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squiz Member Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 2882 |
22nd September 2016 Mt. Biking: Sauliac sur Cele to St. Cirq Lapopie Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: Sunny and hot :) Max Speed: 24.37 (knots - unless stated otherwise) Distance Covered: 22 miles (Nautical Miles - unless stated otherwise) Wednesday 21st September – Sightseeing and travel A beautiful sunny morning with the mist just hovering over the river. We left our spot after breakfast – enjoying the engine starting with one turn of the key – bliss!! We left Argentat and headed on down to the Gorges de la Cere, another star on our wonder map! The roads to get there and down into the gorge were a bit mad but we made it with no problems. We again said that you wouldn’t want to bring a great big camper down here but then as we parked and started our walk one went across the bridge!! You have to hope he didn’t meet anything on the way up!! We had a nice walk across the river and round the side of the small barrage. The path took you through woods and along the side of a railway line which we were unsure was still being used. We arrived at a point where you had to decide to go up the steps to the railway line as it came out of a tunnel or under it via a completely dark footpath tunnel. We had just started to climb the steps when a train blew its hooter and came out of the tunnel so that was the answer to that question!! We decided to give the spooky dark tunnel a miss and walk back the way we had come, detouring up to the small station to have a look at the walks board. Nothing took our fancy so we got back in the van and headed up the other side of the steep gorge. We saw lots of buzzards today, flying and just sitting in fields. Also a sparrowhawk and a red kite. We stopped at an Aldi in St. Cere and got some tuna steaks for tea!! Stopped at Assier for our lunch near a small moat style pond and when we drove off discovered a really good chateau just round the corner! When we got to Livernon our map was showing several Dolmans and unusually the town had actually signposted how to get to two of them! They were really good ones and both had a small car park. The large Dolman we had to walk 0.2km to and the Menhir was actually in the car park. As we got to this part of the journey the terrain changed and there were huge white cliffs emerging with houses clinging onto them. The village of St. Sulpice was all clinging to the cliff and very quaint. We stopped at Mercilhac sur Cele in the Cele valley and had a cuppa by the weir on the river. We walked along the river round the mill and through a tiny arch in the ancient wall to discover the ancient Abbey. The centre of the Abbey is still standing and being used as the village church but the outside is crumbling away. Had a wander around the rest of the village then back in the van for only a few miles before we found the perfect spot to park at Sauliac sur Cele. It is a small picnic area on the side of the fast flowing shallow river. On the opposite bank hidden mostly by trees is the most enormous chateau which is built on a great big lump of rock! It looks in good condition but nobody appeared to be at home! I did my exercises in the sun because today has been a really sunny day all day and we sat and read our books until the sun went behind the big chateau. The tuna was delicious and so cheap!! Thursday 22nd September – Bike ***** Sauliac sur Cele to St. Cirq Lapopie – sunny & hot – 22 miles 4 ½ miles out and top speed 24.37 knts A glorious but chilly start to the day. The sun doesn’t really come up here until after 8 a.m. and our thermometer in the van said 9 degrees! Still the sun was out so exercises outside, Mag with her fleece and socks on but I waited until the sun came over the surrounding cliffs! We were treated to a wonderful display from 2 kingfishers darting along the river with the sun catching their beautiful blue backs:) We continued to watch them while we ate our breakfast but then two people on bikes came and sat just where they were hunting so they disappeared and we got the bikes off. We cycled along the road through the valley of the Celle river and were treated to the village of Cabrerets where all the houses are built into the cliffs, including a mill house which was just like a fairy grotto with water and moss all around. Apparently the original houses were right on the river bank until the late 1800s but they then decided to build the road so knocked them all down and built new ones further back which means into the cliff! We were taking photos on the bridge and started talking to a lady who had come up from a pleasure boat on the river Lot with her friends and they were visiting from the Caribbean!! They were going to an English speaking tour of the caves – Grottes de Pech Merle just outside the village where 25,000 year old cave drawings are housed. We continued our journey down the valley until the river Cele joins the Lot. The actual place where they join wasn’t on show as you had to disappear through a road tunnel at that point. We continued to the bridge at Tour de Faure and over it to start the big climb up to St. Cirq Lapopie. We visited this quaint town last time we were here but left our bikes at the bottom of the hill and walked up! This time we pushed all the way up and wheeled our bikes round the narrow streets, past the Italian guided tour and up to the church. We then went up onto the ruins at the top of the village before enjoying the big steep hill down :) We went to the river bank in search of the lock where we had seen two pleasure boats go through while we were up in the village. We found it with no problem and were impressed to notice a free camper aire just up the river :) We ate our lunch sitting on the lock wall feeding the fish bits of bread. The only boat that came through while we were there was a couple of carp fishermen in a small motor boat towing their rubber dinghies behind them. We returned over the bridge at Tour de Faure and looked out for a small turning on the right which we thought looked like a good place to return to the van and make our outing a circular route. We found it and then started the very long upward journey through pine trees to a plateau at the top. Even the plateau was up and down though so it was quite hard work. We stopped when we thought we had got to the highest point and had a rest, watching literally hundreds of butterflies fly past. The road disintegrated into a track in the middle and got quite rough but it then linked up with a proper road coming the other way. We didn’t really start a good descent until we were nearly back to Sauliac sur Cele where we are staying. But we were treated to the great sight of the cliffs surrounding the village coming into view together with the houses up above where we are staying. We hadn’t realised there were quite so many but were not tempted to start another push up hill to investigate further!! We whizzed down the remaining hill and over the bridge (which we are pleased to see because we were unsure as to whether there even was a bridge here!) and then the short ride back to the van. We did over 22 miles and were out 4 ½ hours. It turned out to be a hot day in the end around 27 degrees and we barely laid our bikes down before walking into the river to cool off. I plunged right in and nearly died – it was really really cold and what I thought was quite a shallow stretch of the river ended up being really deep and I couldn’t touch the bottom!! Mag went in up to her waist and watched the various species of fish swim around her – by keeping still she saw lots :) My testing of the water was enough to put her off going any further!! We spent the rest of the afternoon reading and had an ‘everything in the fridge omelette’ for tea. There were several visitors to the car park and there are a couple of lads who look like they might sleep in their car a little further over from us so we might have company!! Photo Gallery here |
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