tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32870708529865571792024-03-05T20:17:47.980+00:00The Wanderly WagonsTwo women, two horses, four dogs and one long-suffering husband escaped the gloomy Irish Winter by travelling to the South of France. Follow our adventures as we journey home across France on horseback to raise funds for Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind.Martinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14496995504975297110noreply@blogger.comBlogger155125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-40289341341832717342012-06-09T12:38:00.000+01:002012-06-11T19:37:08.737+01:00Wrapping it all upWe're home just over four weeks now and it's like we've never been away. We're now acclimatised to the Irish Summer (we've grown webbed feet) and are settled back into our different routines, Martine with her garden, second horse and Dressage Ireland roles.<br />
Flurry and Gigi have been resting happily/eating like pigs in Anne's paddock.<br />
They've both had their feet trimmed. Flurry needed almost nothing taken off his toes, but he was indeed quite long in the heel. He's looking good now and Martine is going to start working him completely barefoot as soon as his holiday is over. It was good to see that Gigi's heels are opening up nicely, but her feet still aren't quite up to the full barefoot life yet, so she'll continue to wear her Renegades for the immediate future. <br />
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Cinnamon settled right back in. She seems to be sleeping more than before, perhaps, like the Ould Wagons, she needs to rest a bit after Le Big Trek.<br />
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Cookie got straight back into Cat Persecution mode. The cats, Fatty and Skinny, are continuing to try to teach her that Cats are Friends, not Food, but they're not getting anywhere. Cookie has now learned how to climb trees, so the only safe haven the cats have is on top of the stable roof.<br />
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Molly was waiting to greet us when we arrived home. She seems to have pancreatitis as well as liver issues, but she's comfortable at the moment, thanks to the lovely vets Deirdre and Dave.<br />
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Martine and her Long Suffering Husband have made the decision to return to Provence. They're hoping to leave towards the end of 2012 and will spend a full year there on a trial basis. If it works out, who knows what could happen! Martine has set up a <a href="http://haltsalute.blogspot.ie/" target="_blank">new blog, Halt, Salute and... </a>which will chronicle their horsey activities and their lives as they first of all prepare to leave Ireland and then settle in to Provencal life long-term. <br />
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Our fund-raising efforts were more than worthwhile. We knew that our target of €5,000 was pretty ambitious, but we're now just short of €4,000, with a few more "promises" to be kept yet. It would be great to break the €4000 mark, so if you've been intending to donate, now's the time! It's all gone directly from mycharity.ie to the Assistance Dog Program run by IGDB, barring cash donations which Martine will hand over in the form of a cheque shortly.<br />
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The auction of the limited edition print, Ma Blonde, donated by Irish contemporary artist Tony O' Connor, made €150, with only one bid! Denise Barrett really wanted that print!<br />
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Anne hasn't settled back in as well as Martine, finding it really hard to settle into the daily routine after so much excitement !<br />
The horses went to Martine's place initially but were soon moved up to Anne's place as she has an abundance of grass. The neighbourly farmer was going to top the paddock but the weather turned so wet he couldn't get into the field without wrecking the grass, as the field is on a slope. So our noble steeds returned to more grass than they had seen in months !<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lots of grass</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">More Grass</td></tr>
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But they weren't long working their way through it<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Less Grass<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></td></tr>
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And then they were strip grazed into the rest of the paddock.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Diet Time</td></tr>
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Poor Gigi has had her fair share of woes since we got back, Anne had noticed the hair under the saddle being rubbed at the start of the last week of the trek, and while she kept a close eye on it and changed to a thick merino wool numnah , saddle sores appeared about 5 days after she got home. Anne was intending resting her any way, but she really felt bad about Gigi.</div>
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Gigi had of course changed shape significantly during the period away, and it's obvious from these pictures that the saddle just wasn't fitting properly any more. But the sores aren't infected and as long as she isn't ridden they should heal well, but she will probably always bear these reminders of Le Big Trek, with white hair replacing the chestnut.</div>
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Unfortunately that is not the sum total of Gigi's woes. She suffers from photo sensitivity on her pink nose and Anne usually applies sun cream on sunny days, but after all the sun in Provence, and no problems, she had thought she wouldn't need it in Ireland's watery sun. But Anne was wrong. These sores are very slow to heal, so Gigi gets suncream on sunny days and derma gel otherwise, and Anne is on another guilt trip !<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Poor Gigi's Sunburned Nose</td></tr>
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Roxy, Anne's guide dog pup, has started training, and is on the Assistance Dog Program, which is appropriate ! Anne is going to visit her next Tuesday, as she has bonded well with her trainer, and shouldn't be too upset by seeing Anne again, it can be quite disruptive for the pups if they see their puppy walkers too soon after the separation. Anne will get another pup later this year but is taking a short break until August.<br />
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Fionn is loving being home, after three weeks in kennels, and is delighted with the freedom the garden offers him. Although he looks very grey he still has as much energy as ever and is getting nice long walks every day.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fionn enjoying the sun</td></tr>
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The vegetable patch has suffered from Anne's long absence, and is mostly planted with leeks, onions and lettuce !<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The vegetable patch</td></tr>
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Anne:- Martine came to take Flurry back home last Tuesday, which for me really marked the end of our adventure, the horses had been together since last autumn, but Gigi quickly settled in with her new companion Pepper, who was Martine's children's pony.<br />
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I want to say a big thank you to Martine for doing the navigating every day, my sense of direction is appalling and I'd probably still be stuck up a mountain somewhere if it hadn't been for her, it was a huge responsibility and she rose so well to the challenge.<br />
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Big thanks also to George, who was always there for us when we needed him, lunches, boot repairs, taxi horsebox, and putting on boots, always with good humour, we couldn't have done it without him.<br />
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It took me ages to figure out how to put all the maps together, and I'm not sure it was worth the effort but here it is ! Everytrail has also not added up the distances correctly, probably because we retraced our steps, but we really did do over 500k!!<br />
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<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1622611">Le Big Trek Total at EveryTrail</a><br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="300" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.everytrail.com/iframe2.php?trip_id=1622611&width=400&height=300" width="400"></iframe>Martinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14496995504975297110noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-29425230736116901442012-05-12T19:28:00.000+01:002012-05-12T22:11:36.457+01:00It's a Dog's Life<div class="MsoNormal">
Poor Cinnamon and Cookie have had a raw deal. While the LSH was still with us on Le
Big Trek, they spent their days pretending to be his secretaries, while in reality
they were asleep in the car the whole time.<br />
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They were given occasional toilet and water breaks, but
their days were pretty boring really. When the LSH left, their life became even more boring. In order to protect innocent B&B rooms, we had to leave them locked in the car while we were riding. We were incredibly lucky to end up in Camping du Lac at this stage, as Moira and Andrew let them out regularly, made sure they had water and moved the car when necessary, so they stayed in the shade the whole time.</div>
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Despite all of this confinement, they've both become much more sociable. They've had plenty of time in cafes, restaurants and dining halls with us in the evenings, meeting lots of new people and plenty of other dogs too. Cinnamon in
particular has gone from being quite a shy, timid little dog to being a brazen
and artful mendicant, begging shamelessly from anyone within range and making
friends wherever she goes.<br />
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These quad-bikers at the Chateau de St Agnan were
particularly taken with her… the big burly guy on the left was looking for
baissus (kissies) from her at breakfast the next morning!</div>
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She has learned to communicate with fish<br />
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And read maps.<br />
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She loves the idea of swimming, but not the reality, so she’s
really good at paddling and savagely killing any pieces of vegetation she finds
near the waters edge.<br />
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<br />
She has
taught Cookie how to paddle too, although Cookie is not absolutely convinced it’s a
great idea.<br />
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She has also taught Cookie how to make sure that Every Single
Hole and Crevice gets investigated properly…. You never know, there might be a
mouse or a rat hiding in one of them!<br />
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Together, they saw off the threat of the deadly Root
Ball.<br />
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They bit and gnawed<br />
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and dug and shook<br />
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until that evil Root Ball was no more.<br />
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Since Monday, we’ve been able to spend much more time with
them, so they’ve had a couple of nice walks each day. Even when we were in Dijon, which is a big city, we were
right beside a park, so they got to experience the life of town doggies,
trotting through the park with lots of people and children around, and visiting the little Petting Zoo at the far end.</div>
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After a long drive, which included a visit to the Normandy beaches, we were on the ferry, and the dogs were confined to the
kennels. Back in December, they were not happy at all, and barked and yipped every time they heard us coming to visit them. Toiletting was also an issue, Cinnamon refused point blank to pee while on the boat and Cookie held on grimly for about twelve hours, before eventually giving in.</div>
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They accepted it much
better second time around, and have both gotten the idea of using the sand box - what a relief!<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFUX-5m01Y2SGRkXjaZPz-nr5ZpLFHZOReJOW_Vgn5ndiKfQWM-nRgmvYF4W-NAQnHemrxNKGaQGaa8E5qwmb4Sp0Y6z5Atfnj0eyf3p1n3NrXmuPeQSAgmspDqk1nOWi1auzr99FQV6SH/s1600/DSCN1585.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFUX-5m01Y2SGRkXjaZPz-nr5ZpLFHZOReJOW_Vgn5ndiKfQWM-nRgmvYF4W-NAQnHemrxNKGaQGaa8E5qwmb4Sp0Y6z5Atfnj0eyf3p1n3NrXmuPeQSAgmspDqk1nOWi1auzr99FQV6SH/s200/DSCN1585.jpg" width="150" /></a><br />
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Anyone remember the <a href="http://thewanderlywagons.blogspot.com/2011/12/little-old-ladies.html" target="_blank">Little Old Ladies</a> post? Well, Jeepy, being a Toyota Landcruiser (remember that Top Gear show?) is still going strong and has done us proud. Molly, my very elderly Bearded Collie, is just about hanging in there, having been cared for very well by Granny while we were away. <br />
<br />
She's very wobbly and it looks like she's slowly heading for liver failure, but we're so very grateful for the opportunity to be with her for her final days/weeks/months.<br />
<br />
Finally, this is what met us when we arrived in my house on Friday evening! Thanks, Daughters, and the LSH for putting them up to it, and thanks Friends for being at the surprise party to welcome us home! Unfortunately, the biggest surprise was that we were an hour early.... sorry folks, blame Irish Ferries!<br />
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<span id="goog_847777056"></span><span id="goog_847777057"></span>Martinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14496995504975297110noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-36413267773012078622012-05-08T22:23:00.000+01:002012-05-08T22:25:35.830+01:00Homeward Bound<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Today was the big day, the horses didn't realise of course, they were just enjoying having the morning off, Flurry in particular was full of high spirits when I went up to feed them, cantering around and rearing, Gigi just looked at him wisely, and tucked into the extra treat of a pile of hay as well as the usual horse nuts for breakfast. We packed up, walked the dogs, they needed some quality time, having been short changed since George left, with us piling on the kilometres every day. Martine checked the pressure in all the tyres, then it was time to catch the horses and load them up. Our transporter had said they should have the truck in Dijon around 5 or 6pm.<br />
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<br />
They were both easy to catch, probably expecting to be boxed somewhere to start yet another hack!<br />
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The journey to Dijon went smoothly, and we arrived a bit before 2pm. So I went looking for someone to tell us where to put the horses, and met with a French attitude we hadn't seen in Provence. Ce n'est pas l'heure (it's not the time), the man in the room marked accueil (welcome) said! But he relented and showed me where to find the patron.<br />
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He showed us to the stables and said he would be back shortly to give us hay. So our darlings were installed and happy, lots of hay and no work, how bad! We had noticed flies on them in Saint Agnan, and had at last discovered what they were, Hippobosca equina or the Louse fly. They are blood suckers, but not a danger. So we spent a happy(?) hour picking them off and squashing them, yuck!<br />
We phoned Mullins to let them know the horses were at the pick up point, and they said the truck driver would call us about 30 minutes before they got to the yard. <br />
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The hotel we were staying in has a nice looking restaurant so we booked a table for 7:30 and looked forward to a nice relaxing evening meal. But by 7pm there was still now word from the transporter, so we phoned again, we'll call you back was the response. By now it was nearly 7:30 so we decided to risk having dinner, but we would make it a quick one. At 7:40 Mullins phoned to say the lorry wouldn't arrive 'till around 9pm. We had made the right choice to eat anyway, but not the relaxed meal we had been expecting as we had both stressed out over the whole delay, wondering what the problem was, would the horses be collected tonight etc etc.<br />
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Dinner over we headed back to the yard, put Gigi's travel boots on and finally in rolled the truck. It all seemed unreal, we had waited and planned for this trip for so long, and now it was finally over.<br />
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We both know the horses are in the hands of the experts, but so hard to say goodbye to our constant companions of the last month.<br />
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It was dark by now, but you can just see the truck. The same one that had picked them up, way back in December.<br />
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Bye guys we'll see you in Cork on Friday evening, thanks for being such great horses and making the whole trek possible.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Please support our cause, Irish Guide Dogs program for Assistance dogs for families of children with Autism <a href="http://www.mycharity.ie/event/martine_greenlees_event">http://www.mycharity.ie/event/martine_greenlees_event</a></span>Annehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11311927852717548334noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-14215832154585957912012-05-07T20:10:00.000+01:002012-05-07T20:11:12.493+01:00Day 23 - The Final Frontier<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
We were on 487.7km, with 12.3 to go to make the 500km, but Everytrail on the smartphone has a nice(?) way of changing its mind about the distance we've covered - we've lost half a k here and there once it's actually uploaded - so we wanted to do at least 13km today to be sure of crossing the 500 marker. It's 8.7 around the lake, so I added on an extra bit through the woods which looked like it would work out at between 13 and 14k.</div>
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We posed for photos in our "IGDB Volunteer" Hi-Vis vests before we left, taken by one of the French cyclists who are staying in the gite next door. Front view... </div>
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and back view....<br />
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but it's still hard to make out the writing!<br />
Today's weather was the best we've seen in the Morvan, the sun shone a bit, and there was no threat of rain. The fishermen were out in force on the lake - maybe they are celebrating their new President?<br />
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We were all tired, both us and the horses, so we took it easy for most of the hack. We did ask them to canter up a lovely long stretch of grass verge, and they were happy to oblige, and just as happy to pull up and settle into "one foot in front of the other" mode again.<br />
Once we came out of the woods and back beside the lake again, they suddenly realised that this was a SHORT hack and the speed of the walk became noticeably brisker! But the funniest thing is that we are now calling a two and a half hour hack SHORT - a few weeks ago we considered anything over two hours to be quite long!<br />
We watched the distance build up on Everytrail, and as we passed the 500km mark we cheered, punched air and shook hands. There was no-one there to witness it but us and the horses, and in the great scheme of things it's not a big event, but it means a lot to us. <br />
We've pushed ourselves as far as we could go - we have no doubt that the horses could have done more, but we're both at the end of our resources, with sore backs, bums and joints. In addition to the physical fatigue, I found the responsibility of navigating for three and a half weeks, through unknown and sometimes difficult country, very wearing mentally. I feel like I've run a marathon, and I suppose in our own way, we both have.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJo04VLE60a9fWXzNxn_C466fgIdFPDtAAH5ukAuXhhDZ-KWswoR6xoA23CNMgiSpRBTQ7MA7Res1E3WNPXH2l7XDjd1GM_C2gfeH6RYB7KlJ0N5UNRfa-DNIV-l8rfCtHWRS5ta4iE31o/s1600/DSCN1515.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJo04VLE60a9fWXzNxn_C466fgIdFPDtAAH5ukAuXhhDZ-KWswoR6xoA23CNMgiSpRBTQ7MA7Res1E3WNPXH2l7XDjd1GM_C2gfeH6RYB7KlJ0N5UNRfa-DNIV-l8rfCtHWRS5ta4iE31o/s640/DSCN1515.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The very last French "Through the Ears" shot</td></tr>
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Taking stock of things, we've all come through pretty well. <br />
The emergency veterinary kit has travelled over 500km in my saddle-bags and was only ever needed once, when Gigi had a mystery cut on her fetlock. <br />
The horses are slimmer, but fitter. Flurry no longer looks quite so cobby, he looks like a trim little horse! You can <i>just</i> see Gigi's ribs, despite the feed Anne has been shovelling into her twice a day, but she started the Trek a little bit thinner than we would have liked. Both horses have changed shape noticeably, they have muscled up tremendously in their hindquarters and in their shoulders. Their saddles are not fitting as well as they used to, but despite this we've had no lumps or sores under the saddle or on the girth-line. Gigi has some new white hairs under her saddle and Flurry's hair is a bit worn where one of his numnahs rubbed it a bit, but otherwise they are great.<br />
And their feet? They're definitely in need of a trim at this stage, they haven't seen hard ground in four weeks. The Renegade boots have done a great job of protecting them, and there is no way we could have accomplished this without them. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD8w654Mf0XQDIw3_dKPSaVkqnqDH23UJU1snG8t7hWZAyQO-qE9mcLwv9oZ2Knsc9lZnwZM4Ak6RObHgRDQJxmkgyZjv6FHQ8PmjoRwsY1UrCYYBgjgtI-uRosSyh9b_t0n0uWZDK3glA/s1600/DSCN1517.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD8w654Mf0XQDIw3_dKPSaVkqnqDH23UJU1snG8t7hWZAyQO-qE9mcLwv9oZ2Knsc9lZnwZM4Ak6RObHgRDQJxmkgyZjv6FHQ8PmjoRwsY1UrCYYBgjgtI-uRosSyh9b_t0n0uWZDK3glA/s640/DSCN1517.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Well-used Renegades!</td></tr>
