Stage 8 - The E4 through the Cevennes and the Ardeche

Stage 8 provides a high level description of my walk along the E4 from Lodeve on the southern edge of the Massif Central to Chateauneuf du-Rhone on the eastern side of the River Rhone.  I started this Stage  on the 27th of May and was in Chateauneuf du-Rhone on the 6th of June.

I was very much looking forward to his stretch of the E4.  The route takes you through the Cevennes and the Ardeche, distinctive parts of France both with a reputation for good walking.  The Cevennes and the Cevennes National Park are on the eastern side of the Massif Central and run from the Montague Noire (Black Mountains), which I crossed  a week earlier, through to the Monts du Vivarais.  If you drive through France it's the place where signs on the side of the motorway point out the watershed between the rivers which flow west to the Atlantic (the Loire and Allier) and those which flow into the Rhone and south to the Mediterranean.  With its limestone geology the area is also famous for its massive gorges, in particular the Gorge du Tarn.

Friday 3rd of June Villefort to Le Vans

Thanks for the comment David and Carole but we have different views about the Hotel Balme. Christine agrees with you but I have my doubts.

Hotel Balme

Christine thought the Hotel Balme was wonderful. She liked the dodgy decor and thought the classic intermittent plumbing a price worth paying for the atmosphere and the food. I thought the food heavy and old fashioned.

The magazine article in the reception raved about the Calves Head Terrine and based on this eulogy I went for it as my starter. It was as bad as the moniker suggested and, avoiding detail, one word summed it up, grizzly. Christine raved about her food, ignoring the slowness of the service and the rudeness of waiters. To be honest I enjoyed it, it was great exercise for all my prejudices about France and I would happily go there again.

Anyway arguing about the hotel helped us on our walk. The weather still hasn't improved and went from steady rain in the morning to intense humidity in the afternoon. The morning walk was through trees and the weather not a great handicap but in the afternoon it spoiled what would otherwise have been a great day.

The walk was basically along a ridge heading east but it wasn't until the afternoon that the ridge really opened up. On a good day I suspect we could have seen the Alps but today we had to make do with what might have been fuzzy outlines of Mount Mezanc to the north and across the Rhone Valley Mount Ventoux. The walk itself was good fun though with some challenging scrambles across rocky outcrops.

Along the Serre de Barre

It was then a long walk down, dropping some 600 metres down feet numbing stoney paths. Really busy holiday weekend and after the quintessential Frenchness of Hotel Le Balme we are staying in what is basically a motel and managed to find a restaurant in the lovely Le Vans that served curry. After 28 kilometres and 800 metres of climb it was a good reward.

Thursday June 2nd Pont de Montvert to Villefort

Guest blog by Christine

We have arrived at a fantastic but slightly cranky hotel in Villefort after a wonderful day's walking in the Cevennes. We were greeted by the proprietor in the bar on arrival. He's both owner and chef, ex Paris, has been running the place for 27 years. Cooking smells are coming up the stairs and I for one am having the menu gastronomique.

We have walked 30k with 900m ascent and over 1000m descent. The weather has been much better than yesterday and the freezing cold north wind has veered to a softer westerly.

First stop this morning was the boulangerie for food, then along a road for a bit out of Pont de Montvert, then up a steep winding trail past little hamlets and farmsteads till we were away from the upper Tarn valley and high on heather moorland, walking over granite. The ground was good on the feet, soft and peaty, and it reminded me of Wales. We kept steadily climbing up and, after a while, miraculously joined the Tarn again only this time it was the very upper reaches. A small weir had allowed a wonderful stretch of lazy headwater to build up in a shallow moorland valley high high up near one of the Tarn's sources (evidently not the one we saw the other day). A sign instructed fishermen to ensure they only took one trout per day and only then if the tail was over 25 cms.

La Plain du Tarn

We followed the stream for a while and had the sun been out I'd have definitely stripped off for a swim.
A bit later we reached an old transhumance hamlet and stopped for lunch. 3 of the buildings had been converted to rustic holiday homes and a small procession of annoying 4 by 4's reminded us that this was the start of the French bank hoIiday weekend.

Bellacoste

We finally reached our highest point and eventually struck off on a path going north through lovely beech, oak and ash forest, starting to gently descend after a while with fantastic views of the Cevennes to the north and the Alps in the distance to the East.

Forest trail

After a few miles of this the trees gave way to heather and gorse moorland with huge granite outcrops, still dropping down slowly but lots of ups and downs over various lumps of granite.

Moorland above Villefort

The final leg of the walk felt like it was never going to end, straight down on a steep stoney track which was tough on the feet after a long day. Finally reached some tarmac and then an easy stroll into the pretty old town of Villefort and our hotel.

