Our Moveable Feats

By Landes & Aire

September 11, 2026

Nogaro -> L’Aire-sur-l’Adour (-> Orthez)

Breakfast was elaborate but strange as our host sat behind us, repeatedly stirring his coffee as we munched and eyed the knives. Soon, we were relieved by grunts of English from the hall as a pair of older Aussies wrangled their bags into the pick-up zone. We would overlap with them throughout the day, which started brilliantly with dappled cloud cover and a wee chill.

We had several baguett-o-wich’s packed and enjoyed a coffee at a friendly, funky donativo stop. The patchwork of cornfields and vineyards continued with some disorder: one field revealed a corn massacre, with thousands of plucked cobs strewn asunder for reasons we could only guess at. Bird army? Drunken farmer? Biodynamic ritual?

As we descended into the expansive Adour valley and the Landes department, we finally addressed ‘le sanglier in the room’… this was our last day of hiking and the end of another leg in this 900 km journey. Any melancholy was short-lived, as gratitude and gratification prevailed. Even some goofiness emerged on the long, flat trudge to L’Aire and its riverside delights.

A corn-devil swirled about us at one point!

We’re not in Éauze, anymore!

We arrived, flushed and gummy, to our chambres d’hôtes to find out, again, that we were the only ones staying in the spectacular, renovated old mansion: summer season is evidently over. Thankfully, this hostess had people skills… and, to our surprise, a pool! After a reverse-baptism, dinner out was a heavy planche of hamburger, crocque-monsieurs, tuna rilettes and other beige, calorific items.

Aire’s railway is long-gone (given over to voie vertes 🌳, vegetation 🌿 and, sigh, vélo-rail 🚴), so extracting ourselves from our hiking terminus required some finessing. The baggage transport company agreed to take us to the Orthez rail station . This would prove an amusing digestif after our multi-course walk: Stéphane, true to his name, provided excitement and perspective as we ricocheted from gîte to gîte 🏘️, many of which were off-grid. Luggage in, luggage out, luggage not out (tant pis! 😅), last minute rebooking… he conducted all of this to the blast of classic rock 🎸.