Booked holiday flights - yippee!! Happy rant, and photo spam
I've finally stopped procrastinating and have booked my flights to France (via Munich!) for my walking holiday in the Pyrenees in July :) Now I need to make a plan about where to walk :)
It'll be somewhere along the Haute Route, which is the Pyrenean High Level Route between France and Spain. Last year I walked from Borce to Gavarnie, so this time I'll probably start at or near Gavarnie and walk to somewhere like Salardu, stopping off along the way to pick off a couple of the higher peaks and maybe to spend a day or so slobbing around, washing my clothes and replenishing my food supplies in some small town or large village or other.
I'll be taking my little tent and cooking kit, and camping up in the mountains most nights. In the Pyrenees they have a fantastic network of what are called Refuges. They're places where walkers can get food, and stay if they want to. The accommodation is all very basic, but because it's France (and sometimes Spain) the food is excellent, albeit simple. What I'll probably do is carry food for breakfast and lunch (baguettes, saucisson, local cheese, garlic, maybe some cucumber and peppers, fresh coffee, dried milk and red wine), eat dinner in the Refuges and then camp somewhere nearby. Carrying food for dinner as well as brekky and lunch is too heavy to be fun, because the route doesn't drop down into villages in the same way as, for instance, the GR10, so it's not possible to re-stock on a daily basis.
Here are some piccies I took last August.
I camped next to this lake, with the Pic du Midi in the background. This cow was there admiring the view as I ate my breakfast the following morning :)
These carline flowers were everywhere. Some of them were enormous!
Quite bizarrely, I ran into a friend of mine on a bus in Cauterets, and so we camped together that night next to the Refuge des Oulettes de Gaube, with the remains of what was my first glacier in the background.
Lunch kit :) Actually, that day it was breakfast, lunch and dinner.
My little tent :)
Me on a mountain, somewhere in Spain.
Spot the beastie :)
More cows. The cows are very friendly out there - not at all aggressive, unlike here...
And making supper :)
It'll be somewhere along the Haute Route, which is the Pyrenean High Level Route between France and Spain. Last year I walked from Borce to Gavarnie, so this time I'll probably start at or near Gavarnie and walk to somewhere like Salardu, stopping off along the way to pick off a couple of the higher peaks and maybe to spend a day or so slobbing around, washing my clothes and replenishing my food supplies in some small town or large village or other.
I'll be taking my little tent and cooking kit, and camping up in the mountains most nights. In the Pyrenees they have a fantastic network of what are called Refuges. They're places where walkers can get food, and stay if they want to. The accommodation is all very basic, but because it's France (and sometimes Spain) the food is excellent, albeit simple. What I'll probably do is carry food for breakfast and lunch (baguettes, saucisson, local cheese, garlic, maybe some cucumber and peppers, fresh coffee, dried milk and red wine), eat dinner in the Refuges and then camp somewhere nearby. Carrying food for dinner as well as brekky and lunch is too heavy to be fun, because the route doesn't drop down into villages in the same way as, for instance, the GR10, so it's not possible to re-stock on a daily basis.
Here are some piccies I took last August.
I camped next to this lake, with the Pic du Midi in the background. This cow was there admiring the view as I ate my breakfast the following morning :)
These carline flowers were everywhere. Some of them were enormous!
Quite bizarrely, I ran into a friend of mine on a bus in Cauterets, and so we camped together that night next to the Refuge des Oulettes de Gaube, with the remains of what was my first glacier in the background.
Lunch kit :) Actually, that day it was breakfast, lunch and dinner.
My little tent :)
Me on a mountain, somewhere in Spain.
Spot the beastie :)
More cows. The cows are very friendly out there - not at all aggressive, unlike here...
And making supper :)