Although I had a long night's sleep, it was not a good night's sleep.  In the back of my mind I was a little worried that, being a Friday night, someone might roll up late after driving from somewhere for the weekend and expect to sleep in the tent.  Also, the ground was quite hard.  I was woken by rain a few times so was glad of the shelter.  Anyway, I got up at 7am, and left by 7:30am.  I had done some hard thinking yesterday about the difficulties of accommodation and high pass snow, and decided to plan my days carefully to ensure accommodation was likely to be available (I'll start phoning ahead each night) and that I had short days when I needed to cross a high pass, insofar as that is possible.  Accordingly, I have planned out the next three days, two of which involve high passes, and will only aim for a short day today.  I was also recognizing that I was totally exhausted after yesterday with no decent food to recuperate on.

The route out of Roya climbed steadily along single track trail through seemingly disused high alpine terraced farmland and past falling down or boarded up old stone buildings.  All quite charming in their way and, along with various crosses and religious artifacts, spoke of a vibrant and hard-working community in years gone by.  I crossed Col de Blainon (2014m) and it was like walking through a door into another world.  Farmland changed to pine forest, walking tracks changed to downhill mountain-biking trails and rural hamlets changed into large ski resorts.  By this time, rain had set in, but I was warm and dry in my gear and enjoyed the pine needle covered trail down to the resort.

There's nothing quite so dreary as an out-of-season ski resort in the rain.  Most of the buildings, including some enormous lodges, were closed, as were most of the shops, but I found a cafe where the lady prepared me an excellent large salad roll on a crispy French loaf which I enjoyed while sitting outside (under cover).  As I ate I watched the few people in town for the weekend trying to make the best of the weather going for walks around the resort (with their dogs, of course) all rugged up.

The rain strengthened as I left and I trudged uphill along a zig-zag road through the resort feeling more positive after a good feed and dodging the water cascading down the sealed surface.  There followed a steep switch-backing descent through pine forest on single-track trail covered in loose rocks that wasn't much fun, but the last few kilometres were along some old roads into St-Etienne-de-Tinee which was quite pleasant.  Soon after entering the historic old town I passed a Gite d'Etape just as a care-taker was emerging.  He told me that they weren't doing meals this early in the season and I couldn't check in for another couple of hours, but I was welcome to leave my pack there and go into town for a look around.  After pondering a moment, I decided to keep my options open and kept my pack with me.  I discovered that the closed tourist office (opens for the season next week!) still offered free wi-fi and I spent some time unsuccessfully trying to connect with my netbook.  I gave up in the end and went looking for hotels and found one offering a good deal on "demi-pension" (dinner, bed and breakfast) for 50E and I accepted.  The room was tiny but clean and the proprietress friendly.  She told me the tiny grocery in town would be open after 4pm and I went in and restocked my emergency supplies and returned to the hotel.  I then called ahead to my next hoped-for accommodation and was told I could get a bed in the Gite, but no food, so I need to carry extra tomorrow.  He also said there was plenty of snow on the high passes.  I went back into town to check what time the bakery opened in the morning so I can grab a breadstick and some cheese on my way out, tried the wi-fi at the tourist office again, this time with success, and will try to upload my journal tomorrow on my way out of town.

I seem to be the only guest in the hotel and ate in the dining room (very nice meal) at the same time as some kind of dinner was taking place involving the hotel proprietors and friends/family.

It won't be a very long day tomorrow, in terms of kilometres, but will have a couple of interesting passes to negotiate.