Tuesday 7th of June Chateauneuf du-Rhone to Dieulefit

Big 40 kilometre walk with a over 1,000 metres of climb so the plan was to get an early start. Had checked the opening time for the local supermarket which was 7.30, so that was the earliest I could start. Really frustrating to find a handwritten note on the door saying they would not be opening to 8.30, had no choice but to wait as I was completely out of food. It was too early to get breakfast at the hotel I was staying at, and there were no shops on the way.

Given the late start and the distance I was under pressure to keep up the pace all day. The weather had deteriorated since yesterday and although it wasn't raining it didn't look settled. Walked for 45 minutes along the road and joined the GR 429 just south of Malataverne. After going over the motorway, which I guess is the Autosud, and underneath the TGV line, I started the walk proper.

Underneath the main north south transit

After climbing about 300 metres it was countryside similar to the last two or three days, oak forests with the occasional clearing. A small wind farm on top of the hill and views back across the Rhone valley were the main distraction. The path was well marked which was just as well as a big detour would have me pulling my hair out.

The first milestone was the Trappist monastery at Aiguebelle, about 16 kilometres from the start of the walk, lovely location, very quite, and I had my first lunch there. Got there at 12.30 so everything on schedule.

Aiguebelle Monastry

Gradually climbing all the time the countryside started to open up a bit with fields of lavender and hay meadows breaking up the countryside. The weather also started to get worse and by the middle of afternoon it was raining, not heavily but definitely waterproof weather.

Lavender

The highlight of the walk was the steady climb up Mont Rochas which is about 900 metres. Although by no means a clear day the views in all directions were impressive and you could see the more dramatic Vercors countryside I will be passing through over the next few days.

From Mt Rochas looking east

After a long downhill walk through forest I was in Dieulefit by 7.30. Took me ages to find the place I had booked which was about 2 kilometres out of town to the east. Got there just after 8 just before it really started to rain heavily. The hotelier gave me a blank look when I said I had a reservation and swore blind that I could not have contacted them. For a couple of minutes I thought I was going to be stranded but of course they had loads of rooms and were only too pleased to get my business.

Watched the weather forecast which continues to look bad. Shoes get smellier, holes have suddenly appeared in my socks and feel in need of a 2500 kilometre service. Oil change, new brakes and definitely a new air filter.

Monday 6th of June Saint-Martin d'Ardeche to Chateauneuf du Rhone

Just when I thought it would never stop raining, it did and today the weather has just got better and better. The sun improves everything and although much of the walking was a bit dull it was a good day.

It's been a different GR everyday and today was no exception. Having left Villefort on the GR 44 a few days ago, I switched to the GR 4 at Les Vans, leaving that at Saint-Martin d'Ardeche heading north today on the GR 42 before finishing on the GR 429 heading east. It's been complicated but once on the GR 9, which I should hit late tomorrow, I follow that all way to the Swiss border.

After returning to the hotel to pick up my IPhone I finally got out of Saint-Martin d'Ardeche at about 8.45 going past the single track road bridge I walked over yesterday. The first few kilometres of the walk went through mixed vine and arable countryside and as the mist cleared it was a pleasant walk.

Bridge at St Martin d'Ardeche

Vineyards to the north of St Martin d'Ardeche

Went past a war memorial on side of the road from a sister for her brother who had been killed within days of the outbreak of the first world war. The memorial amazingly had fresh flowers at it's base.

Climbing higher the countryside reverted to the scrubby evergreen oak I had been walking through yesterday. Went underneath some monumental power cables and after a while worked out that I was heading west along GR 4 variant, the GR 4 F, and saw a sign saying I was on the E4! This is the only E4 sign I have seen in France and as far as I am concerned it shouldn't be there. Ignoring the navigational inconsistency I managed to revert to my version of the E4 and was soon heading north again.

French Pylons

First French E4 sign confirms I'm on the wrong route

Saw two more wild boar on the path, they were sitting in the sun but shot off as I walked past. Didn't realise they were so stripy.

Dropping down again I was soon into fields of peaches and cherries. Cherries are starting to get past it and the peaches just need a few more days.

Peaches

Then arrived at the wonderful village of St Montan, an absolutely stunning medieval village, ancient houses all surrounding a castle perched on a hill. Would have been a lovely place to stay but so would Viviers the town on the west side of the bank of the River Rhone. Lots of Roman buildings here, including a Roman bridge you cross on the way into town.

St-Montan

Bridge before Viviers

As it was I crossed the Rhone and stayed at the Chateauneuf du Rhone, which sounds nice but is a bit of a dump. Thanks for the Trappist monk suggestion from Carole and David, sounds brilliant, unfortunately I had already committed to walking to Dieulefit with a booking there. So it's a long day tomorrow, today was also long enough, 32 kilometres and 900 metres of climb.