Steep down to Villefort

PS from John

Christine didn't mention that she nearly came a total cropper. Flying down the mountain and going through a rocky patch with beech trees, she put her foot on a stick, it flew up and caught her other foot. For the next 10 metres she resembled Tom from Tom and Jerry with legs spinning on some butter except that this was sloping butter. Amazingly she managed to stay on her feet but it was a scary episode. Too slow with the video mode on the camera I'm afraid.

Wednesday 1st of June L'Hospitalet to Pont de Montvert

The Gite D'Etape at L'Hospitalet was like going back in time but great fun. Personally didn't get much sleep because of the smell and the noise from the sheep which were wandering about under the bedroom window all night long looking for each other. It was one of those ancient farmhouses where the animals were underneath but some of them seemed to be have been out late and were coming in at all times. We had a good breakfast with 5 sorts of home made jam, including a kind of sweet paste made from chestnuts, and were then invited to make our own packed lunch from the ingredients on a side table. We were as greedy as last night.

Gite D'Etape at L'Hospitalet

After almost solid rain yesterday at least it was dry to start with but an absolutely driving wind from north, very cold, which if anything got stronger as the day went on.
Turns out that we were now on the Robert Louis Stephenson trail and we saw lots of walkers today including an early encounter, on the way to Barre Cevennes, with a man with a donkey.

Walking the Robert Louis Stephenson Trail with Donkey

Barre Cevennes, 5 kilometres from L'Hospitalet, was an interesting looking village and had a hotel which I hadn't spotted when researching the route. It also had a boulangerie which served coffee so of course we had to stop. There was a discouraging sharp intake of breath when we said we were walking to Pont de Montvert and a warning to watch out for the wind.

Barre Cevennes

Walking along forest trails we were sheltered from the worst of the wind, and although the sky turned incredibly dark it managed to hold off from raining. After about 12 kilometres the route descended all the way down into a gorge, along the gorge to the little village of Cassagnas and back up the gorge on the other side. In total this involved a climb of some 600 metres. On the way up the landscape opened up and I posed on top of a rock.

Bougeset

We met a group of 4 French walkers who were swigging various concoctions from hip flasks. After a small amount of persuasion we tried some and it was lovely, a sort of mountain herb liqueur. I described the journey I was on and they insisted on a group photograph, I think they had been drinking for some time.

Continued on along the forest trail with the wind howling above us. Met another couple of French walkers (male and female) who were wearing the latest in French walking/trail running shoes, a sort of oversized "brothel creeper" trainers with extra wide, extra thick soles. They looked strange but comfortable. Given that they were each carrying 15 kilograms on their backs they needed all the help they could get.

For the last 5 kilometres we were right out in the open and the wind was so strong it was hard to keep on your feet. This was the open countryside I was expecting in the Cevennes but given the conditions today it was perhaps just as well we didn't get too much of it.

Wild and windy near the Pont de Montvert

Pont de Montvert is bigger than I expected and has a couple of hotels. The place I wanted to stay at was full but we are in a Gite D'Etape where the owner left us an evening meal and breakfast. All we have to is warm things up and leave the money, excellent.

Tuesday 31st of May Esperou to L'Hospitalet

So much for seeing Mont Blanc and Canigou from the top of Mount Aigoual today. Despite getting away early it had started to rain by the time we got to the summit and the promise of seeing both Alps and Pyrenees was thwarted. My weather track record on top of big mountains has so far not been good.

Walking up to Mt Aigoual

Frustratingly you could see enough to get a taste of what it might be like on a really good day. Layers of mountains in every direction.

Rainy views from the top

The Gite d'Etape and restaurant at the top of Mont Aigoual looked new and one option would have been to stay there instead of Esperou (although we stayed in a nice hotel) and enjoy the views over breakfast. Another time perhaps.

The first half of the walk after Mont Aigoual was along a forest trail, a nice forest trail and a good place to be in the rain, but not what I had expected walking through the Cevennes. It did mean we covered the ground quickly particularly as it was too cold to stop for long.

Forest trail descent from Mt Aigoual

As we got into the last third of the walk the steady rain turned into something a lot heavier but the scenery also opened up, really dramatic, huge views with clouds racing past. For a few miles we were following the watershed between southerly flowing rivers which drain into the Mediterranean and westerly flowing ones going into the Atlantic. A sign to the source of the Tarn to our left confirmed this.

Wet weather gear

Open country approaching L'Hospitalet

L'Hospitalet is not a village, it's just a farmstead which does bed and breakfast and has a dormitory for walkers as well. We have our own room and I think they might be milking the sheep in the room next door. I guess you would get used to the smell if you stayed here long enough but we will be on our way pretty early in the morning. Like today it is another 30 kilometre walk tomorrow but hopefully the weather will be better.

