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squiz Member Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 2887 |
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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