Crossing the Rhone

Sunday June 5th Vallons Pont D'Arc to Saint-Martin d'Ardeche

Walking alone again today as Christine has gone back to England. Great to have such a slug of time together and it has propelled me half way across France. In fact in every way I'm now well into the second half of walk. Tomorrow I should cross the Rhone and in preparation for the trip through Vercours. For the next two months I'll be working my way around and through the Alps.

Christine has been really unlucky with the weather and waterproofs have been regular wear for the last five days. We were told that the Ardeche gets five days of rain a year so this solid wet spell is exceptional.

I do need some sustained sunny weather. Current conditions make it hard to get things dry and some of my clothing is getting a bit down at heal. Apparently I carry a slight damp dog smell with me but the main culprit seems to have been my hat which hadn't been washed since Spain. My shoes however are in a bad way and have been damp/wet for days. Not pleasant room mates.

No big turnaround in the weather today. Was drizzling when I left Christine at 8.45 and a thunder storm started at 9.30 and lasted for two hours. I have a really good Berghaus waterproof jacket but the trousers are too lightweight for their own good and it wasn't for large quantities of gaffer tape would have fallen apart a long time ago. By the time the rained eased off my lower half, as usual, was damp to wet.

Maybe it was my mood but the walk felt a bit monotonous. After leaving Vallons Pont D'Arc, and rejoining the GR4 at Salavas (where there was a more convenient hotel than the one we ended up staying in last night across the river), the route took you through endless little holiday homes which were full of French people trying to work out what to do in the rain. After that it was forest of evergreen oak, nice trails but with no real views (not that you would have been able to see very far). The journey was broken by the very pretty village Labastide de Virac but after that it was into the forest again. By now it had stopped raining and I was listening to the Archers omnibus. I didn't notice that I was on the wrong GR4 variant until I had gone quite a long way south but managed to find an alternative route to the right path.

Of course the deviation might have meant that I missed some brilliant views of the Gorge d'Ardeche as the route was quite close to it for much of the time. As it was I didn't see the gorge until I got to Aigueze which is very close to Saint-Martin d'Ardeche. The cliffs must have been well over 100 feet high but you could still see the fish in the river. Could definitely make out, as a different shade of of grey, Mount Ventoux, which looks enormous, my route takes me further north so I won't have the pleasure of trudging up it.

Got to the hotel by four, 28 kilometres (you do travel faster walking alone), it was raining again by 5.30.

Saturday 4th June Les Van to Vallon Pont d'Arc

What a dreadful day.

Two things went wrong, firstly it was mis-sold as a relatively short flat day and secondly the weather continues to be bad. Shame because it's Christine's last day and she was not happy as we struggled to find the hotel at 5.45 in the pouring rain.

For some reason my schedule was about 10 kilometres out, I thought this was a 20k rather than a 30k walk and although we are no longer in the Cevennes we still managed to find over 600 metres of climb.

Went into the town centre in Les Vans to get breakfast and food for the day. It was Saturday, market day and everything was there to buy. It was also dark and sombre and after ten minutes we got our first thunder storm which we were able to watch from the comfort of a cafe. We weren't going to get such comfort later.

Le Vans Market

Pressing on we were soon out of town and dashing into a farm building to escape storm number 2 and watch a dramatic lightening show.

Seriously wet

The rain then eased off and apart from the odd bit of drizzle it looked like we had had the worse. In fact it started to get hot and humid.

After walking across causse-like countryside and through a wood, and through growing numbers of French walkers, we got our first sight of the Gorge d'Ardeche, and walked along it's edge for about a kilometre. The view was great but the smooth wet limestone slabs we were walking along on the very edge of the cliff were treacherous.

Gorge d'Ardeche

Gorge D'Ardeche

Stopped for a coffee in the village of Berrias under the illusion that we were half way and then crossed a flat arable stretch of countryside, a sudden change in the landscape.

Flat country for the first time in a month

At about two we were climbing the hills on the other side and I was telling Christine we had about 7 kilometres to go. At 3pm the lightening started and the deluge began. Although we had a bit of a climb the trail was a good one and we were walking very fast and couldn't really understand why we weren't getting there. We seemed to be going round in circles along an endless high winding trail. It wasn't until nearly 5 that we saw a sign that gave us 4 kilometres to go.

Cliffs near Pont d'Ardeche

The views by the way on that last bit, despite the weather, were great with the River Ardeche winding away below us. Not in the mood to enjoy them and struggling to find the hotel amongst thousands of sodden campers was not exactly a pleasure.

The hotel was a nice one and we had a lovely dinner and Christine forgave me for my scheduling and all was soon right in the world

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.