to a woman outside a bar, and she confirmed the store was gone.
The folks at the bar were nice, and there were a couple things to buy on their shelves, but very little. I bought a couple drinks and some peanuts, then went back to rejoin the others.
We met where the route turns sharply at L’Étang des Provisions. Everyone was tired. We decided to set up the tent there, and I got some water from a house not far away. We had noodles to cook for the children, and Alex and I shared the peanuts. Now we were really out of food. As the local ducks quacked loudly at us in our tent, we determined to leave early the next morning to get to the store.
