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squiz
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Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 3071
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25th September 2014
Hiking - Walking: Gorges de Nesque Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: sunny Max Speed: Distance Covered:
Thursday 25th September – Hike ***** Gorges de Nesque – Sunny
How can two days be so different! Woke to beautiful blue skies and a text
from Rob to say that it is supposed to be lovely until at least Monday:)
We did our exercises and had our breakfast outside overlooking the lake
which is a really natural one with lots of bull rushes and reeds, ducks,
herons, frogs etc.. Along with our new best friend, a patchwork cat which
looks really like our old cat Nosey:) We had to move it out of the way to
lay down to do exercises – it was getting very comfy on the quilt:)
After packing our lunch we set out across the lake car park to a very
intriguing entrance to the walk along the Gorge. I spent the first hour
whining because I didn’t think we were on the right path and the signs
were hopeless because we were aiming for the Chapel St. Michel which is
built into the Gorge but the sign said St. Hubert which is a small hamlet
up on the land at the top of the gorge. I was concerned because the bike
track was running along with our path and I knew it had to fork off at some
point. I also thought that the path went along the river in the bottom of
the gorge and we were climbing up and up! Anyway, it all worked out fine
in the end (even with us re-tracing our steps once!) because eventually we
came to a sign to the Chapel – only 1km away from it! We only saw 4
couples doing the same walk as us and we were quite a distance apart so
only passed them when they stopped for lunch. The views over the Gorge and
the cliffs on either side were spectacular and the path a typical French
scramble down vertical rocks! We have missed it! The path led down to the
river bed which was distinctly missing a river! It was virtually dry and
not much more than a ditch. It must have been a major river at some point
to carve out this enormous gorge! We crossed over and only a few hundred
metres further on came to the Chapel which was very plain and beautifully
built into the shelter of the overhanging cliff. Goodness knows why all
those hundreds of years ago they decided they needed a chapel in such a
bizarre place! It must be ancient because it was renovated in 1643! There
was a signpost back to Monieux pointing up the other side of the gorge on
the GR9 path so we decided to make it a circular route and go back that
way. It was again a virtual vertical scramble up with amazing views. We
stopped on an overhanging rock to eat our lunch:) The road from Sault to
Carpentras which runs along the gorge was at the top of the path and there
were, again, lots of loud American cyclists on it! We had to cross over to
re-join the GR9. Much to our surprise it carried on climbing up and up and
finally over a huge rocky hill eventually leading us along the top of a
ridge overlooking the lake and our van and on to Monieux village. We
walked through a few of the narrow streets looking at the houses of all
shapes and sizes wedged in amongst the cliffs then followed the road back
to the Plan d’Eau. Two campers had parked near us and we had noticed a
track leading out to the middle of the lake when we were up on the ridge.
Stephen went to have a look if it was suitable for the van as an overnight
spot while I made a fuss of patchwork cat:) The spot he found was perfect
and we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening relaxing and reading
there by the lake:) Another top day!
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