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squiz Member Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 3071 |
14th June 2016 Mt. Biking: Circuit du l’Authion Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: Weather, sunny periods then cold wind and cloud then hot and sunny! Max Speed: Distance Covered: Tuesday 14th June – Bike ***** the circuit du l’Authion – Hike **** + Adventure driving!! Weather, sunny periods then cold wind and cloud then hot and sunny! Awake at 6! The view from the van was spectacular with early sun on the mountains and lots of cloud in the valleys so it looked like cotton wool. Got out of the van and walked over to the other side of the car park as I could hear voices and a lot of bells and watched 2 farmers letting at least 100 sheep go up onto the pasture :) Back at the van we decided to go off on our planned bike ride around the loop (Pte trois communes) before the cloud started to lift up to our level. We had a quick breakfast and freewheeled down the hill to the beginning of the loop. It was then downhill again – in fact for the first 3 miles of the 6 mile trip was downhill. The uphill started when we reached the ruins of the military base and tank we stopped at yesterday. Then it was a gradual uphill push all the way back to the van. We were rewarded with the most spectacular views. It is a lot different here to the rocky terrain of the last few days. It is more like the Yorkshire Moors with rugged mountain backdrop. The Loop goes round a big bowl containing vacheries (dairy milking sheds) and lots of grazing land. The lovely dark brown cows were out in the valley – you could hear them for miles as every single one has a large bell round its neck which rings even when they are standing still eating! We stopped at lots of intervals to take photos and short videos because it is impossible to capture how great it is! We only saw a couple of vehicles (one going the wrong way around the one way loop!) until we got to the small lay by underneath the castle where 3 vehicles had parked. One was the park ranger land rover and we wondered if they were checking the paths. Back to the van for a drink and put the bikes away then on with the walking boots and up the grassy zig zag paths to the ruins of yet more military housing and then on to the castle. As said above, we hadn’t seen anyone then all of a sudden coming up the path from the small ski resort were at least 100 hikers!! (We later discovered they were two coach loads!). They must have had the worst guide ever! She was marching away at the front talking non stop into her radio which was slung round her waist and the poor hikers were trying to keep up and she wasn’t stopping to tell or show them anything! Some rebelled and went up to the ruins and when she told some stragglers that they were supposed to be marching off down the hill with her they said – No we are going to the table of orientation! It was very amusing to watch and we did feel for the hikers because they really did get a raw deal – not only was the guide useless, the cloud was coming in thick and fast so they (and we!) couldn’t see very much. There were also a couple of hikers sitting on a rock with the lady placing the biggest sticking plaster on the back of her partners neck – he had obviously had an accident and if they were part of the group the guide didn’t even know – they walked back down the road on their own. Very odd. Anyway, we had a lovely time. Went into the military installation and climbed out onto the top, looked at the table of orientation and then on the extra half a mile to the castle (she wouldn’t even let them up there!!!). We had to wait for the wind to blow the cloud away to get a good look at the castle then walked back the way we had come before and were thrilled to see 12 vultures soaring past:) We walked past the van and up to the installations on the other side. We had a great 4 mile hike (even though we couldn’t see anything for the low cloud). So we biked for 6 miles and hiked for 4!! Had lunch, read and dozed and actually got cold! The cloud was completely surrounding us in a white out and we didn’t know whether to sit it out or continue with our plan to move on. At 3.30 we decided to move on and very gradually made our way down the poor quality road. We had only gone about 1 mile when we emerged from underneath the cloud and there was even sunshine on some of the slopes opposite! We turned another corner and there were the happy hikers from earlier wandering down the road back to their coach. They were glad to see daylight I should think as they had been walking in that fog for hours! We got down to the Col de Turini and started the very windy and steep road through the Gorge du Piaon at the same time as some road cyclists (who we assume had already biked up it!) and they were in front of us all the time until we reached a small chapel over a big bridge at the top of the Gorge. They stopped to have a walk around but we couldn’t park so made do with a quick stop for a photo further down. We eventually reached the small lively town of Sospel which was in full sunshine and it was really hot!!!! You can’t believe that 15 miles and a huge descent can make that much difference to the weather! We parked up and changed our clothes as we were dressed for winter! and walked through the lovely ancient town. We thought we would treat ourselves to an ice cream but the only ones available were the usual magnum style and the only place selling cones was shut. We found a Spar shop and went in to look in their freezer and bought a 450gm tub of Crème Brulee icecream with nougat chunks in it for 4 euros and treated ourselves to a pack of plastic spoons too! We had more ice cream than was seriously necessary for less than two cones would have cost had the place been open!! We crossed the river by the ancient bridge and sat on a bench to eat our treat before making our way through another old street back to the van. Carried on towards the coast as we had seen a small place called Castellar on the map above Menton and thought it might be a good place to head for – hoping it would be a small car park for a viewing point overlooking the Cote d’Azur but no! It is quite a small village with a medieval centre which made the drive up to it a bit scary with narrow roads etc but because of its position there is a huge amount of houses and cars and none of the drivers want to sit behind you on any of the roads wide or narrow!! Anyway we managed to get up there, turned round when we had gone through it and returned to a car park underneath the medieval centre for an amazingly good spot! No view of the sea but it is quiet and we don’t think anyone will be bothered with us there. After a rest we walked up to the village and had a look around. Surprisingly there is hardly anywhere you can see the sea but we have seen it and we also saw an awful lot of very well looked after cats!! Had left over chicken for tea as still full from the ice cream bonanza! It is soooo hot down here we were able to eat outside and spend most of the evening outside the van too. We think it may be too difficult to access and too busy and built up for us to do too much down here but we will explore tomorrow :) Photo Gallery Here |
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