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.

Thursday May 26th Ceilhes-et-Rocozels to Lodeve

It's official, I'm in the middle of a heat wave. It's supposed to be a around 25 degrees but today it was hitting 32, even at attitude.

Very hot day for Christine to start walking with me but the good news was that instead of 37 kilometres I thought we were going to have to walk to get to Lodeve all we had to was 22, in this heat this seriously fortunate. Actually we have decided we like these shorter walks so have rescheduled things a bit for the next few days so that instead of 8/9 hour days we will be limiting things to 5/6, it is Christine's holiday after all.

Not the very best walk, not just the heat but quite a lot of road walking and indeed a lot more than my route on the GPS and the topoguide, which Christine brought out (together with new walking shoes and socks) were telling us. Shock horror, the topoguide, the official publication of the French Randonne Association, was also different to markings on the ground, we didn't know who to believe.

The heat meant that the views were covered in a heat haze and that all you really wanted was the shade offered by the trees.

Above Lodeve

First day in France for Christine

The most exciting thing to happen, really exciting in a sad nerdy sort of way, is that we met three people in red t-shirts marking out the route. It was like being a child waking up and finding the tooth fairy. They had secateurs, pots of paint and baskets full of gardening equipment. They were from the Randonne Association d'Herault, although we couldn't quite work out if they had a relationship with the regional or departmental government. Anyway we challenged them about the inaccurate topo guide maps and they informed us that despite it being a new edition, and published by the national body, it was out of date and did not incorporate the changes they have to make on the ground. The maps are more likely to be up-to-date but even they suffer from the fact that it is difficult to keep up with changes made on the ground.

Marking the route

As they had walked the route to Lodeve we had no trouble in finding the markings all the way into town and the Hotel du Nord. Like Mazamet this town felt a bit run down and passed by, which given the new motorway going round it is perhaps exactly what has happened.

Christine writes: John is in good form, relaxed and tanned. The scenery round here is very green and tamer than I expected. The wild honeysuckle, broom and dog rose all smell good which is just as well as John's T shirts are distinctly sniffy.

Wednesday 25th May Castenet le Haut to Ceilhes-et-Rocozels

Just more of the same I'm afraid, perfect weather, great countryside and nice places to stop over.

The food in the Auberge de Fau was excellent. Really impressed with the young couple who were running it obviously as a side business to their farm. So as well as making sure I got a perfect table d'hote, they had been busy getting the silage in all day and keeping their two young children entertained. Notice that the silage is being cut at least a week ahead of David in the Archers, although to be fair he does seem to have a lot on his plate at the moment.

Auberge de Fau

The only disadvantage of the Auberge was it involved dropping down into a valley from the GR 71 and all of the height lost had to regained. It took nearly an hour to get back to the route but the starting point was further along the trail.

Although it was all very nice it was, to be honest, all very similar, no huge views and no obvious pattern to the landscape. Although at one point I think I was looking back to the Pic Noire the views to all points of the compass were the same.

Montagne de l'Epinouse

The only settlement you go through is the village of Melagues, and it was very small although the GR signs were vague enough to get me lost. After wandering up and down for a few minutes, consulting a local, I was back into the trees and on my way to Ceilhes-et-Rocozels.

Melagues

Arrived at about 4.30 and Christine got here at 6.00 The first thing she wanted to do was go for a walk! Managed to persuade her to restrict this to walk to the bar overlooking the lake along the road. We spent the next hour or so catching up on all the news.

Tomorrow's walk to Lodeve is just a bit too long particularly as we are not going to get away until 8.30 in the morning. Might need to figure out a way of shortening it a bit.