Day 2 Dhaulagiri Circuit - Darbang

After another horribly wet day and two bus journeys we have arrived at our first campsite and the beginning of the trek proper.  I'm a fair weather camper and never saw the point of going out when it's raining; given that the forecast is for still more rain, I'm finding it hard to muster enthusiasm for tomorrow's trek.

It's a shame about the weather because the scenery is interesting. We are at about 1,000 metres and have been following a river in a deep but very fertile terraced valley.  The little terraces are full of rice which is in ear and perhaps just a couple of weeks away from being harvested. The trees look amazing, incredibly lush and green including some which were in flower. At this altitude it doesn't get cold and banana trees and bamboo are much in evidence.

The villages are busy and despite the rain people are out and about.  We're passing through a Hindu part of Nepal and the build up to the Diwali festival is taking place. There is clearly a lot of visiting going on with the visitors decorating themselves with sticky pink rice - great lumps of it stuck to their foreheads.

We stopped for lunch and a change of bus at Beni.  Beni, I suspect, would never qualify as a candidate for a weekend retreat but on a wet day it was a dump.  It felt dirty and grimy and not a place where you really wanted to take your hands out of your pockets, never mind linger and eat food.

At Beni we changed to a much smaller public bus which amazingly had the same number of seats as the larger bus we had enjoyed earlier in the day.  Now I'm not exactly tall but even I struggled to get my knees into the space provided and for some of my bigger comrades it was an almost impossible task.

Dhaulagiri Circuit Day 1 - to Pokara

The first two days in Nepal on the Dhaulagiri Circuit are all about getting to the start of the trek. As it happens, the weather has made it a lot harder than expected. There is a big cyclone in India and as a consequence it has rained non-stop since arriving in Kathmandu yesterday.  Internal travel in Nepal is precarious at the best of times and the weather has now messed things up completely.

Last night we stayed in the Summit Hotel, by far the best hotel I have stayed in in Kathmandu although it's quite a way out of the city centre.  The rooms are good, the food is excellent and everything is spick and span.

After a quick trip into Thamel to pick up some last minute items from the wonderful Shonas I was already for the next stage - a flight to Pokara. The rain was hammering down and in airports like Pokara if the pilots can't see the runway the planes don't fly.  The flight was cancelled and after a bit of consultation the local agent for Jagged Globe decided that we would have go by bus to Pokara. It's a 6/7 hour trip but given that the weather forecast for tomorrow is not good this seemed like a good decision.

Dhaulagiri Circuit Day 0 - to Kathmandu

Safe and comfortable at home, in the middle of last winter, I was thinking about trips for the year ahead.  Looking back my trip to Mera Peak had been a real adventure so why not have a go at something similar?   I had written an article in Adventure Travel on Mera and in the same edition there was a list of their top 100 treks. Topping the list was the trip around Dhaulagiri (the world's seventh highest mountain at 8,179 metres).  Nine months ago that was enough information - I had to go.

Dhaulagiri Circuit

Return to the GR1 Sendero Histórico - Hill Top Towns

On my last trip I had 24 hours of really heavy rain at Sos del Rey Catolica and didn't manage to walk the section to Biel. Neither Biel or Sos are very accessible so I decided this time to walk this stretch of the GR1 that takes you through a series of spectacular towns from Olite to Murillo de Gállego.

I was in Olite by 12 having travelled from Vitoria via Pamplona. I'm getting used to Spanish buses. They're cheap and punctual and the only challenge is working out the timetables which are run by different providers.

Olite

The walk to Ujue is not one of the best on the route. Before you get back into the mountains you have to cross the flat agricultural plain east of Olite with its mix of vineyards, cornfields and pig farms. This is Navarre and the waymarking is not good but at least you can see Ujue in the distance - a church on top of what looks like a ridge. As you get into the hills you lose sight of the town which reappears, quite magically, as you round a final bend.  It has the perfect location high up out on a promontory with great views all round.

Return to the GR1 Sendero Histórico - to Berantevilla

I didn't do the Fontecha Berantevilla stretch of GR1 earlier in the year because I couldn't find anywhere to stay on the route. Instead I got a lift from Fontecha to Medina de Ebro and then a taxi to Berantevilla next day. I wanted to see what this stretch of walking was like and if it was worth doing. Instead of Medina de Ebro, which wasn't a particularly nice place, I wanted to try Vitoria-Gasteiz.

I'd stayed the night before in Bilboa and had been there just long enough to work out where everything was and conclude that it's definitely worth a return visit with Christine. It would be an excellent place to tack onto the beginning or end of some GR1 walking.

From Bilboa I went to by bus to Vitoria-Gasteiz which, with a lovely medieval core is much nicer than Medina de Ebro. It's where Wellington beat the French in the final battle of the Peninsula War, a victory which lost some its sparkle when the British troops, instead of pursuing their enemy, went on a drinking binge.

Early next morning I caught the bus to Fontecha.  It was a little mini-bus with only one passenger on it for the 40 kilometre journey - me.

One of two castles at Fontecha

Back on the GR1 Sendero Histórico - Cantabria and beyond

Yesterday I crossed a Spanish regional border, from Castile Leon to Cantabria and things GR1 fell apart. It was a frustrating day but provided essential information for my forthcoming GR1 guide.

In Spain regional government and regions are incredibly important. They affect everything even long distance walking routes like the GR1.  The GR1 ends at the "border" between Castile Leon and Asturias rather than going all way to Finisterre as originally intended presumably because Asturias and Galicia (particularly the walking/climbing associations) are not interested.  If the regions don't cooperate it's a problem.

Jesus Garcia Delgado - my host in Branosera

Back to the GR1 Sendero Histórico - to Branosera

This was a walk I had done before with Juan but last time, because it was covered with the snow, the trail was hard to follow and I wanted to make sure I had got it right for the guide.  We also missed a bit of the route to go and look at an old oak tree, something I definitely didn't need to do twice.

It was a gorgeous morning and unlike yesterday I didn't have to leave without a coffee.

The walk starts with a trip through a brand new park just to the north of town - new pavements, benches and street lights.  Away from the shops and where anyone lives it's hard to imagine it ever getting used.  You see developments like this all over Spain, a product of the optimism fueled by the building boom. There is a large new footbridge which Juan and I crossed last time which drops you, heading on the wrong route, in the middle of an empty industrial estate.

Evergreen oak forest near Requejada Reservoir