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11th October 2016 Hiking - Walking: Fougeres - Les Carrabelles du Mont Mercou Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: sunny periods but chilly Max Speed: Distance Covered: Tuesday 11th October – Travel + walk **** Fougeres - Les Carrabelles du Mont Mercou – sunny periods but chilly A bit of a watery start to the day, the sun was very weak and it was pretty chilly!! Lots of honking from our own personal flock of flamingos though. They are right in front of the van today :) After a leisurely start and Mag gingerly doing her exercises outside because they are actually helping her pulled muscle in her back, we checked the weather. I had thought I might sail but the wind wasn’t playing ball so I took the opportunity to tie all the gear back on the roof in the calm conditions. We decided to make a move because the weather is supposed to really crack up on Thursday. It is pretty much widespread through France but we think it would be best to try and do some good stuff down here for a couple of days and do some serious travelling while the weather is bad. Consequently, we set off around 10.30 and headed up through Narbonne towards Bezier. On our way round Bezier we saw a sign to the 9 locks on the Canal du Midi from a new roundabout. We have stayed at the 9 locks site at least twice and biked there from Agde last year so after passing the normal turning and seeing that the signs had been voided, we decided we ought to investigate!! Well the whole place is a building site!! They diverted you through a tiny road to a brand new huge car park. We parked and walked up the huge wooden slope which has been installed for visitors to get up to the canal and basically that is all you can see. The locks are being restored (tastefully we hope!) and they are converting the lock keeper’s cottages into swanky information centres and restaurants. Although it is understandable if the Locks were needing restoration it seems such a shame because the whole place had an old world charm and that definitely seems to have been abandoned with the emphasis definitely on entertaining the tourists. Apparently it is the 3rd most visited site in the Languadoc region. So we left feeling incredibly lucky to have enjoyed the place so much while it was lovely!! The whole thing should be finished by next July so perhaps one more visit to see the ‘finished article’!! Back in the van to find a road heading north which we haven’t been on before. It leads up towards the very edge of the black mountains. We hadn’t gone far along the road which was absolutely surrounded by vineyards, when we saw a sign to a ‘moulin’ at Fougeres so as it was past lunch time we thought we would head up to that for a lunch stop. It was quite a narrow road and yet again we didn’t really know whether we were supposed to be on it or whether you were supposed to park in the village and walk but we carried on regardless. Reached the top car park and had a look at the mill and then climbed up a tower with a terrace on the top. All around the edge of the tower were tables of orientation facing in various directions and they had all been carved from soft stone and were really beautiful. We nearly missed this treat, I just spied the sign as we drove off. We stopped a bit further away from the mill for lunch as people apparently live there so it would have been a bit of a cheek to have lunch outside their door! Drove down to a crossroads in the track and noticed a walk to visit some ancient stone buildings called Les Carrabelles du Mont Mercou which we originally thought were shepherd’s huts but now think may probably be restored dwellings for an ancient community. Will have to look it up when we get home. In usual French fashion the signs were a bit difficult to decipher or were none existent but we eventually found the way and visited them all. They were numbered but we didn’t find them in order and we were back to getting our shins cut to shreds on spikey plants!!! They were really well built from the local Schist stone along similar designs but each different. At the end of the trail there was a bit of a Disney mock up from the natural stone and we assume school children are taken on the walk and then allowed to build their own interpretation from the mass of rocks lying around the natural habitat. There were some workmen and heavy plant up here as they are putting up some new electricity pylons. We returned to the van and I was pretty exhausted – 3 days of sailing catching up with me!!! Had a cuppa (well two actually), cake and a doze followed by tea. No sun set tonight but we are in a beautiful area, lots of hills and the mountains are in the distance :) Wednesday 12th October – Travel + 2 strolls, cloudy cold and breezy. A dull, and surprisingly cold morning! so lots of reading and sorting out for us today. As usual over the last few days our first experience of the day is punctuated with gun shots as the hunters descend to shoot anything that moves – and as we never see any animals goodness know what that is!! After breakfast we made our way down the hill past the men working on a different new pylon and were surprised how quickly the road appeared because it took us ages to get up the hill through the village yesterday!! We carried on through the beautiful countryside until we got to Avene which we recognised as a lunch stop a couple of years ago. We walked through the village and up along their sentier panorama walk up to the statue of Mary with great views back over the village, built on the meander in the river Orb. There was a photo from 1900 compared with one from today and it was one of the very rare cases when absolutely nothing had changed except there were more trees. Back in the van to travel further north across the Plateau de Guilhaumard in a very strange way because the route was barree for a very short section between two villages and because of that we went miles out of the way!! We didn’t know where on earth we were but the scenery was good! We were surprised when we did finally get to the village we were expecting to pass through before the diversion but we could have missed that completely to be honest! Anyway we stopped for lunch with a fine view of the Grands Causses which would have looked a lot better with a blue sky but we can’t do anything about that! It was really cold but we did sit outside. Called in at St. Jean d’Alcapies and had a walk around the ramparted old town and made friends with a very friendly cat who dribbled all over us!! We were nearing Millau by now so after passing through the cheese making Roquefort sur Souizon we approached the Millau bridge and called in at the centre but mainly to take photos of sheep! Carried on down the hill and over the river Tarn, weaving around the stanchions for the amazing bridge which we have seen so many times now but it never fails to impress, even on a miserable day! We have stayed at a small ancient village called Peyre before and we headed for the same car park for our overnight stop even though it was only around 4 o’clock. After a cuppa and before the weather cracked up completely we walked down to the village which is partially built into the rock face, troglodyte style. When we were here before Mag was particularly taken with the small chapel which only has a frontage which isn’t actually inside the rock. It is soooo simple with only the cave for a roof and a small floor boarded area, other than that it is completely empty but the best thing are the windows which we initially thought were ancient but are in fact relatively new and installed in 2001 when the chapel was restored. They are made from really chunky glass with crystals of differing colours standing proud of the glass. They were designed by a local craftsman Emmanuel Chauce and inspired by the rainwater passing through rock and the grotto like aspect of the church. Amazing and Mag is going to look him up when we get home to see more of his work. The rest of the village is amazing to see and has great views of the Millau bridge so its really ancient meets modern. There are also huge flocks of choughs with their red beaks making a racket in the cliffs behind the houses. Back to the van for the evening with the rain finally arriving when it got dark. Photo Gallery here |
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