Going on a Bear Hunt

Well, with great sadness we waved goodbye to Lynne yesterday....hey, wait a minute she didn't finish the blog!.. so now its up to me to continue our adventures till Rob's return from Australia. 

After basking in the after glow of the TMB trek in Chamonix, we arranged to meet up with a friend of Rob's, Phil Godbee (who also walked the track carrying his 20kg pack). So the next day we took the small train up to Montenviers, to Mer de Glace, the largest glacier in France. Its 7kms long and 200m deep. I've never seen a glacier up close and it looked a little grubby covered in grey scree. We walked from the train down to the ice cave and every so often passed signs dating the receeding glacier being from 1890, 1920 etc and I thought global warming was a new thing, this glacier is a visible demonstration of it happening for over 100 years. We arrived hot & sweaty at the snow cave and enjoyed walking inside the huge cool cave with lots of rooms to explore. Each year the cave is in a new location as it moves 90m per year. They used to dig it out with ice picks but now have special machinery to make it easier.

 
Next day, it was again another country with a bus trip back into Switzerland. Geneva - the city of time...Lynne has a new watch to support the Swiss economy.  Got the free city ferry to the old town and enjoyed the sights and sounds of Geneva for a night, people watching the bankers meeting after work for their drinks...too expensive to stay too long - the wine was more expensive than our meals, so goodbye Switzerland and hello Croatia.

Flew to Zagreb, capital of Croatia,  and arrived on a public holiday- we were wondering why it was so deserted. Wandered along the streets to the cathedral and again sat around the old city, people watching and having a wine. Took a local bus ride out of town to see the countryside and visit Sambor- we had read it was famous for a type of desert and being good tourists decided it was worth a day visit....yes it was worth the visit, our waist lines will testify to that.
Everyone had told us to visit Plitvice Lakes a huge Croatian national park that is included on Unesco's list of World Natural Heritage sites. It has 16 turquoise lakes connected by waterfalls & cascades. So picked up another car and with me driving again, we go exploring. Stopping along the way for a freshly caught trout lunch. Plitvice has about 10,000 visitors daily during summer peak season so we started  walking early on the wooden footbridges. Swimming is not allowed and the water is a pristine turquoise colour with waterfalls surrounding us. We walked the footbridges in a couple of hours and with our TMB  fitness still current decided to walk another track in the forest.  The 1st half hour we were powering and laughing about wild life - then it dawned on us.. we hadn't seen another soul for a long time and Plitvice is also famous for its bears, wolves and abundant animal life. The walk sped up to a cracking pace with the laughing ceasing and the image of drop bears surrounding us clearly in our mind....finally back again on the wooden walkways and the welcome sight of the 10,000 daily tourists ......another lesson learnt...take bear spray or learn how to scare a bear before entering the woods.

Now a pleasant drive into Slovenia...a tiny country 1/2 the size of Switzerland and surrounded by Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia. It has only 2 million people, is in the EU and over 1/2 of the country is covered in forest.  As we drove to our destination, we fell in love with sLOVEnia. Rob had booked us a week in Lake Bohinj, it was a B&B apartment on the top floor of a chalet (66 steps). Rob was to arrive the following day. Lynne & I did a big walk up a mountain but all ups have a down and this was straight down no relief. The afternoon it was to be another walk around the lake ...12km no worry. Started off briskly but by about 4pm I start to get my loser's limp again and Lynne has to promise me the world to keep me going...just like a kid with ice creams, glass of wine, etc. ...thank heavens we found a bus stop along the way.

Lynne also viewed another of  her daredevil passions...paragliding off the high peak Mt Vogel, so she booked in for the following day. 
Woke to the valley covered in mist but by the time 9.30am arrived, she was floating tandem over Lake Bohinj, loving every minute...think the good looking instructor also had something to do with her grin from ear to ear. 

With our feet firmly on the ground we drove to Ljubljana airport to pick up Rob, who was returning, after saying goodbye to his mum & attending her funeral.  Sad time but excited to have him back in the gang. 

TMB minus Rob

Rob waves us goodbye and looks longingly at the mountains.  We look longingly at him and think of the extra things he could have carried for us.  The first day goes well with 6 hours of gentle walking through villages and only a few ups and downs.  We even have a spa at our first hotel and think this is alright we can do this.

We wake in the morning to light rain that turns into heavy drizzle which turns into full on rain, wind and as we rise up high, snow.  We cannot see more than a couple of feet in front of us as we climb vertically up the rocks for hours on end.  Our only respite is walking behind a glacier that we can not really see but at least it was not up.  Like all good climbs there is a corresponding descent and this one is a doozie.  Mud for hours as we slip and slide our way down and get overtaken by runners training for the 3 day run around Mont Blanc.  Not good for the ego that's for sure.