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Gigi wore through the toe on three of her boots, and Flurry wore through on one. The tread pattern on all boots has been worn almost flat, and we could feel this for the last week - both horses were slipping more than usual. I don't think we could have done the really rocky bits in between Vaucluse and the Drôme without them, as metal shoes would not have given any sort of grip on the pure rock surfaces we encountered.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Holey Renegades, Batman!</td></tr>
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Flurry and Gigi will leave tomorrow and will have a few weeks break when they get home. Once we've seen them safely onto the transporter's lorry, we will breathe a sigh a relief. We then have a day and a half to sort out the dogs' vet visit - they need to be wormed before they will be allowed into Ireland - and travel to Cherbourg for our ferry. It's hard to believe we've done it. We had a lot of things go against us - the broken wrist being the most significant, but the LSH's early return was also a major issue. Neither of us wanted to finish Le Big Trek doing circles, but that's what we had to do to cover the last 100km - we hope our sponsors understand!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Flurry and Gigi, in front of the Chateau, blissfully unaware that it's all over</td></tr>
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Twenty-five years ago, on this day, I completed another feat of endurance - 17.5 hours of labour! Happy Birthday to my wonderful daughter Aideen, at 25 we will have to finally admit you are grown up! Sorry I'm not there today, but I'll see you in a few days!<br />
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We are doing Le Big Trek to raise funds for Assistance dogs for families of children with autism. If you like our blog please take the time to donate at <a href="http://www.mycharity.ie/event/martine_greenlees_event">http://www.mycharity.ie/event/martine_greenlees_event</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1565370">Around the lake Again at EveryTrail</a><br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="300" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.everytrail.com/iframe2.php?trip_id=1565370&width=400&height=300" width="400"></iframe>Martinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14496995504975297110noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-7862289956473078942012-05-06T22:02:00.002+01:002012-05-06T22:02:35.843+01:00Day 22 - to the Abbey againThe day got off to a slower start than we had intended, we have moved into Saulieu for a couple of days, as the lovely chateau by the lake was full up for the weekend; fortunately we had been able to leave the horses there so I had to get up earlier to feed the them. It was just starting to rain as I left, but as usual the horses were pleased to see me. But Flurry was in for a shock, he's been misbehaving again, spooking at things that wouldn't normally worry him, so his rations have been reduced to one feed in the evening, he was not impressed! When I got back to the hotel Martine was still in her pyjamas, she had been researching the flies that are sticking under the horses' tails and time had got away from her. So after an uninspired breakfast, we went back to the horses and got tacked up in the rain. Martine decided not to bring her camera, so I'm afraid the photos are not up to the usual standard. Especially as I think there was a bit of Carambar stuck to the lens.<br />
We finally decided Gigi's front left boot had seen better days, and so I put our spare on her, and off we went!<br />
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It was a very grey morning, even the dandelions had decided not to bother opening up.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_WLXXiiDvVoTSb-VRvBus-7lLREGxYxxfMimiyNoj9wfN3u7CL238AhneFdYSx_PGDDYldaxrEA9WKXqodYJzrH8reJUgDvHBE5pTKf_Za1oR2ZfOUYHgUjPPBAorgDMcZshhL5i0AUA/s1600/2012-05-06+11.18.06.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_WLXXiiDvVoTSb-VRvBus-7lLREGxYxxfMimiyNoj9wfN3u7CL238AhneFdYSx_PGDDYldaxrEA9WKXqodYJzrH8reJUgDvHBE5pTKf_Za1oR2ZfOUYHgUjPPBAorgDMcZshhL5i0AUA/s320/2012-05-06+11.18.06.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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But then the sun came out and things looked a lot better.<br />
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Then we came upon this sign telling people not to light fires here.......<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFRwxPM88QzQgkrVt-hrXO4_-iiEO7bN-QDhqIa8vjO54vyAAfSpcJLrsfB25qu-qkNNuAbg3qGRiYpdXZr_aKaIuCaR6z7irc7t4mum5JNmqX5bVAhtRtv66GzRn6hJ20vPkHY9xNC8o/s1600/2012-05-06+11.25.30.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFRwxPM88QzQgkrVt-hrXO4_-iiEO7bN-QDhqIa8vjO54vyAAfSpcJLrsfB25qu-qkNNuAbg3qGRiYpdXZr_aKaIuCaR6z7irc7t4mum5JNmqX5bVAhtRtv66GzRn6hJ20vPkHY9xNC8o/s320/2012-05-06+11.25.30.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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And maybe you can see the smoke in the distance, but that was some fishermen lighting a log fire to cook their catch. Ah the French, laws are to be interpreted not necessarily followed !<br />
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Finally we arrived at the Abbey we had visited before, L'Abbaye de Pierre qui Vire, but from the other direction.<br />
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After leaving the Abbey we came on a field with 3 young flighty ponies, Gigi was very interested in them, I think she must be coming into season, and when they started to canter towards us, Gigi decided to turn around and join them, well I quickly whipped her back in the right direction, but she decided to keep cantering anyway. Flurry, who was in front, maybe thought, if Gigi is scared, so should I be, and took off at a canter as well. After a bit of a scurry we got them both under control... a bit of excitement is good...right?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcEF8Q5m-7W_EQq5MhwYmcE0iaTg3i4jd-xBKFSwkEUgm22dNtZHLNFwecV8TDoJuWyY6LmoR8fb9xCUkASTR_032VgdPSUZGlRWPWuYH-uZ05wc038oaEZNYXRl-BQcYyD3huCGUwNOU/s1600/2012-05-06+12.10.06.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcEF8Q5m-7W_EQq5MhwYmcE0iaTg3i4jd-xBKFSwkEUgm22dNtZHLNFwecV8TDoJuWyY6LmoR8fb9xCUkASTR_032VgdPSUZGlRWPWuYH-uZ05wc038oaEZNYXRl-BQcYyD3huCGUwNOU/s320/2012-05-06+12.10.06.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Part of our journey was on the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">Saint-Jacques de Compostelle</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"> (</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Santiago de Compostela in Spanish) which is marked by this little sunshine sign</span></span></span><br />
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After the Abbey we trotted through some fairly soggy grass, and Flurry managed to trash one of his front boots, so Martine took the other one off, and we would see if we could fix it later.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgDn4rDIcDXQo5vX69kIFaBQWFL3TQvFzg1yoo1f42tXlqUo6x1LwPNWkjn6xDtTrX1aj_MOKuDj_ZV1P6ZzMEvKgSbLnC9m3Sxs4dyr2ImNGOUlm2QIy1dmQwV1tUdCyKtsUrOUo-7qg/s1600/2012-05-06+17.29.29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgDn4rDIcDXQo5vX69kIFaBQWFL3TQvFzg1yoo1f42tXlqUo6x1LwPNWkjn6xDtTrX1aj_MOKuDj_ZV1P6ZzMEvKgSbLnC9m3Sxs4dyr2ImNGOUlm2QIy1dmQwV1tUdCyKtsUrOUo-7qg/s320/2012-05-06+17.29.29.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Lunchtime and we had covered around 20k! The horses were turned out same as yesterday and Martine set about fixing Flurry's boot, but managed to drop one of the small adjusting screws in the process, but we had Gigi's abandoned boot from this morning, which now turned into a source for spares!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6gHRtt5H2CE8wD3AG9Qu2fB2rFy5c5Zn1SipGTsSswwsT19_gWsO4h0i-W74gcS3ioFAXSo5q9qPcdv1RZ2VW-_P-XLilen7DHRrDWxjk6rsJuSz2-94CnMt0mml1uBz5lMEVFgzzzik/s1600/2012-05-06+17.29.33.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6gHRtt5H2CE8wD3AG9Qu2fB2rFy5c5Zn1SipGTsSswwsT19_gWsO4h0i-W74gcS3ioFAXSo5q9qPcdv1RZ2VW-_P-XLilen7DHRrDWxjk6rsJuSz2-94CnMt0mml1uBz5lMEVFgzzzik/s320/2012-05-06+17.29.33.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The afternoon started off really wet, we had a target of just 10k, to give us a manageable hack tomorrow to reach our 50k and most of it was done in the pouring rain, the only highlight was two small deer, who took off as soon as they saw us.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiptFXGuo3SSmlrzALRsJdLtaQbjGqXD2Pem5R_mdC-5seQq8D8ywotE-bX7jBw3F0rhXEKlcXtvjWtm2qXCQak5IIrIzNpPVY0KZ6KL0fFVuIpT6o-VqiL4Qy5h1V3tqurtK_PbmB-3Ag/s1600/2012-05-06+17.29.42.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiptFXGuo3SSmlrzALRsJdLtaQbjGqXD2Pem5R_mdC-5seQq8D8ywotE-bX7jBw3F0rhXEKlcXtvjWtm2qXCQak5IIrIzNpPVY0KZ6KL0fFVuIpT6o-VqiL4Qy5h1V3tqurtK_PbmB-3Ag/s320/2012-05-06+17.29.42.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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So we just plodded on, the sun came out and we reached our target for today.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqNMwhLtZvG8p5BG1VEDrcVIwZ90LmbmbeTmpGUnEYq2SnV9YNBHrGkyUZzM3vISHhjO4NMebyJrADlbGwOcKNkTYkOuvhoKAHClC2_16NJrhV5GSjjLgUQ7VP4mQ8DtkzlOsxUosk_Ms/s1600/2012-05-06+18.08.46.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqNMwhLtZvG8p5BG1VEDrcVIwZ90LmbmbeTmpGUnEYq2SnV9YNBHrGkyUZzM3vISHhjO4NMebyJrADlbGwOcKNkTYkOuvhoKAHClC2_16NJrhV5GSjjLgUQ7VP4mQ8DtkzlOsxUosk_Ms/s320/2012-05-06+18.08.46.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1563443">To the abbey again at EveryTrail</a><br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="300" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.everytrail.com/iframe2.php?trip_id=1563443&width=400&height=300" width="400"></iframe>EveryTrail - Find <a href="http://www.everytrail.com/best/hiking-california">trail maps for California</a> and beyondAnnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11311927852717548334noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-12213482513156527302012-05-05T22:08:00.002+01:002012-05-06T05:59:07.511+01:00Day 21 - Two Loops near St Agnan<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Day 21, 428km covered and it's beginning to like we might just do it, so I've shaken the dust off my South Munster Dressage sweatshirt and donned it for the day! Here I am proudly flying the SMD flag in the middle of France :</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQXc_dOWLSuOYyqYVPraklrmVsoCinNWu0qaqshm4XH5MiX2_txux3-tZr1ESB0csKFM58SNswttZOYA5l1nONk9IxnJvvIX3-Wi-5_r67oP20yaBJsz5fxXKwX6bhufV-x5HZuQd3yP6q/s1600/DSCN1478.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="546" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQXc_dOWLSuOYyqYVPraklrmVsoCinNWu0qaqshm4XH5MiX2_txux3-tZr1ESB0csKFM58SNswttZOYA5l1nONk9IxnJvvIX3-Wi-5_r67oP20yaBJsz5fxXKwX6bhufV-x5HZuQd3yP6q/s640/DSCN1478.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Although, seriously, I don't know that I'll ever be able to show my face in the Dressage Ireland world again. I now ride like a cowboy - I slouch in the saddle and ride at the buckle end of the reins from one end of the day to the other. My "schooling whip" is whatever I can rip off a tree when Flurry is beginning to annoy me. Flurry has learned to forage as he goes - a necessity when you're travelling for 6 to 8 hours a day, but it will be very much frowned upon if he stops to slurp out of a puddle at Maryville or munch on the floral decorations at Marlton. Still, we'll be home in a week, he'll have a good break and maybe he'll forget all of these new "skills" he has learned.</div>
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Meanwhile, here we are in the Morvan, some serious trekking behind us and a couple of intensive days ahead of us. The strain is starting to show now, particularly with Anne. She is at the end of her resources and is hanging grimly on. It's interesting, because at the start of the trek, I was the one who was struggling - my back and ankles were killing me and I was running on at least four Ibuprofen a day. I'm now fitter, haven't taken a pain-killer for a couple of weeks now, but the wear and tear has accumulated on Anne, one of her knees is playing up, and by the time we've eaten dinner each day, she just wants to fall into bed and sleep.</div>
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Today we tried a new approach, aiming to give ourselves a better rest period in the middle of the day. Normally we eat our sandwiches, holding the horses while they graze, which is not very restful for us humans as we end up juggling food, drink and lead-ropes. Today the plan was to do a loop of about 17km in the morning, returning to St Agnan where we would put the horses in the barn with some hay, leaving us free to relax, enjoy our lunch and get a proper break.</div>
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First of all, though we had to get the horses ready, and started going through the usual drill, grooming, putting on Renegade boots and tacking up. As I was passing behind Flurry, something under his tail caught my eye - was that the remnants of droppings lining his "crack"? I looked closer - EWWWWW! It was a whole load of flat little flies, clustered together, gathered under his tail and dock area. We scraped them off, and they fell/flew to the ground, but one by one they flew back up onto his body again. They are almost tick-like in appearance and in the way they flatten themselves against the skin and hold on to the hair. Here's a close-up of one - can any French residents tell me what they are?</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijb4fzlQQrqregCCjMrObabK4Zzlp5ZwTquyhTkarbw6N8br0rzlsmZq1-addp4nhlajwrJzQebpIDDwDD9pZl2Lur5cz3rWB2l0zxprd-kxR_tYVGksr2F1YOpk0uAcjs2-2Xdd9Sod0q/s1600/DSCN1474.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijb4fzlQQrqregCCjMrObabK4Zzlp5ZwTquyhTkarbw6N8br0rzlsmZq1-addp4nhlajwrJzQebpIDDwDD9pZl2Lur5cz3rWB2l0zxprd-kxR_tYVGksr2F1YOpk0uAcjs2-2Xdd9Sod0q/s640/DSCN1474.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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I assume they are not good and are busy laying eggs around his bum area. Will a good sponging every day be enough to get rid of any eggs they lay or do we need to be more aggressive than this? Gigi had some too, but not as many as Flurry.</div>
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We finished tacking up, I put the poor doggies in the car and gave the keys to Moira and Andrew of Camping du Lac - they are really super, they let the dogs out every so often for a wee and a drink of water. We finally got on the road and headed South initially. We were trotting along, nice and easy, I could see a car a short distance ahead and a collie beside it, and I could hear a chainsaw. Next thing C-R-A-A-A-C-K, a tree fell right across the road, about 30 metres in front of us, and the man wielding the chainsaw, oblivious to our presence, got to work cutting it up.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6vEWh9y2emzUNChJdZM96VujJq49b8VR89tQboKbxAEsqlu2LAE5VNa1dRTIgJXVerRC3I-s0nPzOPso8CTgemNURENxVtfUUIPjTx6lal9ND54t_MhlbdbOiTzol-O9cHxqGYqRZus_U/s1600/DSCN1475.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="366" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6vEWh9y2emzUNChJdZM96VujJq49b8VR89tQboKbxAEsqlu2LAE5VNa1dRTIgJXVerRC3I-s0nPzOPso8CTgemNURENxVtfUUIPjTx6lal9ND54t_MhlbdbOiTzol-O9cHxqGYqRZus_U/s640/DSCN1475.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
Eventually he looked up, surprised, and immediately shut down the chainsaw, to allow us pass. We continued on our way, through the usual woods<br />
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and Christmas tree plantations.<br />
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Christmas trees are big business here. Apparently they start chopping them down in October. I don't think I would like a three month old tree in my house. The freshly chopped one we get is pretty pathetic after two weeks, I can't imagine what a three month old tree would look like.<br />
Our route took us to Les Petites Fourches, where we joined one of the many Chemins de St Jacques for a short while. This is the village of St Brisson, just to the south. The church steeple caught my eye - this is one of those village churches that reminds me of parts of New England.<br />
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There were some quaint houses in Les Petites Fourches, this one is just an ordinary house,<br />
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but this one houses the Musée de la Resistance.<br />
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In the grounds to the front of the Museum, we found these guys.<br />
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Flurry, the horse who is a bit wary of cattle, was fascinated, and wanted to go into their field and meet them. Not a good idea, Mr Flurry, those horns look pretty serious to me!<br />
A little further in, the trail was completely blocked. This has to have been done deliberately, but I don't understand why. I was under the impression that the Chemins de St Jacques were almost revered - perhaps I'm wrong?<br />
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We picked our way around the blocked section through a Christmas tree plantation. Even with this delay, we still made fairly good time, and although storm clouds were looming ominously, we got back to St Agnan with only a sprinkle of rain.<br />
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I retrieved the dogs and we settled the horses and ourselves down to lunch. It worked really well, we got a much better quality break because we didn't have to worry about hanging onto horses, and we also took more time with it - deliberately, to try and give ourselves a rest.<br />
Refreshed, we headed off in weak sunshine to do the tour around the Lac de St Agnan. On the first stretch, we met this little old lady :<br />
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Despite her obvious age, she had a bright, alert eye and way very interested in our guys.<br />
It's a lovely one and a half hour ride around the lake, but we are so focussed on our goal that we didn't really take the time to enjoy it. We were aware of the storm clouds massing overhead once more, but yet again, they held off until we had finished.<br />
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Someone up there is watching out for us!<br />
We've somehow managed to cover the bones of 60km in two days, giving us a total of 456.9. If we can do another good day tomorrow, that will leave us with less than 20km to do on Monday. Fingers crossed, we're nearly there!<br />
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We are doing Le Big Trek to raise funds for Assistance dogs for families of children with autism. If you like our blog please take the time to donate at <a href="http://www.mycharity.ie/event/martine_greenlees_event">http://www.mycharity.ie/event/martine_greenlees_event</a></div>
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Thank you</div>
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<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1561202">Putting up the kms Agnan to at EveryTrail</a><br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="300" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.everytrail.com/iframe2.php?trip_id=1561202&width=400&height=300" width="400"></iframe>Martinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14496995504975297110noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-42253738762141678752012-05-04T19:34:00.001+01:002012-05-04T19:34:17.624+01:00Day 20 - A tour around Le Lac Saint-AgnanToday we are BFHless (Best Friend's Husband) so we planned a trip around the lake which is at the bottom of the horses field. The forecast was for thunder storms with hail, but in the evening, so we rolled once more<br />
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This sweet little chapel is famous locally as it was used by the maquis or resistance during the second world war, we have been frequently reminded during our stay here what it must have been like to live in an occupied country.<br />
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Then around the corner we came across this house whose roof was on fire, there were several fire/rescue vehicles there, fortunately our path took us the other way, up to a T-junction, we could all see this cyclist coming except Flurry, who is the most vertically challenged, when we're mounted! So of course he did an enormous start when the bike appeared !</div>
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The flowers in the field are dandelions, which the horses adore.</div>
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The paths were lovely, we had very few difficult passages.</div>
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We had decided to take a short detour up to an abbey, it turned out to be huge. It's called L'abbaye de la Pierre qui Vire.<br />
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With a dolmen, not like any we're used to seeing at home. Supposedly, legend has it, at midday with the sun shining on it, the stones appear to turn three times.<br />
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We stopped in the car park to let the horses have a quick pick, and a light lunch for ourselves.<br />
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And then explored a bit more<br />
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The visitors' centre...we didn't go in here<br />
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And a massive great modern extension to the abbey. We didn't go in here either<br />
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By this time thunder had started to roll in the distance, but we went on past yet more water, this to the left of us</div>
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And this to the right of us, until we arrived at bridge which looked just to rickety to support the horses , so we had to retrace our steps to get to the junction for the other side of the lake and home.<br />
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I'm a fruit addict and I chomp may through various varieties along the way, but pears are Gigi's favourites, here she is getting the core !<br />
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It wasn't long before "our" lake came in to view<br />
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And soon we were home, and the horses turned out for the evening, they are just loving it here. And the hail/rain had held off.<br />
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But we had to go into Saulieu for dog food, and the place was white with hail stones, we had been lucky yet again.<br />
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Because we have been able to stick to mainly grassy or sandy tracks, the renegade boots are holding up , only 3 days to go, the horses are being picked up on Tuesday, will we make the 500km ?????? We will do our very best !<br />