PS

Just had dinner (excellent) and have eaten them out of house and home. Salad with a jar of pork rillettes which we demolished, followed by an 8 egg onion omelette and a kilogram of sautéed potatoes, followed by a huge cheese and two yogurts washed down with a litre of wine. Seth from cold comfort farm was behind the curtain with his hat on waiting for leftovers, Seth has gone to bed hungry.

Monday 30th of May Le Vigan to L'Esperou

There are definitely more accommodation options if you're walking across France rather than Spain. Perhaps a similar number of small hotels but in France you also have Chambre D'Hote and Gite d'Etapes. The downside for is that you get charged by the room whereas Spain it was often by the person making it a cheaper place for travelling alone. There are also more food options and to be honest the food has been generally better in France than Spain.

Last night at the Logis in Le Vigan was the exception. Was a bit worried about their priorities when I saw the large pink toy rabbit on the bed. Initially the large number of customers in the outside restaurant, and the traditional menu, made me think we were in for a treat but the food was just awful, over cooked and really bland. I think this was the the only outside restaurant in Le Vigan open on a Sunday night and the smokers who had descended on the place were not bothered about what the food tasted like.

Not a long walk today, about 20 kilometres, but with 1300 metres of climb it was a tough one. Instead of the blazing heat of yesterday today was cloudy and humid, not ideal for a tough climb. The walk was almost completely within trees and even when there was a longer view the humidity meant that it was not very clear.

It was hard work keeping Christine moving. Walking on my own I have got into a habit of not stopping, stopping just for food once or twice a day depending if it's a standard or a very long day. Christine is a frequent stopper and constantly on the lookout for a village with a bar or a coffee place.

The first place which should have had a cafe was Aulas which was an hour out of Le Vigan reached after a steady climb up through hillside suburbs. Unfortunately the cafe was shut so no choice but to press on. A cherry orchard just above Aulas provided some temporary relief but after 40 minutes more we had to stop for a first lunch. Things really got tense when 10 minutes later another stop opportunity came up with a cafe on the side of a road the route crossed and, so soon after stopping for lunch, I insisted we press on. 40 minutes later we stopped for our second lunch and had only walked a painful 8 kilometres. My suggestion that it would be dark before we got to Esperou was not well received but I plugged her into the IPod and with the worst of the climbing done things went better. In the end we got there by four.

Aulas

Humid Weather

A lot more walkers on trail at the moment which is nice and they usually stop to ask where you have come from. A group of Frenchmen who spoke perfect English, opened the conversation by saying that they had already done 250 kilometres, so being able to respond with ' Oh really? I've just done 2500 kilometres' was the perfect putdown.

L'Esperou is, believe it or not, a ski resort with several hotels and a development of chalets which look very Swiss. Just as we arrived it started to rain but the sky is now blue and things feel a lot fresher. It's about another 300 metres of climb to the top of Mont Aigoual which we go over tomorrow and apparently on a perfect day you can see Mont Blanc in the Alps and Canigou in the Pyrenees.

Sunday 29th May Navacelles to Le Vigan

Shouldn't moan as I know that not everyone is experiencing blue skies but here the heat wave which disappeared for a couple of days has now come back full force and temperatures were again up into the 30s. Surprising how much the heat takes out of you and although the walk was only 22 kilometres we both felt drained at the end of it.

Essentially the walk involved a climb out of yesterday's gorge, a walk across some classic causse countryside through a couple of villages along the way, and then a long walk down through an oak and sweet chestnut forest to Le Vigan.

Setting off it wasn't too hot a Christine took a picture of yours truly on the bridge on the way out of Navacelles. Notice that I'm now wearing full anti-tick gear.

Leaving Navacelles

The walk up the side of the gorge gave increasingly spectacular views of the Cirque de Navacelles and you can even make out the waterfalls where the "new" river route goes.

Cirque de Navacelles

I know people rave about the causse scenery but when it's hot like today the arid, desert like characteristics come to fore. Very little cover and everything baking under the sun. That said there were still lots of wild flowers in particular orchids and honeysuckle.

Classic causse vegetation

Honeysuckle

Went through three villages before we got to Le Vigan, Blandas, Montdardier and Avese, all with accommodation options, although Montdardier where we had hoped to escape the heat and have lunch was being completely dug up to lay new water pipes and everything was shut down.

Saw our first couple walking in the style of Robert Louis Stephenson with a donkey. I'm with Nicholas Crane who suggests that Travels with a Donkey is responsible for more cases of donkey abuse than other book. The donkey was keener to eat than to walk and it difficult to see where the accelerator peddle was.

