Day 11 - La randonnée et le continuum des chaussettes tricotées 🧦

Rambling and the knitted sock continuum....
Stayed up late last night (1.30am 😱) watching James Bond, drinking wine; Jill was in the 'sock knitting zone 🫨'.
Le Sock....is progressing nicely. She has mastered the tricky stitches to complete the heel and the gusset and I'm very proud of her using 4 needles 🤓.
Overcast and light rain, I was still going off for a walk. Waterproofs on, emergency rations of chocolate biscuits and a bottle of water, I went off to explore the area around Luz-Saint-Sauveur.
First up to the cemetary and the local church then along the hillside into the next valley. The path was muddy and overshadowed by a thick canopy of trees making it bug city in the damp humid atmosphere.


The path brought me out to the road and the bridge over the gorge. Built by Napolian III in the 1860's it took 2 years to build and allowed him to access his beloved Pyrenees better.



 On the far side, just off the road was a path. Very steep and muddy it picked its way right down to the river. Why I dont know, but there was treasure at the bottom... a Geocache 😀.
(Geocaches are small plastic containers hidden all over the planet each with a log book of some kind and sometimes 'treasure' in the form of small toys, coins, badges. You download the app and follow the map using the gps in your phone)
Wasn't too difficult to find, hidden behind rocks which looked out of place in a stone wall embankment. 

Didn't hang around too long.  Hydroelectric power is a big thing in the Pyrenees. Most of the major rivers have small dams and gates higher up the valleys. At peak time these are opened (without warning) to provide a surge of water resulting in a mini tsunami down the gorges. People have been swept away 🥴.
       Onward. Along the road on the far side, down past the swimming baths and spa centre. Dotted along the side of the gorge are small platforms secured into the rock for climbers to practice hanging off steel cables slung across over the river below.  




Eventually back over the river and up into town, hot and sweaty in my waterproofs as it was still light rain. Picked my way thru tiny backstreets with buildings dated back to the 1700's, arriving  back at base camp for a  hot shower in the marvelous amenities block then beer time.😋





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 33 - Voyage au centre de la terre 🔦

Image
Journey to the center of the earth 🔦  .... and new sticker day ! As recommended, today was going underground day. The  Gouffre de Padirac  is the huge entrance to a natural opening approximately 115 feet in diameter and 250 feet deep. It is one of the largest chasms in Europe. Surveyed and mapped  by the cave explorer  Edouard Martel in 1889,  it was opened to the public in 1899.        For centuries it was known locally as the devils hole  and was often used to get rid of dead animals and the occasional body. This enormous sink hole then leads into a cave system of amazing caverns full of huge stalactites and stalagmites, waterways and underground rivers,  cut into the limestone over the ages. About 35 miles has been explored so far. The section open to the public is only just over a mile long but you travel half a mile of that by boat, 338 feet below the surface 😮. It takes you about one and a half hours to do all the route and you get a headset and audio guide before y
Read more

Day 27 - Peep ! Peep ! tous à bord 🚂

Image
Peep! Peep! all aboard 🚂  We slept well despite the threat of earthquakes according to the signs in the toilet block 🫨. No time to dawdle this morning, we had a schedule to keep too; well the train did. It was sunday and it was steam train day 🤗. Oooo, we do like a stream train; the nostalgia, the engineering, the sounds and the smell!      The Cevennes Steam Train runs 13km from Anduze in the Cevennes mountains to Saint Jean du Gard along the Gardon valley. The steam train runs every other day during the week and every day at weekends from June onwards. The train winds its way thru tunnels and over bridges crossing the rivers below, pulling old open sided carriages so you can lean out at your peril to admire the superb views below. 4 stream trains and 1 diesel are in regular use; all living at Saint Jean-du-Gard , together with all the carriages and other assorted rolling stock. Although it was busy with both OAP tourists and families, th
Read more

Day 12 - Une journée au bord du lac

Image
A day by the lake - Lac de Génos, Loudenvielle. At just over 3000 feet the lake just outside Loudenvielle is a populare destination for not only tourists but locals from all the surrounding regions. Our journey took us back along some of the roads we had recently travelled, this time hugging the rock walls thru the gorges under the protective canopy's of steel netting to protect us from falling rocks, dislodged by the recent rain. It wasn't long till we were down from the mountain's, running along the edge of the Pyrenees only to turn back up into them again for the next valley. That's the way it goes with landscape like this . With the snow capped peaks that overshadow our destination in sight, we started to wind our way up, thru little villages, once again. Unfortunately our timing wasn't great. We hit  lots of road works digging up the already narrow roads to lay heavy electrical cables for various hydroelectric installations, sometimes se
Read more