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We are doing this trek for Irish Guide Dogs program for dogs for families of children with autism, if you like our blog please contribute at<br />
<a href="http://www.mycharity.ie/event/martine_greenlees_event">http://www.mycharity.ie/event/martine_greenlees_event</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1559521">Tour Of lac St Agnan at EveryTrail</a><br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="300" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.everytrail.com/iframe2.php?trip_id=1559521&width=400&height=300" width="400"></iframe>EveryTrail - Find <a href="http://www.everytrail.com/best/hiking-california">hiking trails in California</a> and beyondAnnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11311927852717548334noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-32298540283978522962012-05-03T19:53:00.001+01:002020-05-04T07:58:44.001+01:00Day 19 - St Agnan to Saulieu<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Today was our last day with the LSH, so it was our last chance to keep trekking Northwards and get collected at the end of the day. From now on, we will have to do loops, either starting and finishing at St Agnan, or trailering the horses somewhere and doing a circuit which brings us back to the trailer.</div>
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To make full use of the LSH on his last day, we got him to fit all of our Renegade boots - LUXURY! Then we headed off towards Saulieu, with the intention of keeping going as long as we can. Thankfully it was dry (a nice change after yesterday), and even sunny at times. The trail led directly from the Chateau through some woods. It was wide, level and sandy, so after about fifteen minutes walking, we started trotting and alternated trotting, cantering and walking for as long as we had a good surface underneath us. After all the rocky trails we've seen this trip, it was heavenly not to worry about where the horses were putting their feet. Flurry in particular was enjoying the good ground, and was in "brisk" mode - until we came to this lot :</div>
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We know there is a local man who has some Connemara ponies, I can only assume that this is them - all greys and duns<br />
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This little one really caught my eye, she reminds me of my eldest daughter's pony Rocky...long, long ago!<br />
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It seems to be horse country here, we met this pair a little further on,<br />
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and even further on, we met two gorgeous chestnut draught types, with flaxen manes. They were not stocky enough to be Comtois horses, but they were too big to be Haflingers. They were very interested in us, and decided that they wanted to come trekking too and started pushing at the barbed wire fence between us! At this point, I abandoned attempts to take a photo and got out of there as fast as possible - we didn't want two pretty chestnuts trotting through the main street of Saulieu with us!<br />
With the Connemara ponies and all the greenery around us, I couldn't help thinking "We could be in Ireland" (on a good day!)<br />
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especially when I saw this tumbledown stone wall :<br />
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This is really the lake district of France - there are loads of artificial reservoirs all over the place. Everything is really full at the moment, and all of the reservoirs have an overflow which are running at full spate right now.<br />
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They are due to open the flood gates on many of the reservoirs this weekend, and in a wonderfully logical marriage of local government and tourism, the local water management people have published this date in advance, so that white water rafters can plan on coming to the region for the weekend and enjoy the outcome! So simple, so logical... but would it happen anywhere else?<br />
I was caught by the beauty of this still lake, reflecting everything around it.<br />
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We were meeting the LSH for lunch shortly after this point - we ended up lunching in the driveway of this very posh house,<br />
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while the horses trimmed the grass verges for them!<br />
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The first half of our day had been very pleasant, and we were in good spirits, if a little full, as we set off after lunch. This was the first section of our trail :<br />
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Thick, gloopy, black bog-muck, with deep wheel ruts. We made our way through the trees rather than risk losing a boot in the muck, and progress was very slow.<br />
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We eventually got off the black-muck trail, and found ourselves faced with swimming-pool-sized puddles once again. We nearly lost Gigi in one of these yesterday - the danger is that you can't see the bottom and you risk falling in a hole or stumbling over a rock. So once again, we had to detour repeatedly through the trees.<br />
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At last, we found ourselves out of the woods and on a surfaced road - for about two minutes, whereupon we were once again directed back into the woods again, to face more black gloop, puddles and a new problem - loads of fallen trees which were blocking the trail.<br />
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This all slowed us down hugely, and after making really good time earlier in the morning, it took us about two hours to cover the remaining 7km into Saulieu. Once in Saulieu, we followed the horse balisage, until suddenly it disappeared completely just as we reached the busy main road. I extracted the reading glasses from my saddle-bags (no, I'm not getting old, really!), peered at the maps I had photographed on my iPhone and figured out a way through the town which should (I hoped) bring us to the horse trail on the other side of town. On the way, we were distracted by this lovely horse statue, and decided that we wanted a photo of our two horses beside him. I was not prepared for their reaction - I thought that seeing as it did not smell like a horse, they wouldn't be interested - I was wrong!<br />
Gigi stopped in her tracks, you could see her think, Hey! It's a horse! and then she wanted to figure out if it was a boy horse or a girl horse and she was sniffing around his tail area to try to work it out. Flurry meanwhile was snoozing beside me, totally uninterested, so when Gigi had relaxed again, we moved him closer to the statue for the photo.<br />
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His head went up, his ears went forward, once again you could almost hear "Hey! It's a horse!" and he went straight for the head to try to make friends with his new buddy.<br />
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I was so pleased to capture these photos, they made our day!<br />
There were two things I wanted to do today, one was to ride along the ancient Roman way which runs North East from Saulieu<br />
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TICK!<br />
and the other was to cross the TGV (high speed train) tracks<br />
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TICK!<br />
A few trains passed as we approached. To the best of our knowledge, neither horse has ever seen a train before, but they could not have been less interested. Even so, we played it safe and went through the tunnel in between trains, and fairly briskly.<br />
We met up with the LSH shortly afterwards and returned to our temporary home at Camping du Lac.<br />
I'm off to Dijon to see the LSH safely on his train to start his journey home tomorrow. Here's today's Everytrail map. We covered 29.1km in six hours, at least one third of it was in pretty lousy trail conditions, but we've broken the 400km mark - WOOHOO!<br />
<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1558429">Saulieu at EveryTrail</a><br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="300" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.everytrail.com/iframe2.php?trip_id=1558429&width=400&height=300" width="400"></iframe>Martinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14496995504975297110noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-19826880882974450272012-05-02T20:54:00.002+01:002020-05-03T07:39:47.550+01:00Day 18 Saint-AgnanWednesday dawned wet and grey, the horses were happy enough though, enthusiastic as ever about their feed ! On the way back from feeding the horses I remembered to get some fruit and biscuits for lunch, we also had a doggy bag of cold steak from last night's dinner, so we would be fine. We had devised a crafty new way of carrying the maps, in the advent of bad weather, wrapped up in document sleeves, sealed with duct tape. (FYI This worked really well)<br />
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We said goodbye to our hotel, which had improved slightly, but not enough to bring us back, loaded the horses around midday and boxed to Brassy to start todays trek, and it was still raining. We donned all our wet gear, the first time I had worn my trousers, and when I mounted I couldn't actually sit in the saddle as they had slipped down a bit and were restricting my leg movments. Getting off again was even trickier, but a bit of readjustment and we were off !<br />
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And the rain continued to fall so there are very few pictures of today's trek.<br />
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We wound our merry way through forest after forest, rocks and roots , and puddles that were more like lakes, apparently they weren't even good for drinking, they were very peaty! Gigi nearly disappeared into one of them, dislodging one of her hind boots, thankfully it stayed with her though, I would not have fancied fishing for it in the puddle/lake!<br />
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The sheep here are larger than any we've seen so far , must be the surfeit of water. We arrived near Dun les Places, we had agreed that we would review our trip here as the weather was still bad, but the wet gear was holding up, the horses were happy so on we went, we took a detour around the village and kept going.<br />
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We passed a field with a beautiful Ardennes plus companion, the Ardennes was very interested in our guys, but they just kept on going forward ! Then we spotted a deer in a field but he was gone before the horses even knew he was there.<br />
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We were both beginning to feel wet and cold when the. Chateau d'Agneau hove into view, oh horse and human heaven, big grass field,<br />
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cup of tea, big hot bath, oh yes !<br />
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Then dinner, soup and the last photo....<br />
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Salmon with potatoes !<br />
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Followed by a lovely cheese plate,and a choice of desserts, and I hate to tell you this guys but our hosts are from the north of England, and they have got it just right!<br />
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<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1557020">Saint Agnan at EveryTrail</a><br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="300" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="https://www.everytrail.com/iframe2.php?trip_id=1557020&width=400&height=300" width="400"></iframe>EveryTrail - Find <a href="http://www.everytrail.com/best/hiking-california">trail maps for California</a> and beyondAnnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11311927852717548334noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-35175155020717978612012-05-02T07:40:00.001+01:002012-05-02T07:40:18.146+01:00Day 17 - Chateau Chinon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
After the warm welcomes we received everywhere we went in the South, we are finding the people of the Morvan area very cold. The first place we stayed, La Grande Verrière, was fine - the staff of the little hotel were great, very friendly and enthusiastic, and the other village residents took a polite interest in our horses - they were in someone's back garden, after all! Chateau Chinon, though, is a bigger town, and we've been greeted with disinterest, verging on rudeness! We're staying in a small and dingy hotel, Le Lion d'Or, in the middle of the town, and the horses are in a large equestrian centre just outside of town. </div>
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We arrived at the equestrian centre late on Monday evening, soaking wet, tired and frustrated after getting lost in the forest. We were greeted with bewilderment at first - the owners were away, and we were met by what seems to be the parents of one of them, who knew nothing about our horses' arrival. Fortunately they were able to get the owners on the phone, who told them where we should put our horses, so all was well.</div>
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We went on to our hotel and got all our gear inside, went up to our rooms, showered and presented ourselves for dinner, which was included in our room rate. The waiter, who is one of the hotel owners, produced a carafe of water and bustled off, to get the menus, we assumed.</div>
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We sat and we waited... and waited... and waited... Attempts to catch the waiter's eye were futile, he was hell-bent on ignoring us. After 45 minutes, we were on the verge of walking out and going to the pizza place next door, when three salads were slapped down on the table in front of us. Anne managed to catch the waiter's attention for long enough to ask how demi-pension worked in the hotel, and he gruffly replied that it's a set menu, the chef decides.</div>
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If there's one thing the LSH dislikes, it's having no choice in what he eats - I think it must hark back to his boarding school days. He sat with a black cloud over his head until the main course arrived, Confit de Canard, and fortunately, tasty enough to dissipate the black cloud!</div>
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Unfortunately, though, the waiter/owner's attitude didn't improve - Anne thinks he just took against us for some reason, perhaps our late arrival? Who knows. We can't wait to move on to our next place, hopefully we will feel a bit more welcome there.</div>
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On Tuesday morning, when we went to get the horses ready, the equestrian centre was a bit busier, there were a few people working at feeding horses, mucking out, etc. They were completely uninterested in us. Apart from answering our questions (where will we tie up the horses and how do we find the start of the trail), nobody spoke to us - no curiosity about the boots, no "Bonne Route" as we left. Whatever about M le Grumpy Waiter, we were surprised that horse-people would be so unfriendly towards other horse people.</div>
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It seems that the closer we are to the big cities, Paris and Dijon, the less friendly people are. Even drivers who pass us on the road treat us differently here. In Provence and especially the Drôme, every driver seemed happy to see us, passers-by wished us Bonne Route and people asked us about the horses' boots. Here, while most of the drivers slow down for the horses ok, there are no cheery smile or big waves, and only one family we passed have asked us about the boots. The cynicism of city living has reached its tentacles out into the countryside, making us feel not exactly unwelcome, but, perhaps un-needed.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trail Information board</td></tr>
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Our Day 17 trek took a different format. The LSH needed to focus on work, so we had to be independent, which meant we either rode a circular loop or we rode out on the trail, turned around and rode back. After getting lost on Day 16 (Anne omitted to mention that we were both a bit scared at one stage!) we opted for the safer second option. The trail markings are different here, too, no little yellow fingerpost signs, but an information board instead. The balisage along the trails is the usual orange paint markings on trees, but they're not very well maintained and not as clear as the markings in the Drôme in particular - they definitely had the best-maintained balisage we've seem.<br />
We started off in forest again, pine forest this time, and wound our way along through the trees. Both horses felt great, they got plenty of good hay the night before and seemed very content in the morning - they were both lying down having a snooze when we arrived. We are all old hands at fording streams now, and Flurry seems to be over his fear of waterfalls as he sploshed through this ford without turning a hair.<br />
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The countryside looked much prettier than the previous day - sunshine always helps. There are blonde cows everywhere, Charolais I think. Mostly the cattle ignore the horses, but we met a couple of herds of bullocks who got very excited. Gigi is used to bullocks, she spends a lot of time grazing on a beef farm at home, but Flurry was a bit anxious about them, and let Gigi go in front each time.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Countryside with distant herd of blonde cows!</td></tr>
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We met this little guy, he had escaped from his field but neither he nor his mother seemed at all concerned. I thought he made a lovely picture, with the bluebells at the side.<br />
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We crossed our first railway... this sign was a giveaway, though...</div>
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It clearly hasn't been used for some time!<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheOw0FpOrBdNU2_D4Gs4yefBWHiWMo_m4cR44B6mUAWp4Pg5YxKwFFPkV304aQqzus1wYubHadytfOpcatkGXBOOKiHtUKYpqJM413th6_gYHqmrtlQ4hIUNnao1qsdBj3SfVMr4Ga2VY7/s1600/DSCN1410.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheOw0FpOrBdNU2_D4Gs4yefBWHiWMo_m4cR44B6mUAWp4Pg5YxKwFFPkV304aQqzus1wYubHadytfOpcatkGXBOOKiHtUKYpqJM413th6_gYHqmrtlQ4hIUNnao1qsdBj3SfVMr4Ga2VY7/s640/DSCN1410.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
We stopped for a very meagre lunch. It was a bank holiday here and all of the shops were closed, so we scraped out the bottom of our saddle bags and found an apple, three biscuits (in bits), four squares of chocolate and half a packet of trail mix. We shared it out and ate overlooking a village, while the horses cropped grass beside us.<br />
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The landscape here is very reminiscent of New England, with rolling hills and neatly maintained woodlands. Some of the village churches are also very similar, with square, painted steeples. I'll try to get a photo of one another day.<br />
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We kept going until 3pm, and covered 13.7km. We were hoping to catch a glimpse of the lake which we knew lay to the North, but unfortunately it was hiding behind a whole lot of trees.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOBStCesbIA5xmJsnsSSzcCVuWcBywNvfUaUEVejjXr0P7n44TYd02hshdt4PRgdT4p7OvQU_xIveK0sgWFWRySjvNjO5aRi-xFv_BOpQevp44tRckfZL1Etpv2KxrrCVZhwvYTL7qUGpl/s1600/DSCN1408.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOBStCesbIA5xmJsnsSSzcCVuWcBywNvfUaUEVejjXr0P7n44TYd02hshdt4PRgdT4p7OvQU_xIveK0sgWFWRySjvNjO5aRi-xFv_BOpQevp44tRckfZL1Etpv2KxrrCVZhwvYTL7qUGpl/s640/DSCN1408.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There's a lake there somewhere, really!</td></tr>
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When we turned around, at first the horses thought we were lost (again) and didn't realise we were "going home." It's a long time since we did an "out-and-back" ride - sometime back in early March I think. After a few km, though, they realised what was going on and speeded up noticeably. They both remembered the route, and knew where the scary bullocks were. There was some sort of communication going on between the horses, as each time we drew near a herd, Flurry would get tense and Gigi would stride purposefully forward and take the lead - you could almost hear her say "Don't worry, Flurry, I know how to handle these guys!"</div>
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We had one more "incident" on the way home. We were descending a hill, Flurry in the lead as usual, when we saw something small and fluffy trotting towards us in the middle of the road. Flurry's ears pricked, his steps slowed and his head went up as he peered at the little bundle of fur, trying to figure out what it was. It exploded in a torrent of barking "YAP!YAP!YAP!YAP!YAP!" at which Flurry visibly relaxed "OH! It's one of THEM!" and marched forward again. Well, the little yorkie didn't know what to do. He was quite convinced the horses should be petrified of him and should run away, and he was sure he was very very brave, but oh, those horses were so big and unafraid! So he trotted along slightly ahead of us, yapping the whole time, tail straight up to show how brave he was.</div>
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Eventually, his nerve failed him, he stopped barking and ran off ahead of us, tail still up as much as to say "Afraid? Me? Never! Um, I just remembered I need to go this way after all!"<br />
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His owners were waiting in a car at the end of the road, I think they live at the top of the hill we had just come down, and it seems that they let the little guy out to have a run up the hill on his own. He let us know what he thought about horses as we passed the car!<br />
Here's the Everytrail map. We covered a total of 27.4km today.<br />
<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1555629">Day 17 chateau chinon at EveryTrail</a><br />
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<br />Martinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14496995504975297110noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-58071286719688783392012-05-01T20:43:00.001+01:002012-05-01T20:43:48.039+01:00Day 16 - From La Grand VerrièreOr:- We're not out of the woods yet<br />
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Anne: The hotel was very much a family run affair, and we and the horses spending a pleasant evening, the horses getting the best grass since they left Ireland. We brought them down to the jeep to tack up as their field was more like a small back garden. Clouds were threatening but so far it was dry.<br />
