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squiz
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Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 3071
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5th March 2014
Hiking - Walking: Cascades du Herisson Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: sunny Max Speed: Distance Covered:
Monday 3rd March - Travelling
We left at 1.30 and drove to the shuttle in good time for our crossing.
Got there at the perfect time and they had moved us to the next one due to
reduced capacity!!! Still it was only half an hour later at 4.50. Good
crossing then drove to Strepy Bracquegnies for our usual stopover at the
Canal lift car park:(
Tuesday 4th March – Travelling and short walk – dull and drizzly
Had a good night and had a leisurely start. Some rats were playing in the
bushes across the car park and although most would think yuk we thought
they were quite sweet! Drove to the town and followed the signs to
Ascenders 3 and 4. We hadn’t actually seen these before and parked up on
the bridge and walked past the castle themed pump house and up the many
steps beside the first ascender. The next section of canal had been
emptied, walked along that and up the next ascender and to the bridge in
the distance then back on the other side of the canal along a footpath.
That was the nice bit of the day over and we then drove and drove and drove
for 400 miles on motorways both free and toll. We headed to Poligny in the
Jura and got there about 7. We saw a lit up cross on the hill above the
town and decided to head for that in our usual fashion! We saw the signs
of how to get up there and were amazed to see that it is called the Croix
du Dan! Had to text our Dan about that! We parked up overlooking the
whole of the lit up town of Poligny and couldn’t resist walking the 350m
to the cross with our torch:( It was a beautiful sight with all the lights
and the cross lit up too. Back to the van for sausage and mash and a well
deserved rest. All that travelling is exhausting and we hate that bit when
you have to get a lot of miles out of the way but it is worth it when you
get down here. The worst bit was when I dental floss stuck in his teeth and
we couldn’t get it out! Quite a while digging about with tweezers
finally freed it but it did bleed:(
Wednesday 5th March - ***** Walk to Cascades du Herisson – Very sunny
Wonderful night’s sleep – at least 8 hours then had a lie in and read
our books. It is a glorious day so even got to do our exercises outside as
there was a perfectly placed piece of concrete the same size as our blanket
right on the edge of the hill overlooking the wonderful view. The plaque
just along from where we parked says that dinosaurs roamed on the plateau
where the town now is – hence the Jura name! After breakfast we walked
back to the cross to see the view in daylight. Nice but not as good as
last night! We set out on the small country roads across the ‘premiere
Plateau’ towards the Cirque de Ladoye. Beautiful scenery and the cirque
was easy to find and had a viewing platform right next to the road which
looked down into the valley with a pretty house and river. Carried on past
several lakes until we got to the Cascades du Herisson which cover 3.5km up
a gorge with many separate waterfalls along the way. We had lunch then
walked 2.5km of them, as far as a ruined mill. The first waterfall is the
biggest and is possibly the biggest we have seen. The others come at
intervals along a very rough and scrambling walk - our favourite:) There
are steps and walkways and bits of rope to help but it is still a hard
climb! We were convinced that this is where we had been with the boys in
1997 on the way to Morzine. We had turned off the motorway in the dark in
the hope of finding a small, cheap hotel and found it in the middle of
nowhere but weren’t exactly sure where. The next morning we saw a sign
to the cascades and followed it to the car park and spent a good couple of
hours scrambling around the various waterfalls. It looks so similar we
thought it must be the place. We were away from the van for 3 great
hours. Had a cuppa and some cake then set off to find somewhere to stay
the night. We drove back past the lakes and up around the top of the gorge
above where the cascades are. When we reached the top we saw the sign to
Bonlieu which is where I thought we could possibly have stayed 17 years ago
and bingo – we found the hotel in the middle of the village – The Hotel
Poutre – and the sign to the cascades on the little road running down
beside it:) Drove to the Belvedere des Quatre Lacs (view of 4 lakes). We
had only just said we hadn’t seen any snow yet when suddenly the road was
covered with only two tyre tracks clear! We managed to get to the snowy
car park and decided to stay here. It is wooded and very pretty with the
snow. Walked to the view point which was very nice – of the 4 lakes!!
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