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squiz Member Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 3072 |
27th June 2016 Hiking - Walking: La Jasserie Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: sunny periods and breezy Max Speed: Distance Covered: Monday 27th June – Travel and hike*** sunny periods and breezy We slept for 9 hours which is quite a record for us! Did exercises outside even though it was quite cloudy and even verging on chilly!! We didn’t see a sole until 9.30 when a 10 car convey whizzed past taking the OAP rambling group up to the dead end car park further up the road, where they could walk up to where we were yesterday on Mont Amble. We had our breakfast and read for a little while then packed up and left around 10.30. We drove down into the valley and along roads and through towns we visited last autumn – it wasn’t until we looked at the map Mag draws lines of all our routes on last night that we realised how close we were to some amazing gorges we stayed in in a massive Thunder storm! Pressed on to Tain le Hermitage where we at last found a Lidl!! It has been weeks since we have been able to visit our favourite shop and made the most of it by getting extra Bermuda shorts and a decent knife for the van! Drove along the River Rhone until our turning to Annonay was imminent. Thinking it must be lunch time we found a lovely place to park on the quay at Andance and sat on the wall watching the small fish trying to make headway against the furious flow – poor things they never get the chance of a rest! Carried on a little further towards St. Etienne before turning up towards the Parc Nature Regional du Pilat. We stayed at La Jasserie and had nice walks around the Crets du Pilot a couple of years ago so thought it would make a good overnight stop in some hills before the big push to get some miles out of the way tomorrow. Where we parked before was pretty crowded with cars at the restaurant which was deserted when we were here before and people were having a boules tournament in the car park too! We parked a little further up the road in a good spot on our own with lots of flowers and a short toed eagle hovering overhead. Enjoyed the sunshine reading and having a cuppa before it clouded up and got quite chilly. We set out to walk to the table of orientation and to a couple of Crets. We were out for a good couple of hours passing through herds of both sheep and limousine cows with impressive horns! La Jasserie used to be a ski resort but the lifts are long dead although it looks like they have plenty of cross country paths (as opposed to pistes, these are definitely very rough). Returned to the van for shepherds pie for tea :) Photo Gallery Here Tuesday 28th June – Travel and relax Woke to thick fog for our last day in the hills! We left just as the skies were clearing at 10 and were able to see the views on the way down :) Got onto the motorway around St. Etienne with no problem whatsoever only to take the turning for Roanne an exit to early so an early diversion on our first big travelling day! An uneventful journey apart from a rather dopey looking fox dropping from the concrete bank onto the carriageway a few hundred metres away from us! Mag was driving at the time and slammed the brakes on saying ‘oh no it’s a fox – I don’t want to run a fox over!!!’ luckily we were able to go onto the hard shoulder and go round him. We did see him make it to the central reservation in the wing mirrors and don’t want to think about his luck after that!! We covered 215 miles to get to a river bank spot in Bonny sur Loire where we had planned to stay overnight. Amazingly we were there by 2.30 so had our lunch and relaxed in the sun by the river all afternoon. The weather around the Loire is always a bit hit and miss and when we arrived there were many dark low clouds but as soon as we parked up they parted to give us blue skies until late afternoon. The best thing was a great display by a pair of Ospreys hunting on the opposite river bank, common terns diving in for tiny fish and a kingfisher flew past shrieking too :) Around 7 we decided to have a wander along a nearby track but regretted that decision pretty quickly as we were absolutely covered in mosquitos instantly!! We returned to the van and put our mozzi net up and stayed in the van for a salmon and potato tea. The End :) |
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