Day 2 - St Amas to Rustrel

We were under pressure to get going fairly early this morning, as George had a conference call scheduled for 10am, so he needed to drop us off at St Amas by 9.45 so he would be settled in a wifi-equipped cafe in Rustrel by ten.  However, Martine was presented with this to groom:

and we all knew we were in trouble!  The conference call was hastily rescheduled, George had the unenviable task of cleaning hooves and fitting boots while Anne groomed her (clean) horse and Martine scraped the dry mud of Flurry and washed the wet muck off the saddle and girth area, hoping it would dry somewhat in the trailer.

We arrived at St Amas about half an hour later than planned, quickly tacked up, mounted and set off.

Today's trek was deliberately easy - tomorrow is a tough day, so we just wanted a little leg stretch for them today.  Tomorrow we are crossing the Vaucluse mountains, going over the left shoulder of that mist-topped mountain to Lagarde d'Apt, approximately 9km over rough terrain.  We hope to continue on another bit as well, if we're all up to it.

Tomorrow's challenge.  

But that's tomorrow - today we trekked through the beautiful Colorado Provencal, which we wrote about in Entschuldigen sie, Bitte and Cinnamon on Ochre.
We had a long and steady descent from St Amas, all the way down into the valley below Rustrel.  The first section was fine, we were on an unsurfaced road, but the next section, about 1.5km into the trek, was very steep and very rocky.  We remained mounted, as both horses are pretty good at steep descents by now, but if we'd met this early in our stay here, we would have had to dismount and lead them, as Flurry was inclined to rush down rocky slopes until he learned to sit on his hocks and take it slowly.

Looking back at some of the cliff section we rode along

Once that section was behind us, though, the trail became less rocky. and we were riding through mixed pine and oak forest.  At one stage, the trail wound along the top of a cliff, with a huge overhanging rock.  Flurry peered down the drop and at the massive rock, curiously I think, and then carried on along the trail.
Shortly after that, we started hitting the really scenic stuff.  I'm not one for putting human feelings onto animals, but the only way to describe Flurry's reaction was wonderment.  He has always appeared to enjoy the views every bit as much as Anne and I, and today he stood and gazed at this scene for ages.   Eventually, I asked him to move on again, which he did as willingly as ever.

Forgive the mud dreadlocks - there is only so much one can do with wet mud!  But Silver Spurs riders take note, we expect better standards of turnout from you guys!

Just around the corner, we came to a patch of ochre which was approximately "Gigi coloured"

Gigi attempting to blend in

Then there was another vista, this time both horses stopped and admired it.

A few minutes later, we met a lovely French couple and asked them to take a photograph of us.  Finally, we have a picture of the four of us together out on the trail!

We left the scenic ochre pits behind us and carried on to Rustrel, but not before Flurry had one last look at the beautiful colours.

Riding through Rustrel, our Renegade boots were drawing attention once again.  They've been called a lot of names - bottes (boots), sabots (hoofs or clogs), chaussures (shoes) but today was the first day they were called chaussettes (socks).
We've been wondering how long it would take before the horses started to recognise the jeep and trailer as "home."  The answer is one day, in Flurry's case anyway - he spotted it in the car park and made straight for it!
George had one more call to make, so the horses got a twenty minute pick of grass in the car park - well earned.

That's another 6.2km covered, 478km to go!

Le Big Trek day 2, st amas to rustrel at EveryTrail