Owner:
squiz
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Member#: 1437 Location: Registered: 11-08-2005 Diary Entries: 13
Mood: Not long to go..Morocco again!
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13th June 2015
Hiking - Walking: Valley of the Saints, Boudes. Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: Sunny and hot with a little rain and thunder later. Max Speed: Distance Covered:
Friday 12th June – Travelling – shop, McDonalds wifi – rain:(
Oh dear the weather has well and truly cracked up today! We had thunder
and rain in the night and other than a tiny glimpse of blue for a few
seconds it continued all day! We had a good lay in reading out books until
about 10 a.m. then packed up and left the River Tarn and instead of making
our way up through the Aveyron which was our loose plan, we decided to save
that for another time because the scenery always looks better with the sun
out and it seemed such a waste!! We headed for Millau and went to the
McDonalds to get wifi (always good on a rainy day!) and unfortunately the
wifi was a bit hit and miss but I posted some bits and pieces. We stopped
at Lidl and stocked up then headed to the Millau viaduct viewing point for
lunch looking at the bridge through the rain! We drove up the motorway
until it stopped raining which was in the area of the Volcanos just below
Clermont Ferrand. We pulled off and drove through some lovely countryside,
past the castle ruin at Leotoing and through some pretty gorges along the
river Allagnon. Found a great place to park up in a tiny village called
Vichel. It isn’t far from the motorway and we can actually see it
snaking away across the fields in the distance. The view is lovely here
with volcanos of various sizes all around. There is a small picnic area
with a car park and that is the spot for us:) It started to rain after
about half an hour so we spent the evening reading, eating and playing
card:) Mag went for a walk when it stopped raining and saw lots of big
snails – the sort they eat!
Photo Gallery
here
Saturday 13th June – Hike **** Valley of the Saints, Boudes. Sunny and
hot with a little rain and thunder later.
It was foggy when we first looked out this morning but as we drank our
lemon and hot water we watched it clear away completely leaving a lovely
sunny morning. We had a lovely display from a red kite:) Did exercises
outside and had breakfast and didn’t hardly see a fly but by the time we
were ready to leave there were lots of the horrible things!! House flies
but they are biting!! We were intending to investigate a point of interest
called Vallee des Saints and then hit the motorway and drive up to the
Loire but yet again our map and its points of interest led us to have a
great day and we are back in Vichel tonight! We drove through lovely
countryside and a village called St. Gervazy which was beautifully restored
and had an inhabited castle right in the village instead of being stuck up
on top of a hill! Carried on to Boudes to try and find the walk for the
Vallee des Saints and were just looking at the information board when a
Scottish guy came up to chat and said we were only the second English
people he had seen in the seven years he has had a second home here! He
was a really nice man from Oxford who lives here with his wife for 5 months
of the year. He was on his usual cycle round the countryside and was a
mine of information about the walk we were going on and the surrounding
area(most of the following information comes from him!). We chatted to him
for about half an hour and then on his advice started our walk at the small
hamlet of Bard which cut a bit off the length of the walk! We packed our
lunch and set off. To start with the walk was surprisingly through a large
forest. It was a good track as apparently around 30,000 people a year walk
it! The first thing you come to is the source of the river Bard which
bubbles up in a very small concrete pool (?!?) and tastes salt. The plants
below it are all ones you only find near the sea. Roman coins have been
found in the hole – presumably before the invention of concrete!! Then
on to the Vallee des Saints which turned out to be a group of rock
formation pillars in red stone which have formed through erosion over
millions of years. Quite impressive and very like the ones we visited in
Provence last year. There was a nice viewing point with a bench where we
ate our lunch and some amazing cherries we bought in Lidl yesterday!
Continued on the circular walk – round the wrong way but that’s typical
of us! When we came out of the forest there were lots of crops – barley,
wheat, sunflowers and linseed as well as the odd vineyard. It made it a
very pretty sight with all the different coloured fields. Back to the van
and Vichel just as the sky went dark and thunder and intermittent rain
arrived. Spent evening reading and playing cards and had salmon parcels
for tea:)
Photo Gallery
here
Sunday 14th June – Relax, travel – rain rain rain:(
A bit murky but nice enough to have exercises and breakfast outside. Left
about 11 and drove up to the Loire. Got to Pouilly sur Loire about 2.30
and found a nice place on the river bank out in the wilds just as it
started to cloud over. It was really hot and sunny when we parked!! By
the time we had had lunch, read and had a doze it was bucketing it down and
thundering:( We passed the evening reading and playing Phase 10.
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