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squiz Member Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 2882 |
16th May 2013 Hiking - Walking: Le Sentier du Pradal & Les Bondons Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: cloudy with showers :( Max Speed: Distance Covered: Wednesday 15th May – travelling/sightseeing – visit grottes :) 5th day of rain in the Cevenne :( How disappointing! It is pouring again, it poured with rain all night :( Good job we saw the view last night because you can’t see it at all this morning :( We laid in for ages and finally left our little spot on the hillside about 11. Drove down the windy road and through some great countryside again – the yellow broom shrubs covering the hills were amazing and would have been even better with the sun out and the sky blue!!! The difference in the trees from 3 weeks ago was huge – they all have their leaves now so the sun must have been out at some point while we have been away! The weirdest thing on the journey was going through a road tunnel in the middle of nowhere where a man in a digger was scraping the surface off and having to negotiate getting past him without scraping the van. He got off his digger and directed us in the end! We decided to head for the Aven Armand which is a Grotte named after the man who found it full of stalagmites and stalagtites in 1897! We haven’t been down a good Grotte for about 15 years so thought it was a good idea for a wet afternoon. We had our lunch in the car park and after putting on as many clothes as possible and paying our 20 euros we went on the funicular train down into the cave – luckily it was the first one after lunch so we had a very small group. You go 110m under the surface by the time you have reached the bottom and the cave is 35m from floor to ceiling. There was a guide who made the lights come on and off at specific points to show over 400 of amazing stalagmites and tites – apparently the greatest concentration in the world. We couldn’t understand anything he said of course but read the leaflet afterwards :) There was a big dip in the landscape just beyond the car park which was all fenced off and that is the hole they discovered the cave through! We really enjoyed it and I was always last in our group because of taking photos :) Drove along the Causse Mejan which is a rocky plateau running along the top of the Gorges du Tarn and has lots of my favourite dolmen’s! One of the best ones we have seen was right next to the road so we didn’t even have to get out. There were also supposed to be special wild horses, przewalski, but they weren’t out in the rain. We were going to head to Florac again for our overnight stop in the Aire but just before we went down from the plateau we found a car park for another special Dolmen called La Dolmen de Pierre Plate. The sign in the car park said it was only 100m but didn’t say in which direction so when there was a break in the rain we walked in several directions then realised it was again right on the edge of the road down toward Florac and it was a lot further than 100m!!! We walked a bit further and the cloud had cleared enough for us to actually see down into the valley where the Tarn and the Tarnon meet and even up to the waterfall we stayed at a few weeks again – the Cascade de Runes. We walked as far as a corner which gave us a view of typical Tarn Gorge cliffs then back to the van for cards and chilli for tea. Thursday 16th May – walks **** Le Sentier du Pradal & Les Bondons – cloudy with showers :( At 6 it was raining but at 8 it was just cloudy and 3 degrees! The fact there was no rain spurred us on to get out there quick and we set off on our walk along the cliffs overlooking Florac and the circular walk to an old mill (Le Sentier du Pradal) which was illustrated on the information boards in the car park. The views over the town were fantastic and we were treated to 12 vultures soaring overhead :) There were a group of school children doing the walk along the cliffs and they all looked very bored until the vultures appeared! We walked a lot further than we needed to and stopped where the cliff went up to a point and a zip line and other climbing adventure equipment had been set up for the ‘season’. We retraced our steps and found the yellow signs for our circular walk but as usual we lost the signs and went miles in the wrong direction! We sorted it out eventually and walked up to the mill which had lots of information boards in. As well as the vultures which appeared again we saw several different small birds, a kestrel and a black kite. Back to the van (3 hours 40 minutes later) for lunch. We were just packing up when two English sports cars arrived in the car park. One of the men showed an interest in the van and came to have a look at the inside – luckily we had just tidied up! They were driving through on their way over the Pyrenees to Spain and back via Bilbao ferry. We left our spot and drove down the twisty road and arrived in Florac by the entrance to the park where we had walked a few weeks ago. Mag nipped into the tourist information to get a leaflet on a Menhir walk we hope to do tomorrow and we drove out of Florac to the Col de Montmirrat along a very scenic main road. Turned off to Les Bondons, the strange bump of a hill sticking out of the landscape. We came to visit it the other week when you could barely see it let alone find a way to climb it. We found a car park and a track today and climbed to the top (just for a change we got a bit lost on the way to the start of the path to the top because there were no signs at all!). The bump was covered in cow slips and gave us a good view. The weather is still distinctly chilly and damp but not enough to stop you doing anything. Back to the van and decided to stop here the night ready for the walk just up the road tomorrow. Fingers crossed for the weather! |
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