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squiz Member Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 3071 |
17th May 2013 Hiking - Walking: Balade au pays des menhirs & Chaos de Nimes-le-Vi Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: sunny periods Max Speed: Distance Covered: Friday 17th May – walks ***** Balade au pays des menhirs & Chaos de Nimes-le-Vieux – sunny periods :) We woke to 1 degree but sunshine! Clouds too especially in the valley but it was there :) I got up and went to take photos of the little stone house in front of the Bondon hump and we ate our breakfast with the wonderful views:) We could see where we stayed the other night just above Florac and where we had walked to along the cliffs. We drove back to the car park for the Menhir walk (Balade au pays des menhirs) and after texting Jay to say Happy Birthday (23 today), set off around 10 a.m... It was a lot better than we expected. We thought it would just be through a rocky plateau but the walk actually took you through pine forests and a beautiful valley full of long grass and dandelions with cows grazing. There was a beautiful stone cottage by the river and a village to pass through as well as seeing lots of menhirs. It took us the allotted 2 ½ hours it said it would take to walk the 5kms and we didn’t get lost either!!! We have seen some fantastic birds today including several birds of prey. Mag is trying to compile a list for the day at the end of this. We drove off down the road next to the car park which has more standing stones to see, a fantastic single track down! There really are a lot around here – they are everywhere! Had our lunch on the outskirts of Florac in the car park by the river- being Florac it absolutely poured with rain!!! Then because the Carrefour doesn’t open until 3!! We had a last look at the lovely waterfalls at the source (nowhere near as much water than when we were here last time with 4 days of rain!). We also managed to find a tap to refill the water tanks too :) Did a little shopping then set off for the Chaos de Nimes-le-Vieux. The road through the valley is really beautiful and we found a small road in Vebron signposting Villeneauve which is one of the Chaos sites. This road was on our map but not the tourist map and we soon found out why! We managed it fine with no problems but it was a white knuckle ride for Mag – the slope down on the passenger side was vertical and it was only a narrow road. We finally got to the top and the plateaux opened up with all these weird rock creations everywhere. It is a bit like Brimham Rocks in Yorkshire where we went with the boys when they were younger. There are huge rocks balanced on small ones and big pillars of rock everywhere. We stopped at the first village (Le Veygalier) offering a ‘balade’ around the rocks for 2 euros but we couldn’t find anyone to pay so we didn’t! We later found 2 more villages offering a similar thing for free but they didn’t have such ridiculously big rocks balanced on small ones so we made the right choice. However, if we hadn’t come the ridiculous road route we probably wouldn’t have ventured that far along the road :) It was brilliant. A really well laid out path and some cracking rocks :) Drove round the other villages and I went to see some more dolmens in the field. Lots more birds including a terrific display by 2 red kites! We followed the road along the top of the Causse Mejean and I thought I had found the perfect stop for the night right on the edge of the tallest cliff you have ever seen. It made Mag feel quite sick to look down and l eventually thought it might be too windy up there so we moved on much to Mag’s relief. BUT we eventually parked in a tiny little stopping place on the top of the Gorges de le Jonte! We have the most spectacular view up the gorge with Vultures flying overhead! We saw about 100 swirling up in the sky just before we got here. Saw about 25 low down then looked up into the cloud and there were so many you couldn’t count them. The Jonte gorges are famous for them though. Today’s bird list Red backed shrike Great Grey Shrike Red Kite Griffin Vulture Kestral Black Kite Red Kite Raven Crow Blackbird Linnet Sparrows Chaffinch Skylark Tree Pippet Black Redstarts Saturday 18th May – travelling – cloudy,windy and wet !!! Crap :( Torrential rain all night!! Windy too so being on our tiny little space wedged into the cliff was quite an experience! Amazingly we slept really well but we didn’t hang around because we were being absolutely lashed with rain and you couldn’t really see very much of the amazing view for low cloud. Quite surprisingly you could see the bottom of the gorge and up the valley a little. We stopped at Meyruis for bread and cake as some compensation for the grotty day! Seemed quite a nice little town with the river Jonte running through the centre. We drove out of the area via the Gorges de Jonte which were not accessible at any point either walking or canoeing so we are glad we didn’t make any plans for that and it didn’t seem so bad that it was raining all the way! – put our crappy chairs in the rubbish bin, Mag will email Super U (not that super) for a refund !!! We headed for the motorway on a pretty road and we did see a deer. Crossed the motorway and drove through the Aveyron area, past Rodez and stopped at Capdenac on the river Lot for lunch (still raining but did stop while we were there!). Carried on up into the Dordogne region and had a quick look at Rocamadour before finding a spot for the night right on the banks of the river Dordogne at Souillac. We are going to see Arwen and Jace tomorrow so went to the local E Leclerc to get a nice cake and some cream and some croissants for breakfast the next morning. We also got some diesel. We did have some outbreaks of sun and blue sky between the heavy clouds but it has basically rained for the 162 miles we drove to get here :( We went for a walk in the evening when it was just spitting but it got heavier and we did get quite wet! We walked to the bridge near where we are parked and up into the little village of Le Priere – there is a big chateau up there but we don’t know if it is a priory or not – it was a quaint place with lots of summer flowers out so summer must have arrived here at some point! Sunday 19th May – travel & visit friends – yet more rain :( It rained all night and is still raining this morning. Had a weird dripping and couldn’t see where it was coming from so that was annoying! Had breakfast and left to drive to Jace and Arwen’s. Stopped at a lake about 20 minutes away from their house for lunch at a little village called Thouron. They were really pleased to see us and we had a lovely afternoon and evening with them. They haven’t got so many animals at the moment, 5 cats, 1 dog (the butt ugly Charlie!) some chickens that survived the fox and that’s about it. We couldn’t even go down to the lovely river because of the rain and the fact it would be all mud :( Chatted until a quiche, potato and homemade coleslaw tea then after washing up introduced them to Phase 10. The girls were on their computers before tea but joined in and we had a good laugh. Arwen was so excited when she won :) The biggest coincidence is that a friend of theirs was looking at a friends vw magazine and saw the photo of them in the second instalment of the magazine article we wrote which we haven’t even seen yet. The friend facebooked them about it and sent a photo he had taken of the photo. What are the chances of them finding out about it in such an obscure way before we surprised them with it! Amazing!! Off to bed in the car park at the end of their drive. Still raining! Arwen and Jace are sick of it! |
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