Donkey abuse

After the heat a walk down through the trees was a welcome change. The local guide book describes the young oak trees as pubescent, something lost in translation perhaps. Because she'd missed out on lunch I took pity on Christine and let her borrow my iPod and she was soon waving her arms about to Pavarotti singing La Boheme.

Still hot when we got to Le Vigan not helped by the fact that the hotel we are staying in turned out to be on the edge of town and a kilometre or so in the direction from which we had just walked.

Climbing high tomorrow, over 1,000 metres, so should be cooler. We then spend three days in the Cevennes National Park which could be amazing.

Saturday 28th of May La Vacquerie et Saint-Martin-de-Castries to Navacelles

Our wonderful host at the Chambre d'Hote (Le Relais des Faisses) reminded us that the causse area we are now walking through was the setting for the sinister event in Ian McEwan's novel "Black Dog". We are also getting into the countryside where La Bete du Gevaudan, a wolf-like monster, killed 100 people, between 1764 and 1767. Given that combination I'm not sure what was worst, the first black dog to start barking at us or the exceptionally hairy donkey.

Black Dog

Brilliant morning for a walk, bright, cool wind, clear blue sky, perfect fit with the wide open landscape which featured in the first half of the walk. It's much dryer here than the countryside I've been walking through since the Pyrenees and the greens have changed from spring like to high summer.

High dry plain to the north of La Vacquerie et Saint-Martin-de-Castries

After crossing a high level plain the first village you get to is Saint-Maurice-de-Navacelles which looks nice but with not as many facilities as our stop-over last night. Just after Saint-Maurice-de-Navacelles you drop into the Gorge de la Vis, a great gash across the causse.

The walk along the gorge was great, initially a steep descent all the way down to the river and then a gently undulating walk along the side. The only frustration was that the river looked very inviting and we had set our minds on a bit of river swimming, but the path stubbornly kept its distance.

Gorge de la Vis

La Vis

After walking about 20 kilometres we arrived a Navacelles which is a beautiful village complete with crashing waterfalls and a wonderful ancient footbridge. Staying here and spent the afternoon relaxing in the sun and Christine even went for a swim. Much too cold for me but I haven't been acclimatised by swims in the English Channel.

Navacelles

Bridge at Navacelles

Wild water swimming

Navacelles is also the location for the Cirque de Navacelles. A neck of a sharpe meander in the river system eventually cut through and the neck formed the waterfalls and the ancient meander the Cirque. The flat bottom of the ancient river bed is now a large U shaped hay meadow and Nacacelles sits inside the U on the island of rock next to the waterfalls. An amazing location it was declared a site of special national significance in 1943.

Christine writes: Our base tonight is 'Ammonite', a beautifully restored old house owned by a friendly Dutch family who also run the creperie down the road. Looking forward to salad and omelette tonight. John has just found the key to last night's room in his trouser pocket - our host has volunteered to get it back to it's rightful owner.

Friday 27th of May Lodeve to La Vacquerie et Saint-Martin-de-Castries

More fun and games trying to find our way out of Lodeve this morning and it turns out that the GR7 goes on a fairly circuitous route heading south before it loops back up round to where it should be going. This southern diversion was enough to confuse me and it wasn't until we had the entire staff of the tourist information office working on the problem that I accepted that the circuitous route was indeed the right one. Fortunately today was quite a short one so the time wasted didn't really matter.

After the heat of yesterday today was much cooler, cloudy to start with and then clear and windy, good walking weather.

Picked up a baguette for lunch which Christine insisted on sticking out the back of my rucksack, actually very useful for picking up wifi.

Marching out of Lodeve

Fozeires

Initially we shared the route with the Pilgrim's Way and the GR 71 and it wasn't until we got to the pretty village of Fozieres that we got onto the GR7 proper. It was then a fairly long monotonous walk up through pine trees with the monotony only broken by the occasional cherry orchard with an opportunity for cherry gorging.

Just past the Col du Melanque

After about 20 kilometres and 900 metres of climb we started to escape the trees and emerge into the causse countryside proper. I like it and after 6 days of walking through trees it's a really nice change.

Approaching La Vacquerie et Saint-Martin-de-Castries

La Vacquerie et Saint-Martin-de-Castries was a bit of a surprise, a lot more facilities than we were expecting. We are staying in a Chambre d'Hote, which doesn't evening meals but there is a smart looking restaurant in the village and we're going there tonight.

Something worrying is that I'm suddenly getting attacked by ticks, four in the last three days which compares with one in the last 55 years. I think I managed to remove all the bits but I don't really know how dangerous they are. Anyway from tomorrow I will be wearing long trousers as a safe rather than sorry precaution. If anyone has any advice on ticks please let me know.