Feeling confident after two days walking we head out and do 14kms in the wrong direction.  All I can say is that we gave a lot of people a good laugh as we hitched a ride back to the beginning of the days walk.  We cross to Italy and we have been told that the sun always shines in Italy and we are not disappointed for a day at least.  We have a great day's walking just feeling like we can reach out and touch the Mont Blanc Massiff.  We meet Rob in Courmayeur after a gruelling descent - most take the cable car but no not us.  We arrive battered and exhausted and can barely walk but looking forward to our rest day.  We brake our vow of abstinence and succumb  to a wine or two that night. Our rest day is perfectly timed to go to the outdoor spa resort.  Although we feel as if we are in the movie 'Cocoon' our feet relish the rest.  We wave goodbye to Rob as he heads off to Oz into a completely different world of experiences than what we are having. 

We get smarter and wiser we have added a compass to our pack, special liners in our boots and we read the maps and trip notes before heading off.  As we get further and further into the walk our fitness improves and our rooms no longer stink of dencorub and the panadol osteos are held only on standby.
Although "Losers Limp" set in most afternoons, and those pesky marmots jumped into our packs for the last couple of kilometres, we managed to arrive at our destination before sunset.
The refuges are special places to stay, the comraderie of the fellow walkers, all feeling the same as we haul in our heavy packs, exhausted, finding our beds in rooms with sometimes 3 stacks holding 8 people in a row; that's 24 people in a room. 2 minute showers and long tables for dinner and talk which ends by just after 8pm as everyone heads to their beds hoping to sleep and recover to do it all over again in the morning.  We are lucky enough to always have a room to ourselves thanks to Alpine Exploratory but we do not avoid the 2 minute communal showers.  The people we meet there we cross paths with often over the coming days.


The weather improves a little although it is still freezing cold and we are dressed in head scarves that makes me look like a bowling ball, hats, gloves, fleecys and raincoats most days but no more torrential rain and most of the time we can see where we are headed.  We cross into Switzerland and more stunning beautiful countryside and villages. We stay in Champex a high mountain lake area and its beauty just takes our breath away.

We feel that we have experienced it all by now until we hit the Bovine.  Now this is the easier of the 2 routes crossing over this mountain range and with our new mantra of 'Enjoy not Endure' we take it. However it was not to be easy, a gruelling climb up deep rutted tracks for hours on end and it is not called the Bovine for nothing.  We try to keep out of the way of the cattle that inhabited this area.  They were not sweet dairy cows but big black aggressive horny beasts, a few times we detour around them walking ankle deep in muddy manure paddocks.

Our next rest day we take the train into Chamonix with all the excess from our packs so that we only carry the essentials the last 2 days.  This proves to be an excellent idea of Susans' as the next day we do a 1200m climb using ladders and steel hand holds.  It is exciting and thrilling and bloody hard work. The weather has improved and it is hot for the first time.  Our views of the majestic Mont Blanc are worth all the hard work as we lay in the grass beside the alpine lake.  That night we sit out and watch the sun set over Mont Blanc.  A sight that will be with us in our dotage. 

We walk back into Chamonix after 11 long, hard days walking, 2 rest days and putrid weather to more rain and mist, but it is comforting to return to the lovely warmth of the very French family at the Hotel Richemond.  We have walked 200km with ascents of 1200mt and descents of 1000mt in any one day. We have walked from France to Italy and across to Switzerland and back into France. We have had to dig deep into our physical and mental reserves.  We are very proud of our achievement!!       

Le Mas del Sol in beautiful Provence.

We arrived at our home for the next week, Le Mas del Sol, mid afternoon on Thursday 14 July after a nice easy drive from Carcassonne and a picnic lunch. Our hosts Richard and Lucine helped us settle in and showed us around the place, then we set off to Bonnieux, the nearby village on a hill, and had a look around. We found a nice restaurant with outdoor tables under trees, ordered a bottle of red, and then started to think about food! And very nice food it was, too.

Next day we got up when we felt like it, ate brekkie al fresco by the pool, and then drove back up to Bonnieux to check out the weekly markets. The markets kind of move around the local villages day by day, and are very good, selling lots of great local foods and products. We wandered around, I bought a hat, we bought some lunch ingredients, then headed back to LMdelS for a leisurely lunch by the pool with a bottle of rose (which reminds me of a book Susie read titled "I'm not an alcoholic, I'm European."), and a quiet afternoon. Susie had a swim - I looked on in envy, not allowed yet.
That night was a "dine-in" night at LMdelS, which mates at MWKC had told us not to miss, as Richard is a great cook. They were absolutely right, and Richard served us up a fabulous meal.