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We bought some fruit and ham from the wee shop attached to the hotel, and headed off once more in the general direction of Chateau Chinon.<br />
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The track was well marked and nice soft going, which was as well as we had decided to get as much wear out of the old boots as possible.<br />
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This area is far more populated than the Drome and we came upon small village after small village<br />
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With water everywhere<br />
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Flurry went to take a drink out of this stream and then got a fright at the noise it was making<br />
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and curious cattle.<br />
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The rain then started, drizzle at first<br />
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Swelling the already full rivers, this is actually a ford, you can just see the track at the far end, although that was also a bit of a stream!<br />
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Then we came into the forest, lovely tracks, good balisage or markers, and we were making good time on the good ground, a few nice long canters, great ! Past some young trees that looked like Christmas trees.<br />
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But then things started to go wrong, Martine couldn't find any landmarks in the forest that corresponded to the map, and we had not seen an orange marker in a while. We kept going deeper into the forest but still no luck. Eventually she turned on data roaming and google maps, we were way of track, but if we kept going we would eventually come to a road.</div>
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This little guy hitched a ride, not realising we were lost !<br />
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Finally the road came into view, by this time it was raining heavily, we were so glad to see civilisation again, and only earlier we were saying how populated the area was !<br />
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There are 2 maps for today<br />
<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1554158">Day 16 - from la grand verrieres at EveryTrail</a><br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="300" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.everytrail.com/iframe2.php?trip_id=1554158&width=400&height=300" width="400"></iframe>EveryTrail - Find the <a href="http://www.everytrail.com/best/hiking-california">best hikes in California</a> and beyond
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<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1553912">Chateau Chinon at EveryTrail</a><br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="300" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.everytrail.com/iframe2.php?trip_id=1553912&width=400&height=300" width="400"></iframe>EveryTrail - Find the <a href="http://www.everytrail.com/best/hiking-california">best hikes in California</a> and beyondMartinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14496995504975297110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-90977431001506389742012-04-29T22:05:00.000+01:002012-04-29T22:08:15.766+01:00Moving on to MorvanSundays are meant to be our rest day, no riding and no blogging, but we've a bit of catching up to do - there's been various things going on which we haven't included in our daily reports.<br />
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None of us had a restful night last night, with the wind howling around the chalet, rain lashing against the windows and a steady drip, drip, drip from the rain that was blowing through the door. A foretaste of the Irish summer, perhaps? <br />
We had been alerted to the possibility of the150km/hour winds (100mph approx), so we stabled the horses just before dark. They had strange stable mates, as our biker co-residents also stabled their bikes!<br />
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I was a little concerned about Flurry, as he hadn't eaten all his hay, and had relatively few droppings in his stable. He did eat some more hay while we were having breakfast, so we came to the conclusion that he had been given the last couple of flakes from a sour bale and didn't like it. Hopefully that's all it was - he seems ok this evening anyway.<br />
The journey to the Morvan did not go as well as it could have. We used Googlemaps and Nigel the SatNav to find directions, and both proposed different routes. I then complicated matters by using the road atlas and proposed a third route. We missed a turn, looped back to the correct road, missed another turn, and then saw a bright yellow sign for Lyon, with the word Bis in front of it. Lyon being the second major town on our route, we of course decided to follow this sign, thus throwing a fourth route into the mix. Big mistake. Bis routes are designed to take innocent foreigners and get them lost in the middle of France. They are alleged to be for the holiday maker who wants to get off the beaten track, but Lyon was to the West and North of us, yet the Bis route insisted on bringing us East...and East...and East. Just how far off the beaten track can anyone want to go? The highlight of our diversion was this interesting display :<br />
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There was a sign wishing Christian truck drivers Bonne Route... they must be very lost truck drivers to be going through this little place, miles from any big towns!<br />
Eventually, we decided that enough was enough, and we reverted to the road atlas again, using Nigel the SatNav to help us through the last bit and find our hotel. We had expected the journey to take four hours, it actually took six. The wind was still quite strong, and ever so often a gust would catch the trailer and start it swaying - a bit scary, really. We could only stop briefly, as Gigi doesn't "do" standing still in a box, and starts pawing and kicking, and generally getting herself worked up.<br />
Anyway, we got here in the end, we are in La Grand Verrière, a small village in the middle of green, rolling hills. It's very different country to either the Drôme or Provence - much gentler. It's also got different weather. We arrived in the middle of a thunderstorm, complete with hailstones. The forecast is for wet weather most of the week, so I guess the wet gear will have to be dusted off.<br />
Due to the length of the journey and my slight concern about Flurry this morning, we've decided to give the horses an easy day tomorrow. We'll set off from here in the morning and see how they feel. If they're very tired, we'll get the LSH to pick us up early, but we're hoping to cover somewhere between 15 and 20km.<br />
Which brings us to our "issues". We've realised that we're unlikely to make the 500km. There have been a number of things which have gone against us, first of all, my broken wrist meant that the horses were not as fit as we would have wanted at the start, so we've had to build in quite a few "easy" days for them. We had originally hoped to average 25km/day, but because of the easy days, we've only averaged 20km/day so far. We also ended up leaving Ceréste a couple of days later than planned - a couple of days seems like nothing, but it's possibly 50km if it's two good days.<br />
Our third issue is that the LSH has to leave us next Thursday - a work crisis of some sort. This means we have no driver to collect us or to move our gear to our next lodgings, so we won't be able to continue to ride from point to point. We will be settling in one place from Wednesday on, and will ride circular loops from that point. It also means there will be no-one to mind the (occasionally leaky) hyper-terriers during the day, so we will be limited to two two-hour rides per day, one in the morning and one in the evening, with a break for quality time with doggies in the middle of the day.<br />
Finally, our fourth issue. We're not sure yet when George Mullins will be able to transport the horses, but it could be any time from next Saturday on. Worst case, we've only got five days of riding left. We're hoping to break the 400km mark, but even that may not be possible. <br />
We're both gutted at the prospect of not making our goal. We will do the best we can this week, but the horses' welfare must come first, and they will let us know if we're asking too much of them. <br />
Some light relief to finish (daughters, look away now, you will probably blush):<br />
We arrived at our hotel today, and legged it up to our room to watch the second half of the Leinster/Clermont-Auvergne match (HUGE congrats to Leinster and Ulster for making it an all-Irish Heineken Cup final!). After the match, we all chilled out - Anne went off to her room, the LSH went for a shower and I stretched out on the bed. So after his shower, the LSH joined me on the bed for a cuddle, moved in for a kiss, I closed my eyes (as you do) and next thing I knew, I was being passionately licked all over my mouth and nose! Cookie had intervened while our faces were inches apart, and decided to join in the fun! I'm afraid she completely spoiled the moment, I was laughing so hard I had tears running down my face, and was still quite red-eyed when we went down for dinner a few minutes later!<br />
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We are doing Le Big Trek to raise funds for Assistance dogs for families of children with autism. If you like our blog please take the time to donate at <a href="http://www.mycharity.ie/event/martine_greenlees_event">http://www.mycharity.ie/event/martine_greenlees_event</a><br />
Thank youMartinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14496995504975297110noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-55471993533129708332012-04-29T08:19:00.003+01:002012-04-29T08:19:29.578+01:00Day 15 - Parnans to Montmiral<span class="Apple-style-span">Saturday and another easy day planned, after a 30+trek yesterday, the horses spent a good night with a mixture of hay and grass so they were well content, and ate up their brekkie as usual with great enthusiasm. We left on a track directly from the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; line-height: 16px;"><em style="color: black; font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">gîte</span></em></span><span class="Apple-style-span"> and set off across beautiful meadows that haven't been weed killed to within an inch of their natural lives, I remember fields like this from my childhood in England.</span><br />
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There had been more tree felling here as well, but this time the path was clear.<br />
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Past this barn that looked as if it might take a tumble at any minute<br />
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And more snow capped mountains in the distance, the Vercors I think<br />
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The horses were slow to start, Gigi refusing to canter the first time she was asked, but had slightly more enthusiasm the second time. We don't canter much, partly because the terrain is rarely suitable, but also to conserve their energy. But we figure that it's good for them to do a bit, to use different muscles , and also because they like it. And they are both sensible enough to choose wether or not they do up the pace.<br />
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We've seen plenty of signs for the first time, but this one was really amusing<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span">We reached our destination in good time, Relais de la </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; line-height: 16px;"><em style="color: black; font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Forêt</span></em></span><span class="Apple-style-span"> in Montmiral, Martine had fashioned a fly deterrent on Flurry's headpiece, and it worked really well, there are a lot of flies here. I will have to follow suit tomorrow.</span><br />
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It was great to be finished up early, the horses had a shower and were turned out in a grass paddock for a well earned rest, and we set off for <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; line-height: 16px;">Bourg de </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; line-height: 16px;"><em style="color: black; font-style: normal;">Péage , to look for some new hoof boots as our repairs of the previous day had not worked. We found a pair of <a href="http://www.cavallo-inc.com/">Cavallo</a> horse boots which look good, tomorrow will tell ! We could have spent the rest of the day in the <a href="http://www.sellerie-baude.com/contact.php">Sellerie Baude</a> but finances and lack of space in the car prohibited this ! The prices were reasonable, and the selection fantastic. Western </em></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 16px;"><em style="color: black; font-style: normal;">saddles galore, ah if only...</em></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 16px;"><em style="color: black; font-style: normal;">This was the view from the </em></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; line-height: 16px;"><em style="color: black; font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">gîte, it's a great place, tables on the terrace with this fabulous view. And a pool, as it was really warm George decided to take a dip, but quickly changed his mind when he felt the </span></em></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; line-height: 16px;"><em style="color: black; font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">temperature of the water.</span></em></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 16px;"><em style="color: black; font-style: normal;">Aperitifs were taken on the terrace, a group of very sophisticated bikers had arrived, and we all partook of orange wine, walnut wine, yes this is a huge walnut growing area, and various other wines. A dinner of couscous was quickly demolished by all, and during the repast the proprietor phoned to say there was a big storm on the way, stables were quickly made up, and the horses brought in, and they had new neighbours, the motor bikes were also broght in.</em></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 16px;"><em style="color: black; font-style: normal;"><br /></em></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 16px;"><em style="color: black; font-style: normal;">And a big storm it was, the chalet we were in rattled and shook and leaked. Martine discovered the water seeping through the door, just centimetres from her laptop! </em></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgLrklGV8AMgosqDQ-TzQtaUYWfqFwxTaIqW_pwIbyHrUOpx4RdZQq_S5uSjZkm-NiDrFkGCytEjUAVkk2SDhR4N9uJ0wDFqGYsWzzHGjBE-4qTSTA8Mo93ReyPy2bRTEXs6wj7QkuNGta/s1600/DSCN1364.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgLrklGV8AMgosqDQ-TzQtaUYWfqFwxTaIqW_pwIbyHrUOpx4RdZQq_S5uSjZkm-NiDrFkGCytEjUAVkk2SDhR4N9uJ0wDFqGYsWzzHGjBE-4qTSTA8Mo93ReyPy2bRTEXs6wj7QkuNGta/s640/DSCN1364.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Storm clouds gathering</td></tr>
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Today we hit the 300km mark, that's the little loop at the end of the trail, we wanted to be sure !<br />
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We are doing Le Big Trek to raise funds for Assistance dogs for families of children with autism. If you like our blog please take the time to donate at <a href="http://www.mycharity.ie/event/martine_greenlees_event">http://www.mycharity.ie/event/martine_greenlees_event</a> Thank you<br />
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<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1550133">Day 15 parnans to montmiral at EveryTrail</a><br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="300" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.everytrail.com/iframe2.php?trip_id=1550133&width=400&height=300" width="400"></iframe>EveryTrail - Find <a href="http://www.everytrail.com/best/hiking-california">hiking trails in California</a> and beyondMartinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14496995504975297110noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-84777561626831021252012-04-27T22:19:00.002+01:002012-04-29T20:51:16.196+01:00Day 14 - Barbières to Parnans<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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Barbières is <b>remote. </b>And La Ferme le Pejoux is in back-end of nowheresville in Barbières<span class="Apple-style-span"> Hence, we had no internet, and worse still, no mobile phone coverage! To make up for these shortcomings, the hosts, the Pierre family, are incredibly welcoming, and in fact kept us up until well after midnight, stuffing us with delicious food and pouring wine down our throats!</span></div>
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Unfortunately, the LSH had a phonecall scheduled for 10am, which meant we had to haul ourselves out of bed at the usual 8am - no chance of a lie-in! We managed to hit the road a little before ten and rode down the long slope into the village of Barbières<span class="Apple-style-span">. It's surrounded on all sides by crags and tors - it reminded me of some of the scenery in Lord of the Rings. All it needs is a giant statue carved in it...</span></div>
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The streets of the town were deserted, there were occasional cars and vans passing, and one little old lady walking down the street - plus two Irish horses and their riders!</div>
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We passed the church, and there in the car-park was the LSH, on his phone-call - he gave us a cheery wave as we passed.<br />
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Thirty seconds after passing him, a mass of cyclists whizzed past us on the narrow street, complete with motor bike and minibus escorts - I don't know if it was a race or what! Neither horses batted an eyelid - they really are bomb-proof at this stage!<br />
After leaving the village, we followed the directions sketched on the map by Mme Pierre. Unfortunately, she only sketched the first part, and I was left to my own devices for the rest of it, so before we set off, I had worked out a route which would get us across the plains as far as the Isère river. <br />
At first we rode along footpaths and through fields, but we ended up having to cover a lot of the distance on the roads.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This was quite a pleasant little track</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There were the usual pretty little country churches</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwwOahwFeT3-R5EyDmlRCvrlpgWVgyarHqug-inVeobgvBd8ojF_4FHH0Hpwj-QDUcwqA_u2aT0uFnZEWt41wSU0JFyQ20P4p0U1sxsock7h2IfSCXK7pHZwjws1jq8fbgqKrLcDKm90Kp/s1600/DSCN1320.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwwOahwFeT3-R5EyDmlRCvrlpgWVgyarHqug-inVeobgvBd8ojF_4FHH0Hpwj-QDUcwqA_u2aT0uFnZEWt41wSU0JFyQ20P4p0U1sxsock7h2IfSCXK7pHZwjws1jq8fbgqKrLcDKm90Kp/s320/DSCN1320.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">and I loved this field of rape (canola)</td></tr>
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For the first time, we were plagued by flies. I need to add tassels to Flurry's fly bonnet! <br />
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We had used fly spray on both horses before setting off, but it wears off quickly, especially when they sweat up.<br />
Eventually we were riding on the plains. It was flat. It was very fertile - every inch of ground is either cultivated or is used to raise chickens. There were lots of fruit and nut trees - here Anne and Gigi are passing through a plantation of walnut trees.<br />
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But for the most part, it was just plain boring, and tedious, hot, sweaty, work to ride through. <br />
Then the Peleton came whizzing by again and brightened our day briefly - they all recognised us, a few of the cyclists waved, and we got big cheery waves from the support crew in the minibus.<br />
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There is a bridge near where I live which crosses the main road from Cork to Bandon. I've ridden Flurry over it twice - he was just a bit tense the first time, but had a complete meltdown the second time at the sight of trucks and cars disappearing under his feet. He has crossed many bridges at this stage, but none which went over a road - until today, that is, when we crossed over a busy dual carriageway, cars and trucks speeding by underneath our feet, both horses plodding steadily on, as if crossing a motorway was something they did every day of their lives.<br />
Finally we reached the Isère river, and had to cross it on this suspension bridge. There were lots of cars on it when we were crossing it - in fact we caused a bit of a traffic jam!<br />
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On the other side of the Isère, we rejoined the TRADAC trail and were directed up this pretty cobbled street. Apparently it was a medieval road, and the cobbles continued for quite a distance into the woods behind the village.<br />
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We were back in more interesting ground now, we could look down and see the bridge where we had crossed the river,<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We started off in the jagged bit of mountains to the left of the bridge</td></tr>
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and we were winding out way through the woods when we came upon this sight. <br />
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There had been a lot of trees felled, and they were strewn everywhere - right over the trail. There was no way we could get through or around, so we backtracked and took a guess at which trail might lead us in the right direction. A few minutes along this trail, there was a piercing shriek from Anne (she was leading) and she quickly turned Gigi and said "SNAKE!!! - He was BIG! And he was coming straight at me and hissing!!" We both retreated a bit, then of course I said I'd get a photo of him (yeah, mad, I know) so I left Anne holding the horses and went back up the trail. At this stage the snake was heading off into the undergrowth, but he hissed at me too, for good measure! I managed to take a photo, which was good enough to identify him (Western Whip Snake, non-venomous) but not good enough to post here, I'm afraid!<br />
We rejoined the proper trail (lucky guess) but were quite surprised to find it partially blocked again, this time with fallen branches. This one was absolutely the lowest we can go under - Anne had to remove Gigi's saddle to enable her to pass underneath.<br />
