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squiz Member Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 3071 |
23rd April 2013 Hiking - Walking: Abbeye Notre Dame des Neiges to St Laurent les Bai Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: sunny periods :) Max Speed: Distance Covered: Monday 22nd April – travelling – cloudy then sun late Made the most of our lovely spot by doing our exercises outside. Not too chilly! After breakfast packed up and left about 11.30. Went to the shop and got stuff for a veggie curry tonight :) Made our way down the Loire going through gorges and round reservoirs. Stopped at the Chateau d’Essalois for lunch and a walk round the ruin. Great view of the river below with a huge meander and an island with a tower on. We had a fine display from Black and Red kites on several occasions today. Took the faster motorway/A road to get a little distance under our belts and navigated our way to a large lake on the map which is the Reservoir de Naussac. Nice drive through tiny roads, over a narrow metal bridge over a gorge and a flock of sheep running towards us too! We had a drive up and down the reservoir, which is huge, before choosing a place to park in a large picnic area away from the road and with a pile of cut wood shielding most of us from view. We prepared all the veggies for our curry and made some coleslaw too! Went for a walk down to the lake, along the banks and up through the freshly cut wood. Ate our delicious curry then went down to take photos of the sunset. Red sky tonight so hopefully a nice day tomorrow. It has been better today but still low white cloud with the occasional sun peaking through. We drove through a plateau where there was still snow lying around the edge of the fields! We had the diesel heater on for a bit because I got so’oooo cold taking the sunset photos! Tuesday 23rd April – walk **** Abbeye Notre Dame des Neiges to St Laurent les Bains – sunny periods :) – Shorts day – first time of the year!!!! Really lovely day, sunshine and blue skies to start with so although only 2 degrees according to the van thermometer we still did exercises outside in the sun and had to take our fleeces off because too warm! Saw a lovely yellowhammer sunbathing soon after we woke up :) We didn’t leave our place until 11.30 and popped into the nearest town, Langogne, to visit the tourist information before it closed and had a wander round the lovely old buildings. Really tall, narrow houses. Left there and soon found something new to take our interest, The Notre Dame des Neiges Abbey which appears to be a modern monastery (the adventure of prayer and boutique monastique !?!?!?!) and also a retreat hotel. Initially we only stopped to use the loo (having been drawn in by the word Neiges as we know it means snow) but saw some camper vans parked and decided to investigate. It turned out to be an aire and the departure point for several walks. We filled the water tanks (holy water?) then parked up, had a cuppa and read our books. Packed a quick picnic and heading off on the 45 minute walk to the ruins of another abbey with the idea that if we fancied the longer walk when we got there we would try that. We had our lunch in the ruins and decided to try going further towards St. Laurent les Bains. The path took us through a small gap in some trees and then we were amazed to find the ground dropped away into a really deep valley with paths and roads squiggling about all over the place! We could see a tower in the distance and decided to follow the path as far as that. It was very steep and rough under foot so quite a challenge when we are so out of practice! We got to the tower and looked over the railings to see the village below. We had been intrigued to know where the village was hidden because although it was only supposed to be 2.5 km from the ruined abbey we hadn’t seen any sign of it. We decided that as the path was another half a kilometre scramble down the rocks we would make do with the view from above and after having a break we went back up the rocky path, eventually returning to the van after about 3 hours. It was a great walk and we really enjoyed it. Luckily the sky was blue but with clouds over the sun so it wasn’t too hot for such a challenging walk! Read our books and relaxed (finishing off the bread with jam too!) before having a late tea of left over’s. |
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