The other nearby village, sitting on top of another hill, was Lacoste, complete with a ruined castle at the very top. We went up for a visit, walked around, stopped for the mandatory coffee, and at Susie's suggestion bought tickets to a concert to be held that night in an old disused limestone quarry on the hill top near the castle. The village's patron and part owner is our old mate Pete Cardin (he just uses Pierre for marketing purposes), and he apparently has a large hand in bringing cultural events to the village. The tickets cost us E120 each, but were worth it.
After a little rest in the arvo, we packed up a picnic and drove up to the quarry, did a tour of the castle, sat in the grass admiring the view, ate our picnic dinner, and then walked down to the quarry. What a venue for a concert! The limestone must have been taken out in large blocks, because the walls were all vertical and smooth, with passages and square arches, and quite visually stunning.
And the concert itself was something else again. Our old mate Pete was there, all shaggy white hair and double breasted dark blue jacket, and was introduced to the crowd to warm applause. The concert was in 2 acts. The first was a quite quirky interpretation of Carmen, with a fabulous troupe of ballet dancers, followed after interval by my favourite of the night - a selection of music by Karl Orff backed up by wonderful dancing, a large and incredible choir, and 3 vocal soloists who would have lifted the roof off if there was one! What a great night. We drove slowly back to LMdelS feeling very culturally enriched.

Susie wanted to check out the markets again, so on Sunday we went to the village of Isle Sur La Iforget. A beautiful village, with canals running through the centre of town. We ate a late, and large Pizza lunch, before returning home for a few games of Petanque on Richard's custom built pitch, then watched a movie, and bed. The following day was spent visiting yet another small village in this beautiful part of the world, called Goult, then back to Bonnieux to look at a gallery which Susie had spied on her morning walk. The gallery was owned by, and filled with the works of local artist Marjolene Lasne, and I was taken by her work straight away, and one painting in particular. After much chat with Marjolene, we left to think about it, but I knew I was hooked.
That night we dined in again at LMdelS, and this time it was deadset the best roast lamb I have tasted in my entire life. He does it in a slow oven with honey and a few herbs that I can't remember, basting often to keep it moist. Tie that to a couple of very nice local reds and I was in heaven.

Next morning we had to be up at sparrow fart to drive an hour into Avignon to the hospital to have the staples in my leg taken out. The insurance people had teed up the appointment for me, and assured us that the hospital knew we were coming, I was registered, payment was guaranteed by them, and all I had to do was front up and they would be expecting me. Didn't happen. They knew nothing about me, had no appointment on the books, and insisted I had to pay after the procedure. The actual removal of the staples was carried out very quickly and efficiently by a cheerful nurse, a new dressing bunged on, and out we walked. Straight out the front doors. We figured Insurance could sort out the payment.
Five minutes after leaving the hospital and trying to navigate our way out of Avignon, the heavens opened, accompanied by crashing lightning and thunder. It bucketed like I haven't seen in a long time, filling the road with water and reducing visibility to almost nil. Susie was having kittens as she was driving, so we pulled into a company parking area and stopped. Five minutes later it was like it had never happened. We got back to LMdelS just before 10 for a late breakfast.
That afternoon we went back to the gallery and bought the painting. Marjolene must have known I was coming back because she had already rung the post office to get freight costs to Oz. I must be so transparent! Can't wait to see it on the wall at home.

Wed 20 July was our last day in Provence. We drove to another village, Sault, for another markets fix (I think Susie has an addiction!), bought some lunch ingredients, and headed off for the nearby Mont Ventoux. It's a 26km unrelenting climb to the top from Sault, has been used in Le Tour a few times, and is the testpiece for local cyclists. The road was alive with riders all the way to the top, which was cold, windy, and in cloud! Some arrived in good style while others looked like they were wishing they'd never started!
We lunched back down the mountain a bit, met an Aussie couple who had done it easy to the top, then drove via the pretty villages of Lioux and Gordes on our way home.

Next morning we said fond goodbyes to Richard and Lucine, and headed off to Avignon to meet Susie's cousin Lynne at the station before driving to Geneva. Lynne's train was 2 and 1/2 hours late which made us a bit late in Geneva, but we sorted things out, dropped off our much loved Pug at the airport, and eventually piled into a shuttle bus for the hour's ride up to Chamonix and the beautiful old Richemond Hotel.

Friday 22nd - the start of our much anticipated Tour de Mt Blanc - a 13 day walk around the Mt Blanc massif. We had an early breakfast, the girls grabbed their packs, and we caught the bus to the village of Les Houches, the start of the trek. I accompanied them to the top of the cable car, gave them a kiss and a hug, and waved them off. Then it was back to the Hotel Richemond and my 2 weeks of getting to know Chamonix while the girls walked. 
As it turned out, other events meant I didn't spend long in Chamonix, and required my return to Oz for a couple of weeks.

As I didn't get to do the TdeMB, the next blog will be from guest blogger Lynne Parsons - Susie's cousin and best mate.