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Finally, eight hours after leaving Barbières, we arrived at the Gite Equestre in Parnans. Tired, thirsty, hot and sweaty - both us and the horses! We set to work watering, untacking and washing them down which they really appreciated. <br />
While removing the Renegade boots, we discovered another problem - Flurry has worn a hole in the toe of one of his hind boots. We now have two holed boots, both of which we have repaired with epoxy resin. We will try out the repairs tomorrow and see how successful they are - if the resin doesn't adhere to the boots, we will have to come up with a new strategy.<br />
We have one spare boot here and another spare in the US which will take at least two days to get to us. The company who make the boots have a one week delay on all orders, so there's no point in doing that - our new boots would arrive here just after we finish Le Big Trek. We could buy a different make of boot here, or we could revert to metal shoes, but neither of us have any confidence in the performance of metal shoes on the sort of rocky terrain we have been covering.<br />
It's a bit problem, and as yet, we have no idea what the solution will be.<br />
Á demain!<br />
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Everytrail map. <br />
My iPhone died shortly before we finished, but we were recording on Anne's phone as well. For the moment, we are guesstimating a total of 33km today, but we'll amend it tomorrow.<br />
<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1547853">Day 14 barbieres to parnans at EveryTrail</a><br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="300" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.everytrail.com/iframe2.php?trip_id=1547853&width=400&height=300" width="400"></iframe><br />
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The final section:<br />
<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1547884">Parnans at EveryTrail</a><br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="300" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.everytrail.com/iframe2.php?trip_id=1547884&width=400&height=300" width="400"></iframe>Martinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14496995504975297110noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-50593690224742420662012-04-27T05:47:00.000+01:002012-04-28T07:38:37.170+01:00The Thirteenth DayDay13 was to be an easy day after our 35Km yesterday. We planned on doing 15 km from a drop off point to Vaunaveys la Rochette. Our kind host, Bernard had traced out our route for us on our map, what could go wrong?<br />
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We spent the morning catching up on things, first of all we had discovered a hole in Gigi's boot which was getting worse, so we decided to try fixing it with epoxy resin, she would wear Flurry's boot that George had repaired the day before, and Flurry would continue to wear the spare boot we had. I needed to book some accommodation for next week, when we will be moving to the Morvan. There were emails to be caught up on, so we had a fairly relaxed morning doing all this and no one seemed to be rushed. Then we realised that George thought we were riding out from the gite, while we had planned boxing part of the way and then riding to our destination, so suddenly it was panic stations. We hadn't ordered a picnic, George hadn't reorganised the horse box as he thought we wouldn't be using it, so we were a bit later leaving the gite than we had planned, but it was only a short hack, right ?<br />
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So we were dropped off the other side of Crest at Aouste sur Sye really close to the horse trail, Martine started Everyrtrail and off we went. The terrain here was easier as we were away from the big mountains.</div>
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More ochre cliffs in the distance</div>
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But in the distance we could see there was fresh snow on the mountains.<br />
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The trail was quite narrow in places and steep and stony, but there were plenty of markers or "ballisage" along the way.<br />
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Finally we came out onto the road again, and were just approaching a small village, when one of Flurry's boots came off for no apparent reason. Off we hopped, and did the adjustment. Then George phoned, he had arrived the gite but they had no reservation for us. The night before alarm bells had gone off in the back of my head when Vaunevays was mentioned but I was too tired to process them. But now I remembered, Vaunevays had been fully booked so I had picked somewhere much further away as the only viable option! So after quick consultations with George to arrange a pickup and a phone call to the gite to say we would be late, we started walking back to Crest along the road, until we found this welcome sight !<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span">The next gite was a good bit outside </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; line-height: 16px;"><em style="color: black; font-style: normal;">Barbières</em></span> called La <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #503d2f;">Ferme du Pejoux. It was very isolated, but we were offered the usual warm welcome, and our host and hostess shared our celebratory bottle of Champagne. Despite all the errors of the day, we had reached the halfway mark, 250 kilometres! </span></span><br />
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There is no Everytrail map for today , as for some reason it didn't work properly, another gremlin on Day13 of our trip, but we think it was 11km - Martine checked Everytrail before it choked and it was at 10km before we walked about 1km on the road!Martinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14496995504975297110noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-38672171553280465882012-04-26T10:22:00.004+01:002012-04-26T10:22:57.193+01:00Day 12 - Poêt Laval - Saou<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
All members of the team, equine and human, really relaxed at Le Gué. There's a lovely atmosphere there - it is run as a farm, they grow all their own vegetables and have chickens, geese and sheep. There was a very friendly ram, confined to a stable. His duties are complete for the year, so he will be kept away from the herd from now on. There were also a couple of ewes and lambs in pens - I have never seen such friendly sheep before, they were all happy to come over for a head scratch!</div>
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Facilities for the humans were a little basic. Our rooms were in the attic of a building that used to be used as an orphanage, it dates from the 18th century and has the feel of an old building, a little cold and musty. Nonetheless, we were comfortable and well fed - home made pate and paella for dinner, and in the morning, we were brought down to the main dining hall for breakfast. Breakfast consisted mostly of bread, as did our packed lunch - doorstep-sized slices of bread, with a thin layer of jambon! Unfortunately, neither Anne nor I can eat a lot of bread without facing fairly dire consequences later in the day, so most of the bread was fed to the birds.</div>
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We left Le Gué, promising to return - at €95 for the night for the whole team, it's by far the cheapest place we've found, and we were all made feel very welcome.</div>
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Our very first emergency happened about 2km down the road. Flurry is thriving on the work, he is getting quite fit now and he was feeling good in himself as we rode down the road towards the woods that would bring us to Dieulefit. When a car passed behind us, he thought it was a great reason to get excited and galloped off for a couple of strides, with Gigi following behind wondering what the fuss was about. Anne saw something fly through the air and thought Flurry had lost a boot, then she looked and saw he still had four boots on, and realised that he'd broken a boot completely - the heel captivator was gone, but the boot was still on his hoof. On inspection, we saw that he had pulled the cable out, and of course our spare boot was in Anne's rucksack in the jeep. One quick phonecall later, the LSH was on his way! We put the spare boot on, and although it's a bit big it stayed on for the day. </div>
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The map we are currently using doesn't have the horse-trails marked, so we were following a walking trail, which brought us right into the middle of Dieulefit and straight up a very fancy pedestrian shopping street. I'm sure we weren't meant to be there, but hey, that's the way the map brought us! We got many curious glances, and some grumbling from an old man, particularly when Gigi lifted her tail and disgraced us on the lovely ornate cobblestones. Anne quickly got to work with the rubber gloves and a plastic bag, and tidied up the mess, remarking that it puts puppy poop into perspective!</div>
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We left the town behind us and started climbing into the hills. We never got a view which overlooked Dieulefit, but this is looking towards the ochre cliffs we passed the previous day.</div>
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We wound our way along a steep hillside, following a narrow path, which had a steep drop to the right. There was mostly scree on the hillside, with a lot of scrubby growth as well. We had to dismount to open a gate, and the path was too narrow to remount, so we walked for a good distance. I was quite enjoying it, and didn't realise that Anne was not - she still hasn't recovered from the fright of Gigi nearly falling down the hillside two days ago. So when we stopped for lunch, we had a quick confab and changed our route plan for the day, to try to avoid any other really steep paths. This meant that we were following a road for quite a bit - the boring but safe option, so long as Flurry didn't object to any more cars!<br />
The forecast had been for a dry but windy day, so we had both opted not to bring coats. At this stage we were regretting this decision - the wind was very strong at times, and yes, that's snow on the distant hills!<br />
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We had a flock of savage horse-eating sheep to contend with near this chapel, as well as the very strong winds, so we danced and jogged along the hill-top for while, until we started to descend once again and got into more sheltered ground.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0i7gWwKlv-1cKYVSz8DvVl8CFfXsrQbjFeINrbmsHoAC6bqo1Vs-GobVEVr2fhWscKsywB4Sdb2oZMFzRGpbm3YHjl5cgEFJtHQUtEDh3q2LYG-9RdUFd9UCmAG66dXquaTb04OVMlj4/s1600/DSCN1265.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0i7gWwKlv-1cKYVSz8DvVl8CFfXsrQbjFeINrbmsHoAC6bqo1Vs-GobVEVr2fhWscKsywB4Sdb2oZMFzRGpbm3YHjl5cgEFJtHQUtEDh3q2LYG-9RdUFd9UCmAG66dXquaTb04OVMlj4/s320/DSCN1265.jpg" width="320" /></a>We rode through lovely birch woods and had a major spook incident with both horses, caused by two shetland ponies who looked very cute to me and Anne but must have looked absolutely ferocious to Flurry and Gigi, given their over-reaction.<br />
We came across this very elaborate tree-house, which reminded me of Myst and reminded Anne of the tree-house in Hook... this is just one end of it, there were three sections in all, including a lookout post. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV5o7empWS2sYO65Q3yOid4WGPcKyjTab9dD-_GL3Y8DZ9Xe0WBysE6AOU9zdeZTRntVS1xqf4f__3R_CC3_sXQtEVKtkOHbXcifM-yKQYb1dWKUwNZk45rk96EnWKLYBDN52ieg2bhdw/s1600/DSCN1271.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV5o7empWS2sYO65Q3yOid4WGPcKyjTab9dD-_GL3Y8DZ9Xe0WBysE6AOU9zdeZTRntVS1xqf4f__3R_CC3_sXQtEVKtkOHbXcifM-yKQYb1dWKUwNZk45rk96EnWKLYBDN52ieg2bhdw/s320/DSCN1271.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a>We were once again following horse balisage at this stage - the blue and orange signs which mark the TRADAC route, TRAvers du Drome A Cheval. The route took us past this chateau and down a long hill, into the garden of a house and then the balisage disappeared completely! </div>
Luckily, a pickup truck followed us into the garden, and we asked the driver if the route continued. He said yes, but it was very steep and narrow, and in his opinion, not suitable for horses. So we made our weary way back up the long hill, and followed the road which took us towards Le Poet Celard. <br />
From there, we had a view South towards Teysierres, where we were two days ago. <br />
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The snow-capped mountain is the one we rode along two days ago, where Gigi had her slip. We have been very lucky with the weather, there have been two occasions where snow fell the day after we were in an area, and although it has rained a few times, we haven't had a really miserable soaking yet - fingers crossed. </div>
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After Le Poet Celard, we started to descend into the valley of the Roubion river. We briefly picked up another horse trail, which went through some fields - a nice change from the usual stony trails. Then we were back on the road again, heading towards Saou, and although we managed to get off the road briefly, we were stuck with roadwork for about 4km. We had been travelling for close on eight hours at this stage, and were really feeling it, despite having walked several times to give our legs and the horses' backs a break. We weren't so exhausted that we didn't enjoy the scenery, though, Saou is set in a landscape that looks like it came from the Grand Canyon.</div>
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Impressive, eh?<br />
Finally we arrived, looked after the horses, and found that this gite has a BATH!!! Best gite ever! A glass of wine and a hot bath later, we were both feeling human again.<br />
Best news of all, we had managed to cover 35km, by far the longest day we've had so far. Tomorrow we're planning on an easy day, the horses deserve it, so we will box the horses part of the way and ride the rest.<br />
The Everytrail map is for Day 11 and Day 12 combined. I wasn't able to upload Day 11, so I ended up combining the two.<br />
<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1546133">Days 11 & 12 Teysierres - Poet Laval - Saou at EveryTrail</a><br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="300" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.everytrail.com/iframe2.php?trip_id=1546133&width=400&height=300" width="400"></iframe>Martinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14496995504975297110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-19024691127748783182012-04-24T20:08:00.000+01:002012-04-24T20:09:57.585+01:00Day 11 - Teyssieres - Le Poët-LavalAnne: The evening of day 10 we got in just before the rain started but decided to put the horses out in the paddock anyway, so they could relax, roll, and do the things horses love to do. Also the stables weren't the best, dark and damp. But as we were waiting for dinner the weather got worse, and we both looked out and said we should bring the horses in, but we were tired and decided to wait. Dinner was delicious, a huge mixed salad to start with followed by a local speciality of ravioles , no not ravioli, but similar, tiny pastas stuffed with cheese, served up in a white sauce with grated courgette, after having been in the oven to go all lovely and crispy around the edges. A big bottle of the local red, and apple tart to finish. Ah delicious, but oops the horses, it was still pouring down so George and I said off to catch them and bring them in, no easy task in the dark, in a steeply sloping field, on a very gloopy clay soil. We were slipping and sliding all over the place, I don't know how I kept my feet under me, especially as Gigi was being a bit difficult. But we caught them and headed off to the stables, gave them hay and water, put sweat rugs on them and left the two slightly unsettled horses to dry off.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG0Xc9In_Vb7K67IclLmKubKSYxcypjLw-gbXPbnQ4_cG1J6xyQLiMoe-5Mzl72g5asdrEt9nA_prEu9Pt71D4BIiYDrx0I809pMaaHVflBoM0Tk7dcPKJdnRdSvbtP20DS_agohSov3U/s1600/DSCN1238.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG0Xc9In_Vb7K67IclLmKubKSYxcypjLw-gbXPbnQ4_cG1J6xyQLiMoe-5Mzl72g5asdrEt9nA_prEu9Pt71D4BIiYDrx0I809pMaaHVflBoM0Tk7dcPKJdnRdSvbtP20DS_agohSov3U/s320/DSCN1238.jpg" width="320" /></a>It rained all night, drumming on the roof of my bedroom, so I was happy enough to get up at 7:30 and feed them, it's always easier when they're in a stable as Flurry can't eat Gigi's food. Looking around I could see that the rain had fallen as snow on the mountains, thank goodness we weren't up there in the rain. Off I went to the yard with 2 buckets of feed, round the corner to the stables to be confronted by 2 open stable doors. Maybe the owner, Frank, put them back in the paddock was my first thought, but no the paddock was empty, panic started to set in and I ran down to the house to see if Frank had moved them somewhere else, but no. Back up to the gite to wake George and Martine, they would set off in the jeep, I would go back along the track we had ridden in on, and Frank went looking for horse tracks. Frank found them first while a few minutes later G&M saw them from the road, happily grazing in a field of lucerne.
All's well that ends well, but we were all thoroughly shaken up by the episode, I couldn't face breakfast, and G&M were very quiet.<br />
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After all the excitement we set off not too late as we had decided to give ourselves a really easy day today, keep out of the mountains and ride on roads if we had to, as a quick look around showed low cloud on all the hills. We were already tired after day 10, and the start of day 11 had sapped us both of our usual enthusiasm.<br />
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The views, even from the road were good, with the inevitable lavender and craggy mountains in the distance.<br />
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At last we both felt secure enough to get off the road and onto the tracks again, hoping to skirt Dieulefit, but while this added to our daily kilometers, it did not keep us out of the centre of town.<br />
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But it did bring us past yet another great ochre display. We dismounted to walk through the town centre.<br />
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And we were very amused by this sign telling you your speed, and although you can't see it on the picture, as Gigi and I walked through it registered 11kph with a lovely smiley face to tell us we were within the speed limit.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">George had phoned us during the day to say he had arrived at the gite, which wasn't a gite at all but an old nunnery that had once been an orphanage, it is now used as a recovery centre for people suffering from substance abuse, I remembered when I had booked the place they asked me if I knew what they did there, but I didn't understand the explanation at the time. The accommodation for the horses was excellent, really secure, a blessing after last night, but what would you expect from an ex nunnery ! Somehow, on what we had declared an easy day, we covered 22kms bringing us up over 200kms , a reason to celebrate and lift our spirits, Sláinte</span><br />
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<br />Annehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11311927852717548334noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-49055661595805948802012-04-23T21:56:00.003+01:002012-04-23T21:56:51.036+01:00Day 10 - Venterol to Teysierres<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">or "And we thought the Monts de Vaucluse was Tough"</span><br />
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Our stay in Camp-Anes near Venterol was damn near idyllic. We had booked a paddock for the horses, but unfortunately there was a sanglier incident the night before we arrived, all of their horses took fright, broke the electric fencing and escaped. Not wishing to risk any damage to visiting horses, Jean-Yves and Anne-Marie gave us two stables instead. This is the view the horses had :<br />
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Apologies for the colour being a bit "off", Flurry was in fidget mode on Saturday and I accidentally set my camera into some weird mode which affected the white balance. It's all fixed now (thanks, LSH!)<br />
Camp-Anes' main business is hiring donkeys to walkers - they have a total of fourteen donkeys which are used by groups of walkers (mostly families) as pack animals on hiking holidays. Jean-Yves is a mine of information on the local routes, as he is constantly sending tourists off in all directions with one of his beloved donkeys, so when he offered to advise us on routes we jumped at the chance - you can't beat local knowledge! He marked out what seemed to be the best choice on a special map - it's called an "a la carte carte", made specially for walkers in this region - you can't buy it in the shops!<br />
We're going demi-pension in all of the gites at the moment, which means we get breakfast and dinner, and a packed lunch if we pay extra. We'd had three days of eating out in Beaumes de Venise and we all needed some good home cooking, which we certainly got! Magret de canard, risotto made with spelt, goats cheese salad and apple crumble, complete with Côtes de Rhone rosé and red wines on the table. Anne-Marie is passionate about serving locally sourced food, and it was all delicious. Her enthusiasm is infectious, and we spent ages talking about the problems faced by the local food producers and how best to use truffles - Anne is updating the recipe section accordingly.<br />
Our best find in Camp-Anes was this - a Wanderly Wagon!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Godmother and Judge are at the window... that must be Rory and Foxy at the back steps!</td></tr>
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All of us were rejuvenated after our rest day, and we headed off eagerly on Monday morning. We thought the donkey balisage was quite charming :<br />
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and the first half of the day went very well. We negotiated a tunnel<br />
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and this fancy bridge<br />
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and then followed an old railway line through yet more vines.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vines!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">the stream which followed the road</td></tr>
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Our seasoned trekking horses took everything in their stride. We followed a country road alongside this little stream for ages.<br />
Flurry and Gigi are now accustomed to drinking regularly while we're out, so we stopped a couple of times and let them fill up.<br />
To be honest, it was verging on boring, but there was no traffic and the scenery was very pretty, so we were happy enough.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiT2K08Op7ABQ-db170JhQ4Ydqr-GdZuSGqxDPbC4n8RHWWqulCQJS2Vtjzgx-3y_lKWw8sXgx2AubHBC0v9bbA1092gMUiXdPfOc6dIzGAgTvs5V2NGInQKDfXJihHB96Dhz5OS8J1jo/s1600/DSCN1200.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiT2K08Op7ABQ-db170JhQ4Ydqr-GdZuSGqxDPbC4n8RHWWqulCQJS2Vtjzgx-3y_lKWw8sXgx2AubHBC0v9bbA1092gMUiXdPfOc6dIzGAgTvs5V2NGInQKDfXJihHB96Dhz5OS8J1jo/s400/DSCN1200.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pretty valley along the country road</td></tr>
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Just as I was starting to get worried about having missed a turn, we found what was unquestionably the correct road, which led off to the right, and up the mountain via a series of hairpin bends. While going around one of the bends, I noticed a scrap of fur to my left.... and then realised there was an open eye as well! "Is that dead or alive," I called back to Anne. After an initial "What? Where?" she spotted the fur and replied "Alive - it's a leveret (a baby hare)." So I quickly circled back and snapped a photo, but didn't hang around in case I scared the little guy! He was incredibly well camouflaged, can you see him?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihkkCLRn1w0z3x1skmjQmHtrHyN2RqTf3rr-_uA8EawpZ_zeKEFp45YYFin43Jnr5wn0C3UoRHFaMO3M2m904e_HlDO8pVRuCvEnfrp3KSuz9wZ9kkDI4fDgprd8uTwocOIi4-I5839mY/s1600/DSCN1202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihkkCLRn1w0z3x1skmjQmHtrHyN2RqTf3rr-_uA8EawpZ_zeKEFp45YYFin43Jnr5wn0C3UoRHFaMO3M2m904e_HlDO8pVRuCvEnfrp3KSuz9wZ9kkDI4fDgprd8uTwocOIi4-I5839mY/s640/DSCN1202.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
Leverets stay where their mother leaves them, flattening themselves into the ground, just like this guy. It seems to be a fairly good survival mechanism!<br />
We continued to climb, with Mont Ventoux looming over the hills in the distance. It's funny to think that on Saturday, we were up there, having a picnic, looking over in this direction.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBElJr8Le8ug3cARZbUBMLNE1UNe1uXcbZGcSmZ937SafpRZx51mT_QHGbdx39DjjTCqYsrerM1KNW_xfjZ4piU-Ef1brORyYjso_HKJCWBJ8X54-WzR1PRKm3HP7eAumjgMvoRFBrft8/s1600/DSCN1205.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBElJr8Le8ug3cARZbUBMLNE1UNe1uXcbZGcSmZ937SafpRZx51mT_QHGbdx39DjjTCqYsrerM1KNW_xfjZ4piU-Ef1brORyYjso_HKJCWBJ8X54-WzR1PRKm3HP7eAumjgMvoRFBrft8/s640/DSCN1205.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mont Ventoux</td></tr>
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We knew that we were in the environs of a goat farm, so it seemed inevitable that we'd meet them. Sure enough, we heard a faint "Clong! Clong!" in the distance, and after a few minutes, spotted the herd of goats scrambling up the hillside to the left of the road, complete with goat-herder and dogs.<br />
With goats (possibly of the horse-eating variety) to the left of us and a sheer drop to the right of us, we decided that the smart thing to do would be to dismount and lead the horses past. Much to our relief, they were fine, Gigi was very tense, but Flurry was quite happy. Shortly after we stopped for lunch at this corner of the trail :<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvoMz5kdjFe0IETrejTP4Id3Kg5fnwcJGjvc22aqA5b67j6e99CxVLKqDZT7uuPoCygCK_qzZkzrLJrYil08v_4QbIphJ1NC_xnFPw9s7rFTxudJ-oY5A4lKI0Jjrur_lh6I__KvsDDC8/s1600/DSCN1207.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvoMz5kdjFe0IETrejTP4Id3Kg5fnwcJGjvc22aqA5b67j6e99CxVLKqDZT7uuPoCygCK_qzZkzrLJrYil08v_4QbIphJ1NC_xnFPw9s7rFTxudJ-oY5A4lKI0Jjrur_lh6I__KvsDDC8/s640/DSCN1207.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
It was very distinctive, and I knew for sure that we were at the point where Jean-Yves said we should leave the trail and follow a path. He had advised us to dismount and lead the horses down the first sections, he described it as being quite overgrown, difficult to see the ground, and with a lot of steps down for about 50 metres, but quite passable, so long as the horses would not rush, which we were quite sure they wouldn't (we were right!).<br />
We could see that the path dropped very steeply, so I checked it out on foot. Sure enough, it was a very steep descent with lots of big rocky steps down, but after some distance (I would have said 70M, not 50) it seemed to get a little easier and started switchbacking down the hill.<br />
I went back to Anne, and we had a quick discussion. We'd been caught out on Friday and Saturday with following footpaths, which turned out to be unsuitable for horses, so we were reluctant to leave the trail we'd been advised to follow. We were in the middle of nowhere, so really, we felt our only option was to trust the advise we'd been given and follow the path down. So we descended somewhere along this crag :<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQTzBI6QhWOweCTOiDgeDfSTAJbZbd7VRB8Uihl2d7QH8higcfcl_7rRqC1GpVEkpjOR9RvC-_6Sfuz78gxBZHcCX7YD3_gIW6GLcW3xIfsYBfwrXUyhHZs8NcBgILHb9HqNaqTowL4q4/s1600/DSCN1217.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQTzBI6QhWOweCTOiDgeDfSTAJbZbd7VRB8Uihl2d7QH8higcfcl_7rRqC1GpVEkpjOR9RvC-_6Sfuz78gxBZHcCX7YD3_gIW6GLcW3xIfsYBfwrXUyhHZs8NcBgILHb9HqNaqTowL4q4/s320/DSCN1217.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">East end of crag</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_w62KxL8khQ_ifqcbFseggmsFyY6wx8aTEIoPHjxbzCiskyg8yad_uFgV_-WfUDEkCyV9L3G8WJkDpkFLnugujn3dqSt_OjTKQX1Z5Ksvx4bjJOikXsK-Bo9ifRn7OlSgyP0HZqAzpmU/s1600/DSCN1218.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_w62KxL8khQ_ifqcbFseggmsFyY6wx8aTEIoPHjxbzCiskyg8yad_uFgV_-WfUDEkCyV9L3G8WJkDpkFLnugujn3dqSt_OjTKQX1Z5Ksvx4bjJOikXsK-Bo9ifRn7OlSgyP0HZqAzpmU/s320/DSCN1218.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">West end of crag</td></tr>
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Indeed, the first 70M or so were the worst. So bad, that there are no photos. The horses, once again, rose to the occasion, and obediently followed - down a step, pause, get the back legs down, pause, turn a bit, let the human go down another step, and repeat. Here's a photo from the next section - the easier bit!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXffFqPpS_yxhzb2GZEsZOU7rO7dbV9OaRgnIMaKfuPujXIyrf1AAmcN5cgUVoAf_DRX0MtGXtSxleae2OkpHWcWB22AAJZ2UTq4Ixn-BTBYCRE2lv4Z7woDSLPVPKXnapkEa4YbLEH9I/s1600/DSCN1213.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXffFqPpS_yxhzb2GZEsZOU7rO7dbV9OaRgnIMaKfuPujXIyrf1AAmcN5cgUVoAf_DRX0MtGXtSxleae2OkpHWcWB22AAJZ2UTq4Ixn-BTBYCRE2lv4Z7woDSLPVPKXnapkEa4YbLEH9I/s640/DSCN1213.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
It remained rocky for ages, then we were descending along loose scree. We stopped for a couple of rests along the way, for the horses, ostensibly, but in reality it was to give our shaking legs a chance to recover. We were both worried about the possibility of Anne having another "funny turn" like she had on the ascent of the Monts de Vaucluse, but fortunately she was fine all the way. I was worst off, my knees were really suffering with the constant steep descent. I was just concentrating on keeping going and checking the map to make sure we were still going the right way; Anne was bargaining with God - "Just let us get down, and we'll never ask for anything again!"<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMB13szpstQRR-Hy-wJNX04NctJiGS7benpaS5CvjfZ3c3kPtZjmUqaao_UlSjJDKeLuwhSTBfMbmxV53dAziuOBBr6jxXLqWx1x1aURgZRz9lsISD2eO9BhGIX0oMGsv-ev75gbCtOD0/s1600/DSCN1214.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMB13szpstQRR-Hy-wJNX04NctJiGS7benpaS5CvjfZ3c3kPtZjmUqaao_UlSjJDKeLuwhSTBfMbmxV53dAziuOBBr6jxXLqWx1x1aURgZRz9lsISD2eO9BhGIX0oMGsv-ev75gbCtOD0/s640/DSCN1214.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
This photo is from a rest stop, about halfway down:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7vyHRHWr8SrIkYUzkbbSW_oS3ReHATpjcd-vKAf_tbDxWFBKaYrRTVcL0JGmq0e-8apZUUMolaQDlKKPndfwh5gzfhvN-4V6lACRA1kC2rXIPb6VRz7br8rH5B2_wEfIUkyY3k8rjb3E/s1600/DSCN1215.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7vyHRHWr8SrIkYUzkbbSW_oS3ReHATpjcd-vKAf_tbDxWFBKaYrRTVcL0JGmq0e-8apZUUMolaQDlKKPndfwh5gzfhvN-4V6lACRA1kC2rXIPb6VRz7br8rH5B2_wEfIUkyY3k8rjb3E/s640/DSCN1215.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
Yes, we were headed for that valley floor, far, far below.<br />
Finally, we emerged into a field of lavender, and heaved sighs of relief. After a group hug (the horses didn't get involved, they were too busy scoffing grass) we both agreed that if we'd known what lay ahead, we wouldn't have done it. We also agreed that riding on French horse trails is confusing - you end up with vast stretches of boredom, interspersed with moments of sheer terror.<br />
We followed a tractor trail out of the lavender field and found these little beauties!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmsN2TWNH-Tk8Z3bK1A2M0Aw-KCEvGZniqHCctiUA2l90ZDxLgP5wM5oAEz6gXI8jUCoETS5x-EQ670F04yGbr6ejSz6Z4wxGtQ3kngRvZawXrR1IRmHbsDTTNR4vQEPxqeU2BZCIr1TI/s1600/DSCN1221.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmsN2TWNH-Tk8Z3bK1A2M0Aw-KCEvGZniqHCctiUA2l90ZDxLgP5wM5oAEz6gXI8jUCoETS5x-EQ670F04yGbr6ejSz6Z4wxGtQ3kngRvZawXrR1IRmHbsDTTNR4vQEPxqeU2BZCIr1TI/s320/DSCN1221.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Their owner kindly produced a bucket of water for Flurry and Gigi. They were less thirsty than we expected - in fact, they were less stressed by the whole descent than we were!</div>
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At this, stage we could see rain moving in from the South, so we continued on our way, hoping to get to Teysierres before it got too bad. </div>
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Jean-Yves had said that we would be on a horse trail at this point, and sure enough, we soon found proper horse balisage once again, and followed the trail as it wound back uphill again. It was nice to feel secure in the knowledge that the trail was horse-friendly... until we met this!<br />
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It's really hard to make it out in the photo, but there's a cliff to the left of the trail and a steep drop to the right of the trail. It's been water damaged at this point and quite a bit of the trail has been washed away down the hill. I took one look and said "We need to dismount here!" So we both jumped off, and I led Flurry over it carefully, trying to encourage him to keep left as much as possible. We crossed it safely, and as Anne followed with Gigi, I heard a bit of scuffling. "Are you ok," I asked. I can't remember what she actually replied, but "Just about" would have been right. It seemed that as Flurry crossed over, there was a bit of subsidence, then as Gigi followed, the ground gave away completely and her hind legs went from under her. With a bit of a scramble, she got all four feet on terra firma - huge sighs of relief all round. So much for being on a safe, horse-friendly trail!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhefuZF7RVYbogNS4LofNvUlscxXRlomVF6OoGkzzFZrYEGBPzWog_U5TujpZgIpcu55wklTsGgHibBAr05FiEfSp-a1pLNQcCIgVX9M_t4iaDnGE1KYRnuBsYx9lqB2C1ZyHyGu3vlJOA/s1600/DSCN1232.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="456" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhefuZF7RVYbogNS4LofNvUlscxXRlomVF6OoGkzzFZrYEGBPzWog_U5TujpZgIpcu55wklTsGgHibBAr05FiEfSp-a1pLNQcCIgVX9M_t4iaDnGE1KYRnuBsYx9lqB2C1ZyHyGu3vlJOA/s640/DSCN1232.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
We had no more incidents after that. The scenery had become incredibly rugged, and it was raining steadily at this stage. We wound around another mountain, and finally saw the welcome sight of Teysierres at the far end of the next valley.<br />
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Much to our relief, La Mielandre, where we are staying, was just at the end of the horse trail. We checked over the horses - no cuts or bumps, thank goodness. Then we washed the Renegade boots - to find that Gigi has worn a hole at the front of her right hind boot! We will try one the size 2 boots, it might fit, otherwise we will have to order another size 2W and have it sent over from the US.<br />
Gigi and Flurry were turned out in a paddock, to have a nice bit of grass and some hay. The rain got heavier and heavier, so we ended up stabling them again - at least they will be dry in the morning.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYkjLWO55_bmLHRsQDYAc8q3RkgNBMgyj0tTWQQTq5ifqWtrXjxS60fbFTJg7rWYq_yqN07xEdKEwy_esTtItRirvCAW9p8rmHJRhQuKv3KBTfBm5URtJjNLy6k__V5NI15bmL4_mccLk/s1600/DSCN1237.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYkjLWO55_bmLHRsQDYAc8q3RkgNBMgyj0tTWQQTq5ifqWtrXjxS60fbFTJg7rWYq_yqN07xEdKEwy_esTtItRirvCAW9p8rmHJRhQuKv3KBTfBm5URtJjNLy6k__V5NI15bmL4_mccLk/s640/DSCN1237.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
We told the owner of La Mielandre about the subsidence on the trail - it turned out that section of trail has been closed, and we should have taken a longer route around the next valley.<br />
And the moral of the story? Never take advice from a donkey man about horse trails!<br />
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The Everytrail map - our winding descent seems to have completely confused Everytrail, it looks like we meandered aimlessly around the side of the mountain. I swear, it was nothing like that!<br />
<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1542812">Day 10 - Venterol to Teyssieres at EveryTrail</a><br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="300" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.everytrail.com/iframe2.php?trip_id=1542812&width=400&height=300" width="400"></iframe>Martinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14496995504975297110noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-90760194918883719912012-04-22T20:19:00.001+01:002012-04-22T20:19:50.284+01:00Sunday - Back in the DrômeToday was a much needed day of rest for us and the horses. We left them munching Lucerne contentedly in their pen for most of the day while we did some sightseeing around Beaumes de Venise.
We've now moved on to our next lodgings, in the little village of Venterol in the Drôme region. For the next week, we will be travelling to new lodgings every night, moving steadily northwards. We are in very rural mountainous country and may have some difficulty finding an Internet connection, so if you don't hear from us don't worry (Denis & Sharon!!)
Á bientot!Martinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14496995504975297110noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-53467103825452969002012-04-22T08:52:00.003+01:002012-04-22T09:31:17.991+01:00Day 9 - Somewhere near Le BarrouxAnne:- As our stay in the Côtes du Rhône wine growing area is a pilgrimage, we are not trying to head north every day but are spending our time exploring the area around Beaumes de Venise.
Today we wanted to stay on fairly flat ground to give the horses an easier day while keeping up the kilometers, so navigator in chief Martine had selected a circuit that took us out to Le Barroux and back.<br />
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Grooming took a bit longer day due to various things. Yesterday I had found a huge scab in Gigi's mane, and had cleaned up and sprayed it with Betadine, but today I asked the lady who runs the yard to have a look, and we agreed it was probably the aftermath of a tic, and sure enough we found another one further down her neck. Also the wires in one of Martine's boots came out of the track after a readjustment and it took ages to get them reseated. And finally there was an additional piece of gear for both horses this morning, as they have been suffering from flies around their ears, doesn't Flurry look cute ! <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Flurrry + head gear</td></tr>
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Gigi is particularly impressed by this guy he is a <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">S<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; line-height: 16px;"><em style="color: black; font-style: normal;">elle Français</em></span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The neighbour</td></tr>
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While this one gets the cold shoulder.<br />
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We started off along the canal again today retracing our steps towards Beaumes de Venise, passing a really narrow bridge that had a hand rail on one side and was open on the other side. "Glad we don't have to cross that" commented Martine. But two minutes later, after consulting the map, she realised we did have to cross it. Both our minds filled with about a million "what if's" the major problem being that if either of them fell in we would have real trouble getting them out as the canal sides are concrete and vertical. We both dismounted and Martine led Flurry across first, and he calmly followed her like a pro. Gigi had a good look and dug her heels in, so I turned her around and came at it again in a more direct line, and over she went, Martine said she was practically on her toes ! We are both so proud of our horses.<br />
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Once more we trekked through the small town of Beaumes de Venise, and took a wrong turn that ended up in a car park surrounded by houses, we were just going to look the map when a car came into park, and the lady driver glared at us just at the same moment that a dog rushed silently at the horses from the other side of a fence. Well of course they both shied, and the woman started shouting at us that we could damage the cars. The horses quickly calmed down, and we beat a hasty retreat!<br />
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Soon we were out in open country again with vines all around us once more. Frequently I look around at all the beautiful and varied scenery, and find it hard to believe that I am here with my horse, I feel so privileged to be able to live this wonderful dream.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Anne surveying yet more vineyards</td></tr>
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There were lots of opportunities for trotting, but very few for cantering, as a lot of the tracks are covered in loose sharp stones. It was getting late and we hadn't reached Le Barroux for lunch , but we knew we were close, George phoned to say he had found a grand picnic spot near the cemetery, and we told him we wouldn't be too long.<br />
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We turned off the main track down a footpath, neither of us like doing this as the paths are not necessarily horse friendly, and this proved to be the case. We came across a sign with a picture of a staircase on it, so once again we dismounted, and while I held the horses Martine went ahead to reconnoiter and she came back to say it was far to steep for our babies. We reckon we were only about a hundred yards from the road, so frustrating! So we had to turn around and find our way back to the road by another route where we came upon this picnic spot, complete with views of....more vineyards! George quickly relocated and we had a wonderful lunch of dried ham, goats cheese, fruit, and to finish a bowl of strawberries and a glass of Muscat de Beaumes de Venise! While the horses had a grand pick of grass, which Gigi supplemented with a banana, skin and all, and orange peel !<br />
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The view in the other direction was towards the town of Le Barroux, which we had intended to visit, but would not have time today.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Le Barroux</td></tr>
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As George had worked so hard supporting us all week and doing the day job as well, it seemed only fair to let him ride the second half of the route so I said a fond farewell to Gigi, telling her to mind George !<br />
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Their route took them past this amazing village constructed around a rock<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">La Roque-alric</td></tr>
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And back over the narrow bridge we had crossed at the beginning of the trek. No bother to them! This time they just strolled over it. Each day we marvel at how quickly they adjust to new things and are prepared to take on anything.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That Bridge</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Le Big Trek, the story from the other side </b></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Today the Wagons had planned a short hack from the stables to Le Barroux. My job as the LSH was to get lunch and meet them at a pre-arranged rendezvous near the town. No stress there as it was going to take them three hours to get to that place. So there I was, camera in hand and dogs tied to to my belt loops, walking the streets of Beaumes de Venise when the town clock struck noon..."Sh#%te the shops close between 12 and 2 and I have not bought lunch yet"...15 mad-panic mins later (you know what women are like if they are not fed on time) I managed to find an open shop and got some fruit, ham, the obligatory half bottle of muscat and a slab of Lint chocolate. By this time the dogs, having finished their brekkie only an hour earlier, where demanding water. Cookie inhaled two bowls to Cinny's one and then I legged it out to the meeting point.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Alas the best laid plans don't always secure success. The was no safe parking at the meeting point (actually I could not get the car anywhere near it), the Wagons had taken a different route anyway, the car was hot and the dogs were now gagging for a pee.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">If your looking for a quite spot with parking in any town the cemetery is your best bet, so that's where we headed and found a decent enough spot even the dogs felt relie....Diddly ooh do diddly ooh do diddly ooh do doo..."George its Anne, our route through is not safe for the horses so we are going back to the road. Don't know how long it will take..will call you...battery is dying..call French mobile...". The dogs, one in each hand fully freshened up and unaware that I was on a phone call, decided it was time to explore. Cinny headed for open road while Cookie headed for cat country, aka the town, at speed. I must have looked like Jesus on the cross with my arms held out and head tilted to one side to hold the phone.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Anyway the dogs had made their wishes clear so I set off with them for a w...Diddly ooh do diddly ooh do diddly ooh do doo..."George we have found a great picnic place it's on the D90A...". Now GiGI does not do standing still so I bundled the dogs and cameras into the car, headed into town for some 3G coverage to find the D90a on google maps. The road was twisty and turny and I had to hold Cinny as we rounded a particularly bad hair pin b...Diddly ooh do diddly ooh do diddly ooh do doo..."George that's the D90a not the D98..."...ok ok I get it.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Anyway we finally met up and it was a fantastic spot. The LSH turned into the LSH, that's Ladies Stunt-double Horseman, when Anne very kindly offered me her horse for the return journey. Being Largely Same Height as Anne there was no adjustment required to the leathers and so off we set on what Martine said was a shorter route as it was now 3pm already.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The first thing that grabs you is the tranquility, you can feel the stress ebb away from you...no diddly ooh dos here. On sure ground the horses look after you and you can sit back and enjoy the country side. Yep, this is the way to do it.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The terrain does get rough at times. Think marbles on Yule Brenner's head and you have the right idea. Leave the horses to their own pace and they cope admirably. There is the occasional steep stone step which you might take on in the heat of the chase on a good day's hunting, but when you need your mounts to last 500km discretion is the order of the day. Then there is the occasional impassable route for which you just have to find an alternate way. But that all adds to the sense of adventure.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Despite all that, keeping your legs that far apart while balancing on your lower legs for 3 hours is a wholly un-natural act, made all the worse by having 50 year old joints that have not done this for a good while. So when Martine suggested we get off and walk over the skinny bridge and on home it was a blessed relief.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Thanks Anne, it was a beautiful afternoon. My hat is off to both of you. I don't know how you do it for 6 hours a day, but at least I know why.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">LSH (lathering soothing hointment)</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1539442">Day 9 - Somewhere near le Barroux at EveryTrail</a><br />
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<br />Martinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14496995504975297110noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-22487039264503622182012-04-20T23:10:00.002+01:002012-04-21T06:35:16.269+01:00Day 8 - Beaumes de Venise<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The three days in Aubignan, is a side trip, a sort of personal pilgrimage for Anne and I. </div>
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Part of the reason for this pilgrimage is that they make really good wine in this region - Rasteau, Cairranne, Gigondas are all close by, but the best of all is the Muscat de Beaumes de Venise, a dessert wine, which comes from the lovely little town of Beaumes de Venise, a couple of kilometres from Aubignan. </div>
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We also have very fond memories of getting lost last year, while trying to follow instructions given to us by Anne's cousin's Satnav. Fond memories of getting lost? Yes, really, it was a fantastic trip. First of all the Satnav tried to take us directly over the Dentelles, a spectacular rock formation on top of the Monts de Mirail, behind Beaumes de Venise. </div>
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As it directed us higher towards the Dentelles, the tracks became fainter, steeper and narrower, and we became more and more worried, until Anne finally cracked, and said we were turning around. This was fine by me, as I had been clutching the sides of my seat for some time! We eventually found somewhere to turn, and headed back towards civilisation, reached the village of Vacqueyras and once again asked the Satnav to take us to the vineyard we wanted to reach, Domaine de Durban. All was going well, until we started to climb once more, the road surface disappeared and we were driving on a dirt track. Undaunted, we continued to obey the Satnav, eventually following a tractor path at the side of a field and emerging on a road. A few hundred metres further on, the Satnav smugly announced "Arriving at destination - on right." Um, we were still in the middle of fields, vines stretching in all directions, no buildings in sight at all! Shrugging philosophically (what else could we do?) we continued down the road, to find a sign for Domain de Durban 500m further on. All's well that ends well, we sampled the wine, Anne bought some and we went back to Céreste, but the one thing we both remarked at the time was how wonderful it would be to ride up through the Dentelles.</div>
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Moving on fifteen months, here we are back in the area. The horses are stabled a couple of hundred metres from the Chambres d'Hote that we are staying in, which is ideal. They have a nice sandy pen to themselves, with a stable and field shelter attached, and friends next door, including a miniature horse stallion, who is the cutest thing ever!</div>
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I'm not sure Flurry agrees, though!</div>
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The plan for today was to ride a loop, as the LSH had a full day of work scheduled and needed us to be independent. We were aiming for 25km, and after consulting with a local lady who does a lot of walking, we mapped out a route which would take us through Beaumes de Venise, towards Vacqueyras, around the North side of the Dentelles near Gigondas and back to B de V. </div>
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We started off along a footpath by the canal, which was blissful! Dead flat, easy for the horses, nice level grass underfoot - not a stone in sight! We trotted and cantered along a good bit, enjoying the peace and quiet, looking out for ducks and fish in the canal.</div>
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Eventually we reached a town. After much puzzling over the map, I realised we had already gone wrong, and we were in Aubignan, not B de V. Not to worry, we were both in relaxed mood and we had the whole day ahead of us. I worked out an alternative which would take us back to B de V, and soon we were riding through olive groves - a first for Anne.<br />
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There were lots of almond trees too. Their flowering season is over, and they were laden with fuzzy green almonds, which will ripen over the summer months.<br />
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We were met by the usual barrage of ferocious barking from every garden we passed, and lots of traffic on the main street in B de V, but Flurry and Gigi are so used to towns now that even this bustling little town did not bother them at all.<br />
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We stopped for a quick map check in the middle of the town, and I guessed which was the most likely road. I was watching out for balisage or signage of any sort, and as we passed a small road I noticed a faint arrow painted on the ground, pointing up a narrow side street. "I think it's this way," I said to Anne, and much to my amazement, I was right. Soon we were in the countryside again, riding along beside another canal, heading towards Vacqueyras.<br />
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There were vines growing on every available piece of ground, but in this field, the vines were gone and there seemed to be barley growing in between where the rows of vines would have been. It has to be there on purpose, but it seems a bit strange - how can they harvest it, with all of the supports for the vines still in place?<br />
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Eventually we started climbing again, more vines everywhere and signs proudly proclaiming which domain owned each field.<br />
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This sign is just telling the world that we were in the Gigondas AOC region.<br />
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There was a chateau here, hidden behind the trees, but the gates were pretty good.<br />
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We followed the footpath which should have taken us towards Gigondas, but it was very overgrown, and after a few hundred metres we decided that it would be crazy to try to follow it with horses - it would have been difficult enough on foot, as there were many fallen trees and the surface was very uneven. <br />
I once again consulted the map, and worked out an alternative route, which would take us over the hill, on the South side of the Dentelles, and back towards B de V. Off we trotted, on a tarmac road heading uphill..... the tarmac faded away and we were on a dirt road, winding through forestry. "This looks familiar" I joked with Anne "If we pass a hairpin bend with a ruined house after it we're on the same road we were on last year."<br />
Well, what do you know, there was a hairpin bend, followed by a ruined house<br />
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which we both recognised! We carried on, and sure enough, soon we were following a tractor path through a field of vines! <br />
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And although we didn't have the Satnav to tell us, we recognised the place where it had told us "arriving at destination - on right."<br />
When we arrived at Domain de Durban, Anne and Gigi posed by the sign<br />
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and then we rode up towards the Caveau, and asked some visiting Americans to take our photo. Both horses were fidgety, and the kind gentleman had to take a few before he got this one :<br />
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Then we were on our way again,vines to the right of us,<br />
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vines to the left of us<br />
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with Mont Ventoux ever present in the background.</div>
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We added an extra loop on just to bring the distance up, and while riding along it we met a lovely young French woman with a horse and a pony. She was fascinated with our Renegade boots, and was very keen to find out about them, as her horse is barefoot. She was fascinated to hear about our Big Trek, too - she took Anne's email address and hopefully will keep in touch with us.</div>
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We eventually arrived back at the stables after six hours in the saddle, having done a pretty good repeat of our "Lost in the Dentelles" trip last year. Although today's ride was relatively easy, fatigue is beginning to accumulate. Anne was physically exhausted, and I felt like I'd been put through a mangle - my back, hips, knees and ankles were all killing me. I assume the horses must be feeling it too, although they are holding their condition well.</div>
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My wrist is great, though!</div>
<br />
<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1537966">Day 8 - Beaume de Venise at EveryTrail</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_1708816948"></span><span id="goog_1708816949"></span>Martinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14496995504975297110noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-3448472633754163662012-04-20T03:53:00.001+01:002012-04-20T03:56:26.236+01:00Day 7 - Flassan - BedoinAnne:- Yesterday was the day we were to move base to stay with some friends of mine who run a B&B in Aubignan. It was to be an "easy" day with just a short hack planned, as we had to pack up everything. So I was up as usual at 7:30 to feed the horses and was greeted by rain, which was falling as snow on the mountain tops.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Snow on them thar hills!</td></tr>
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Flurry of course, had taken this opportunity to cover himself in thick black mud, while Gigi was just standing there shivering. She was quite fractious and wouldn't settle to eat, but fortunately the guy who looks after the horsey side of the business turned up and asked me if I'd like to put them in the stables, and they were both delighted to be inside in the dry. So sweat rugs on and then I headed for a bit of breakfast myself.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Flurry had a special surprise for Martine</td></tr>
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There was a bit of discussion over breakfast, as to wether or not we would ride, I for one did not want to get soaked, but Martine had planned a route for us, along a nice stretch of horse trail. So we set off for Flassan after saying goodbye to our excellent hosts at <a href="http://www.les-bayles.com/">Les Bayles</a> with the sky still looking very threatening over Mont Ventoux.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mont Venoux, with its mantle of snow and cloud</td></tr>
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Fortunately by the time we got to Flassan the rain had eased and we were quickly tacked up and on our way. Spring is more advanced here and the vines are just beginning to sprout some green leaves and the cherries are clearly visible on the trees<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spring was much more advanced - cherry trees in leaf</td></tr>
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And lilac blooms in profusion.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lilac in bloom</td></tr>
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The weather was improving all the time, and both horses were happy to step out through this lovely countryside. Although when we asked them to canter, they both declined, well the ground was a bit hard !<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vines as far as the eye could see</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some just coming into leaf</td></tr>
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We had some good views of the Dentelles, we both have "fond" memories of getting lost up there last year courtesy of the satnav!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Les Dentelles in the distance</td></tr>
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And we came across another ochre outcrop just before we came into Bedoin. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Approaching les Ochres de Bedoin</td></tr>
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Martine phoned her LSH, who had been moved on by the police when he tried to wait for us in the town, and he was waiting for us just outside of Bedoin on the Flassan road. Off we set, following the signs , right through the town centre, and our first roundabout! Not a bother to our stalwart horses. Past the town delimit sign and onwards, but no sign of George or the blue horsebox. After a few quick phone calls we discovered there were two roads to Flassan out of Bedoin. By this time we had dismounted to facilitate communications and decided to stay on foot to make our way back to the roundabout. We attracted quite a bit of attention from the locals on our second trip through town, and got a bit delayed with a few lost in translation conversations, but finally found George parked in a handy field. This accoounts for the "wiggle" at the end of the Everytrail map.<br />
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<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1536807">http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1536807</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1536807">Day 7 - Bedoin at EveryTrail</a><br />
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EveryTrail - Find <a href="http://www.everytrail.com/best/hiking-california">hiking trails in California</a> and beyondMartinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14496995504975297110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-63796533660371932552012-04-18T21:18:00.000+01:002013-04-18T16:16:32.867+01:00Day 6 - Montbrun to St Auban<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
On our first night in Les Bayles, Cookie was very restless. In the morning, we found her asleep on the inner part of her bed, with the outer part practically pulled over herself, so I remarked that she might be cold. On our second night, the LSH (who doesn't like dogs!!!) covered her up, not only with a towel, but with his favourite sweater! There wasn't a peep out of them all night! Yeah, that's the behaviour of a man who doesn't like dogs!</div>
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The food in Les Bayles was once again outstanding. We were the only guests dining "in" that night, and we were invited to join the family for dinner - this is a big thing in France, and we felt quite honoured. For dinner, we had a homemade charcuterie plate (pate, terrine and tete de veau, which is like the English brawn) to start, followed by blancquette de veau - veal stew. I don't normally eat veal, but it's different when you're dining in a family situation, and it was delicious!</div>
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Today, then, got off to an inauspicious start. Anne was feeling distinctly unwell, and there were various burping noises emanating from the back seat of the jeep as we drove from St Trinite to Montbrun, our drop-off point. She insisted she was fine, nothing was going to deter us today!</div>
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We were determined to find the horse-trail we missed yesterday, and had checked and double checked on the map so we were sure we knew where we were going. We were dropped by a bridge, there was a dirt road leading off to the right. All we had to do was follow this road and we'd join up with the horse trail. Simple, right?</div>
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Well, the road became a private driveway, with a sign for the footpath pointing up a faint track. We followed this track gamely, ducking under low branches as it climbed steeply uphill, until we were presented with a choice of two trails, one of which ended in some bushes and the other which went up a very narrow, steep, rough scramble. Anne was not happy with either option, and I was not at all happy at the thought of going back down the steep ground and low branches we'd just travelled through, so I scouted up the rough scramble on foot.</div>
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Thankfully, it was really only rough and steep for about 70 meters, after that it levelled out, and I could see where it wound across the hill and joined a bigger trail, which I was sure was the horse trail.</div>
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So we led the horses up the rough bit, and God bless 'em, they were great, scrambling up behind us, never once launching themselves over-enthusiastically at it, which would probably have resulted in a Wagon being knocked down! We finally joined the horse trail and took a breather!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmxhul8QwUXnQpXkhduRANYnWIrrtfa0zHFM2nSJfH1Tl40jo2Rz0rfPhnK4fiROtljUOlY2JA_QnWgpa4eVtrTKCUvEUGLgupyiSG0L1kkeEISG6nNW_xn_WNFo5HNqc5wVpDuzehzik/s1600/DSCN1040.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmxhul8QwUXnQpXkhduRANYnWIrrtfa0zHFM2nSJfH1Tl40jo2Rz0rfPhnK4fiROtljUOlY2JA_QnWgpa4eVtrTKCUvEUGLgupyiSG0L1kkeEISG6nNW_xn_WNFo5HNqc5wVpDuzehzik/s640/DSCN1040.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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At this stage, we'd covered about 1km and were puffing badly.</div>
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We continued onwards and upwards...and upwards...and upwards.</div>
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It wasn't exceptionally steep, but it was a steady climb, and it went on for ages. Both horses were working hard to keep going, and there was not much in the way of scenery, a lot of scrub and rock, with occasional sites where someone had been quarrying for gravel.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Quarry on the way to Col des Arles</td></tr>
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I remarked to Anne that this was not my favourite trail, in fact I thought it was quite boring. Eventually we arrived at the top, 1027M up, having climbed 300 meters in 2 kilometres. This was a welcome sight :<br />
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but the spectacular views were even better.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIhcO0DT6ooY5AKLZE-mPnSxm1asffOh8ioHYRhsodmQlweXjW8HIbh_fUkKzhH0bMXX_z0Gd94V-gptiI1lCCKlFAYTNN1uz1Sdnusm-5lFiD1-F9UVU7tvb8kWreJenJgGCZYdd2-qk/s1600/M&F+Col+des+Arles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIhcO0DT6ooY5AKLZE-mPnSxm1asffOh8ioHYRhsodmQlweXjW8HIbh_fUkKzhH0bMXX_z0Gd94V-gptiI1lCCKlFAYTNN1uz1Sdnusm-5lFiD1-F9UVU7tvb8kWreJenJgGCZYdd2-qk/s640/M&F+Col+des+Arles.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Martine & Flurry at the Col des Arles</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRkQ848r2dDMyEJBfsuk9FkZUh2zeYyIpy8i1bSOM7VfBNgSh4d7CcAVhYf9n6As5TYmjM4Vcb4-r5LdWDD8Uj9o4CcoStUt0Jz30HjXp3yKzQd9ZbkMoPyko-k5OkHL0DqDX02WFjoEg/s1600/DSCN1047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivMfAkYGSFm1peFUlHr0uwX9RyP3CA1ve7r3w31d5Z_55kqp-8zdI4rFPjMWnkD_SH9yWrOKGms4dioardgYxZtUjJYniLwXTwAd6E8nG7OxPI5yfrLTGif2doTMJrO4k3RoQNp1N4Ir4/s1600/DSCN1048.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivMfAkYGSFm1peFUlHr0uwX9RyP3CA1ve7r3w31d5Z_55kqp-8zdI4rFPjMWnkD_SH9yWrOKGms4dioardgYxZtUjJYniLwXTwAd6E8nG7OxPI5yfrLTGif2doTMJrO4k3RoQNp1N4Ir4/s320/DSCN1048.jpg" width="320" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; color: black;"> </span></a><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRkQ848r2dDMyEJBfsuk9FkZUh2zeYyIpy8i1bSOM7VfBNgSh4d7CcAVhYf9n6As5TYmjM4Vcb4-r5LdWDD8Uj9o4CcoStUt0Jz30HjXp3yKzQd9ZbkMoPyko-k5OkHL0DqDX02WFjoEg/s320/DSCN1047.jpg" width="320" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; color: black;"></span></div>
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I was fascinated with this flat-topped mountain in the distance. Our trail was to take us behind this and up the mountain behind it to the left.</div>
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The sky was fantastic, adding to the beauty of the scenery below.<br />
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Eventually, 10km into the journey, we passed the point where we should have been collected the previous day. We agreed that continuing yesterday would have been a mistake, as we would all have struggled with the climb to the Col des Arles at the end of a days trekking.<br />
Flurry was enjoying the views, as usual.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlugjrG_AopLIemTeIpv8S-EMwRWVBhFUmKrqLSuxq4xpT5P-MI1Z6WLuV27ktJaIKmhkY8tS87fl_lsVuZUyfrYiifvBEpk8-OfDdFBnVZyk57BUpcexXO5G0apR7s7srWw2FB7YNERw/s1600/DSCN1059.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlugjrG_AopLIemTeIpv8S-EMwRWVBhFUmKrqLSuxq4xpT5P-MI1Z6WLuV27ktJaIKmhkY8tS87fl_lsVuZUyfrYiifvBEpk8-OfDdFBnVZyk57BUpcexXO5G0apR7s7srWw2FB7YNERw/s640/DSCN1059.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
We stopped for lunch at a tiny graveyard, which had the smallest church we'd ever seen beside it.<br />
The closest grave belonged to Sophie Carre, who died in 1994, aged 10 - she would have been the same age as Anne's daughter Polly if she was still alive. Spare her a thought, or a prayer, or whatever you do...<br />
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At this point, we were behind the flat-topped mountain - here's Anne and the equines finishing up lunch, with a very nice crag behind them :<br />
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We skirted the little town of Pelleret, and started climbing once again.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGufIM9FlIx_fnPEGpP0PupJEZzzOCpCamxldRgfp3uGgH3YWA5DWwOz5nsnkmkTRbf9fvovlwMEk0frHUDRoLBMT5o5LriNxSq13XXQRxVH4Ics2iiyWYnQdM1REruIJr7XG5x5Yc25U/s1600/DSCN1067.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGufIM9FlIx_fnPEGpP0PupJEZzzOCpCamxldRgfp3uGgH3YWA5DWwOz5nsnkmkTRbf9fvovlwMEk0frHUDRoLBMT5o5LriNxSq13XXQRxVH4Ics2iiyWYnQdM1REruIJr7XG5x5Yc25U/s640/DSCN1067.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View across Pelleret to the south</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuttyxYD46UrtrprTUc7jnD3ugCw2_6yjVnjL6bTYstb4fRHDq70LmabkJ60baYnVL37ann9yMmLH8QrU9f-fWKZDNIO9DY3uXLaizO8dXxS14R8bwn6AeSvQ2x68uEd_Rmz_imjhBFGQ/s1600/DSCN1068.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuttyxYD46UrtrprTUc7jnD3ugCw2_6yjVnjL6bTYstb4fRHDq70LmabkJ60baYnVL37ann9yMmLH8QrU9f-fWKZDNIO9DY3uXLaizO8dXxS14R8bwn6AeSvQ2x68uEd_Rmz_imjhBFGQ/s640/DSCN1068.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The last view of the flat-topped mountain</td></tr>
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We crossed the top of the mountain, Mont de Croc, and suddenly a whole new landscape opened up beneath us, a bit rougher and wilder, perhaps, with a different sort of beauty, the mountains of the Drôme stretching away to the North.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXKZErdDmZ93DYH1ldUts2avJlVAeUqh6cA5mW1U9W3xnXI-EUTLBOkSiv1DSXxSLyzecEUHiQf1sXikpffsVhyX82J6KSUjtBtdaqUrh_fnBC2j9Zfr7uK8xPsBPe2Xz5VZ2NT8W7PwI/s1600/DSCN1073.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXKZErdDmZ93DYH1ldUts2avJlVAeUqh6cA5mW1U9W3xnXI-EUTLBOkSiv1DSXxSLyzecEUHiQf1sXikpffsVhyX82J6KSUjtBtdaqUrh_fnBC2j9Zfr7uK8xPsBPe2Xz5VZ2NT8W7PwI/s640/DSCN1073.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSfO1iXvmgZfcLtGC0bis4pzehg5iJU5eigvGppTysXVKmDOhDdNl_Fssh2vjdgx5dgdRfjWo58Tu18_ewT3qg4kqFOcj3BGYQPv06oue6OTNvUpQAtnhwXTJOjtl8NuMdnk1gx9kPmdE/s1600/DSCN1074.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSfO1iXvmgZfcLtGC0bis4pzehg5iJU5eigvGppTysXVKmDOhDdNl_Fssh2vjdgx5dgdRfjWo58Tu18_ewT3qg4kqFOcj3BGYQPv06oue6OTNvUpQAtnhwXTJOjtl8NuMdnk1gx9kPmdE/s640/DSCN1074.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
We were fascinated with this ridge :<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLxclvQMWUmJljqIwgZwKx_o43CPMWaWXkfZWRfpz-sBTQlCYLuRZei5VZnvwU_LDCZnWs6ClkXRf5CUb_HXdtmwMop3WAUHvUjHee20vLG_6gcmJ1R_kThtMJdx22rPwjV7gRnsq6ld0/s1600/DSCN1076.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLxclvQMWUmJljqIwgZwKx_o43CPMWaWXkfZWRfpz-sBTQlCYLuRZei5VZnvwU_LDCZnWs6ClkXRf5CUb_HXdtmwMop3WAUHvUjHee20vLG_6gcmJ1R_kThtMJdx22rPwjV7gRnsq6ld0/s640/DSCN1076.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
There is one house situated along the top, with a single lane road leading up to it. We didn't realise for some time that our route would bring us past the house, through their garden, and continue along the ridge, with jaw-dropping scenery to either side.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin67tU1DMuhiZLzFzcsjWjCTZAqN7D2b3Al4bz_1jtEWga_-JpbGyW4amcBoZYlfbDdYF2SBk_0n6qsyMkqnJYF_wsn01AFEwDGRPGQhs4yD6lKuY4UbKlFWidX0j55HQUgMLjEkbfLKo/s1600/DSCN1077.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin67tU1DMuhiZLzFzcsjWjCTZAqN7D2b3Al4bz_1jtEWga_-JpbGyW4amcBoZYlfbDdYF2SBk_0n6qsyMkqnJYF_wsn01AFEwDGRPGQhs4yD6lKuY4UbKlFWidX0j55HQUgMLjEkbfLKo/s640/DSCN1077.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Approaching the house, view to the left</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0xsSIuP88OYceiD3N9ahUAtwN_bD-PchoxmagbhVaavAUMHjsFyfkrKzJN87aM78QsR2JZrCt3hwgid0HW9aT7j3zB0TYyQWPs_IFYSC2ymWLRROgkFwV6oDAl0tYT4R-UqYh11l1bqU/s1600/DSCN1079.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0xsSIuP88OYceiD3N9ahUAtwN_bD-PchoxmagbhVaavAUMHjsFyfkrKzJN87aM78QsR2JZrCt3hwgid0HW9aT7j3zB0TYyQWPs_IFYSC2ymWLRROgkFwV6oDAl0tYT4R-UqYh11l1bqU/s640/DSCN1079.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Anne & Gigi passing the house</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZzZLwY8S4q8kmXe_7LfilDEzeAjFRW5_ms-_APGWvahrFDDjNVTJzwgvEHXy0gyctX4H8DBbkqPF5Tg7eUn5G3poy9jsEcZkSeYe7nB6kD3sfYjwciu7SVJBNB0m6QNSp6Y2_41V1dI/s1600/DSCN1080.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="470" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZzZLwY8S4q8kmXe_7LfilDEzeAjFRW5_ms-_APGWvahrFDDjNVTJzwgvEHXy0gyctX4H8DBbkqPF5Tg7eUn5G3poy9jsEcZkSeYe7nB6kD3sfYjwciu7SVJBNB0m6QNSp6Y2_41V1dI/s640/DSCN1080.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View to the right, after the house</td></tr>
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Anne suffers from vertigo, and was determinedly NOT looking down at this point.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh36Ur27AixIblFypP8ezG6RY10kmUfLzl78ZZbO51A8DcFJX2iIQT3Pvp4HY8G1tnyWATYIoJXejttw5ejT4oKT6vmIoAhGd3o22sMdrgLRtbP28_ITfLxGmAkLOjUiWnD5tDOvUBvmsw/s1600/DSCN1083.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="548" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh36Ur27AixIblFypP8ezG6RY10kmUfLzl78ZZbO51A8DcFJX2iIQT3Pvp4HY8G1tnyWATYIoJXejttw5ejT4oKT6vmIoAhGd3o22sMdrgLRtbP28_ITfLxGmAkLOjUiWnD5tDOvUBvmsw/s640/DSCN1083.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
We ended up dismounting just after the house, as the ground was rough and the branches were low.<br />
Finally, the trail levelled off, and then we began the long descent into St Auban sur Ouveze. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq78u1SfFMHetlEFWsyJq2X3XkKH9ay6rsCtidocgJsDMTKyRlqkbK5mhiNjILe4VolRhwUy-ns4PhtD-6gtWCMqIpgqMYCMkcqOxnshqbwj8KhM0E7nN7thnD1H-LawI7zFttJYFLEaI/s1600/Slide1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq78u1SfFMHetlEFWsyJq2X3XkKH9ay6rsCtidocgJsDMTKyRlqkbK5mhiNjILe4VolRhwUy-ns4PhtD-6gtWCMqIpgqMYCMkcqOxnshqbwj8KhM0E7nN7thnD1H-LawI7zFttJYFLEaI/s320/Slide1.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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As we were riding along the ridge, we could see the road from Montbrun beneath use. All of a sudden, what did we see but a blue jeep and horsebox - the LSH was on his way! Unfortunately, I missed the photo by about 5 seconds - désolée!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The road winding into St Auban</td></tr>
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So we arrived into St Auban, tired but elated. After a pretty bad start, it turned out to be the best day so far. The LSH was waiting, and he knew that we would have broken the 100km mark, so he had bought a small bottle of champagne and celebratory T-shirts! The horses got to eat the lushest grass they've seen for ages<br />
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and then had a drink at the town fountain - I really love this about French villages, they all have drinking water for horses!<br />
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We've now ridden in three French Départements, Alpes de Haute Provence, Vaucluse and Drôme, covering just over 100km. Tomorrow we leave Les Bayles and relocate to Aubignan for three days, which is a detour we are doing along the way - it's a sort of pilgrimage for me & Anne!<br />
We are all getting fitter, and although Anne and I still walk a fair bit every day, just to give our legs and bums a break, we're not suffering from cramps and aches as much as we were at the start. The horses seem to be coping fine, although we might plan on an easier day tomorrow... we'll see what the forecast is like in the morning.<br />
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If you're enjoying following our journey, please consider visiting our <a href="http://www.mycharity.ie/event/anne_renshaws_event/" target="_blank">charity page</a> and donating a few euro to the program for Assistance dogs for children with Autism - a great charity, and the reason we're doing Le Big Trek!<br />
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The Everytrail map for today<br />
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<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1535716">http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1535716</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1535716">Day 6 Montbrun to St Auban at EveryTrail</a><br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="300" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.everytrail.com/iframe2.php?trip_id=1535716&width=400&height=300" width="400"></iframe>EveryTrail - Find <a href="http://www.everytrail.com/best/hiking-california">hiking trails in California</a> and beyondMartinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14496995504975297110noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-18321231638601168932012-04-17T21:12:00.003+01:002012-04-17T21:23:28.832+01:00Day 5 - St Trinite to AulanAnne:- Dinner at <a href="http://www.les-bayles.com/">Les Bayles</a> turned out to be really good, the whole evening enhanced by the fact that we ate with 3 other cavaliers from near Poitiers ! OK dinner first:- This place serves only local produce, we started with an grapefruit aperitif, homemade of course with pickled mushrooms, followed by a starter of an omelette with local mushrooms, boletus I think. The main course was a very rich beef stew or "daube" as the French call it, with spelt grains as the vegetable, absolutely delicious ! Dessert of chocolate mousse cake, I can hardly wait for the next dinner. The other riders were up earlier than us, and already tacked up when we arrived to groom our guys. They trek one week in four, and were really well equipped, they carry everything with them, and were immaculately dressed for dinner, how do they do it ?. Impressive! We both loved the appaloosa , but all three horses were lovely.<br />
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Gigi especially loved this fella!<br />
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Finally we got tacked up and headed off, but we hadn't got very far when we heard a car sounding it's horn behind us. What could they want ? I had inadvertently dropped the spare Renegade boot I was carrying, $86 a piece. I couldn't thank them enough for having taken the trouble to find us!<br />
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We passed through the pretty village of St Trinit<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St Trinit</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St Trinit Eglise</td></tr>
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Encountered a lot of very busy ants<br />
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We were traveling on a bridleway, and at a junction we came across a much welcome water fountain.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Water Fountain in the middle of nowhere</td></tr>
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And this magnificent chair carved out of a tree stump.</div>
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Sometimes the signs for the bridleways can be difficult to spot<br />
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But the pathways are mostly wide and generous<br />
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And descending into the valley of Aurel we saw a magnificent red kite.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Approaching Aurel</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aurel</td></tr>
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The small gardens were beautifully planted<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beautifully maintained houses in Aurel</td></tr>
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There were great views all around us<br />
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And Gigi caught Flurry's habit of taking in the beauty<br />
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We think this fortification maybe marked the old boundary between France and Italy<br />
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And here the sky just blew our minds away<br />
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The bridleway took us up over the mountains and at the top we stopped for lunch and the horses had a well earned rest.<br />
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Finally we came to the end of the bridleway, this is a view of Reilhanette<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Montbrun</td></tr>
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Unfortunately we couldn't find the next track, and so we continued on the road for the rest of the day's trip to Aurel. Passing these lovely wild tulips on the way.<br />
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The horses had refused to drink at the fountain at Montbrun , it was just too scary, so they were delighted to get down to the river here. Where the water was crystal clear and fast flowing<br />
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And finally Aulan ! A total of 23.2 Km.<br />
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I want to say a huge thank you to the French for allowing horses such free access to their beautiful countryside , we travelled over 18K on horse tracks, NO traffic, well signposted for the best part, and water fountains along the way, we have equally beautiful countryside in Ireland, why can't we have the same rights of access ?<br />
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<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1534521">http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1534521</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1534521">Day 5, St Trinite to Aulan at EveryTrail</a><br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="300" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.everytrail.com/iframe2.php?trip_id=1534521&width=400&height=300" width="400"></iframe>EveryTrail - Find <a href="http://www.everytrail.com/best/hiking-california">hiking trails in California</a> and beyondMartinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14496995504975297110noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287070852986557179.post-78837690322263465742012-04-17T21:00:00.000+01:002012-04-17T21:17:50.046+01:00Day 4 - St Christol to St TriniteThe horses had a day off yesterday but the LSH and I did not - we spent the entire day packing up the jeep and tidying the house before we left. After a long, long journey from New Zealand, Rod and Angela finally arrived home and we handed over the reins. Apart from the dishwasher, coffee machine and kettle all deciding to stop working sometime within our last week, there were no more catastrophes and no more canine damage (that we know about anyway!)<br />
We were all up bright and early this morning, with a target departure time of 10am. Much to our surprise, we actually drove out of La Florentine for the last time a few minutes before ten, having said our final "last goodbyes". <br />
Our very own paparazzi were on-site to record the occasion :<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAol3fMnKyzIQoH8dhqA0SlePyHWTDMIlTYRhevLi8BS2O84o0Z20j7M556AbfMgmfaM8BLO6D4t9TwemAfylTuZbjYNIoQe50sU8Rt3S2VU4prrjz1VFB0x3Q7OmkT2LCbRxkFnxv2F0/s1600/DSCN0967.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAol3fMnKyzIQoH8dhqA0SlePyHWTDMIlTYRhevLi8BS2O84o0Z20j7M556AbfMgmfaM8BLO6D4t9TwemAfylTuZbjYNIoQe50sU8Rt3S2VU4prrjz1VFB0x3Q7OmkT2LCbRxkFnxv2F0/s640/DSCN0967.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thanks David!</td></tr>
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The trip to St Christol, where we had finished trekking on Saturday, took about an hour and a half, but we quickly tacked up and set off.</div>
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It was COLD!!! We had discussed what we would wear - I had decided to wear my coat over a t-shirt and keep my sweater in my saddle bags, and Anne had decided to pack away her coat and wear a thick fleece, but thirty seconds after getting out of the car, we had both donned an extra layer! There was a strong northerly wind blowing - I think it's the Mistral - and I doubt that the temperature rose above 10C the whole day.</div>
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We were following a pedestrian trail initially, but joined a clearly marked equestrian trail after a couple of kilometres. The balisage (trail marking) was mostly excellent, especially while we were in woodlands, but in a few places the land was fairly bleak and the balisage was painted on a rock or a large stone on the ground - not always easy to spot!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spot the balisage! It's the faint orange smudge on the stone</td></tr>
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We also found what's probably the lowest height they'll be able to pass under - there was a fallen tree across the trail at one point. </div>
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We were already on foot, my right leg has been cramping up quite badly after a few hours in the saddle, so I need to walk every so often to ease it out. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leading Flurry</td></tr>
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I guessed that Flurry would fit under the tree, which he did, but neither of us were sure about Gigi. Anne managed to break one of the lower branches, which made just enough space for Gigi to pass underneath it. It was a warning, though, that we are better off sticking to equestrian trails rather than risking the footpaths, as you just can't guarantee that they'll be suitable for horses.</div>
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We passed through fields and fields of lavender :</div>
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embryonic, with a cloud-topped Mont Ventoux in the background</div>
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juvenile</div>
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and mature</div>
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It must be amazing in July when it's all in flower!<br />
We met a very curious donkey, who the horses found extremely interesting at first, but they quickly got over the novelty and carried on resolutely, despite his entreaties...<br />
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We've both become pretty blasé about answering the call of nature at the side of the trail. We're in the middle of nowhere, there's no-one else around, so why not?<br />
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So there I was, having a wee just at the side of the trail, holding Flurry's reins while Anne discreetly waited a short distance away. Flurry watched what I was doing, and decided that it looked like a good idea, so next thing I know, he's having a pee right beside me!</div>
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Thankfully, there is no photo of that!!</div>
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Finally, we got our first glimpse of St Trinite over the horizon<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCvn_jFe54aEDdoZArdtER-Dtf3niGTQb3TX3Z29x9QBcIo_8PunhyphenhyphenMzBIs_LKzkDH24GPEr08M4tpaEHlv85D9tWsb1JyTN2_sqWmjRVZP1d0S1RlKDzTqKJrd7CQgnSoCPREvHpovH0/s1600/DSCN0989.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCvn_jFe54aEDdoZArdtER-Dtf3niGTQb3TX3Z29x9QBcIo_8PunhyphenhyphenMzBIs_LKzkDH24GPEr08M4tpaEHlv85D9tWsb1JyTN2_sqWmjRVZP1d0S1RlKDzTqKJrd7CQgnSoCPREvHpovH0/s640/DSCN0989.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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and before long we arrived at Les Bayles, a lovely gite équestre a couple of kilometres outside of St Trinite.</div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGKSt_J9hP58CxjGiGUARQ5O_dzOQwWQl4FGc3GYrhOXp2HomGnC2Mm1qnOt4oiXWq9kcqNmAG6zgKQGA8AkanByNCQBczqUNqUjigatPLgttkQiEcA4Sfgr2TdjPqu2rJsiUi6qnO26Y/s1600/DSCN0997.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGKSt_J9hP58CxjGiGUARQ5O_dzOQwWQl4FGc3GYrhOXp2HomGnC2Mm1qnOt4oiXWq9kcqNmAG6zgKQGA8AkanByNCQBczqUNqUjigatPLgttkQiEcA4Sfgr2TdjPqu2rJsiUi6qnO26Y/s640/DSCN0997.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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The horses settled in straight away<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQsVgolroX7rcSvqiJyDCmXjlrIBtIHYGnsg2fH-0xR0eM7JlGQJ9S7ok4MaCavKJt09qjwjc63g9qABXDj6rXNE7C33zseWGBkvZab97gn9nLRWQpVc6IT723ig9iEOvFHeSIJhwvbTI/s1600/DSCN0994.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQsVgolroX7rcSvqiJyDCmXjlrIBtIHYGnsg2fH-0xR0eM7JlGQJ9S7ok4MaCavKJt09qjwjc63g9qABXDj6rXNE7C33zseWGBkvZab97gn9nLRWQpVc6IT723ig9iEOvFHeSIJhwvbTI/s640/DSCN0994.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp6FG3b8OBo-Vwp4biWSSwiaieRslpKl64PLUBrh3-q-E3Ct5pfVY_wMyAx-CGKgrkmqdrz0ysRfvviQIf_QYoQjjW54xsZBwUV4R118nVLAG5L6nNI6hyphenhyphencDVNNIia_vti-00UXuedXvI/s1600/DSCN0996.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp6FG3b8OBo-Vwp4biWSSwiaieRslpKl64PLUBrh3-q-E3Ct5pfVY_wMyAx-CGKgrkmqdrz0ysRfvviQIf_QYoQjjW54xsZBwUV4R118nVLAG5L6nNI6hyphenhyphencDVNNIia_vti-00UXuedXvI/s640/DSCN0996.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
and said hello to their new neighbours<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUs9tMFdpBRvzmmwNbAUIO4OYO8MrRr0Igu0aruwZEl1tBXOs_8H2Jj2Clmo1EjAS-F9JX4evZxaIN8_ZZOcl0eYyGy-VRwjJJzAZnRsB0w-Zo0wWz5ALXbX6JAJzwS4K-9b67IL0Jd4g/s1600/DSCN0995.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUs9tMFdpBRvzmmwNbAUIO4OYO8MrRr0Igu0aruwZEl1tBXOs_8H2Jj2Clmo1EjAS-F9JX4evZxaIN8_ZZOcl0eYyGy-VRwjJJzAZnRsB0w-Zo0wWz5ALXbX6JAJzwS4K-9b67IL0Jd4g/s640/DSCN0995.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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while we got settled in to our own accomodation.</div>
Here's the Everytrail map :<br />
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<a href="http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1533457">Day 3 - St Christol to St Trinite at EveryTrail</a><br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="300" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.everytrail.com/iframe2.php?trip_id=1533457&width=400&height=300" width="400"></iframe><br />
EveryTrail - Find <a href="http://www.everytrail.com/best/hiking-california">hiking trails in California</a> and beyondMartinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14496995504975297110noreply@blogger.com1