Bittersweet Closure in the Cantinière Forest

For those of you who have been waiting on baited breath for this post, I apologize.  I have been procrastinating.  It is so difficult to write the last blog of such a wonderful adventure.  It means I will have to face facts that it really is over.  Then I'll have to decide "what comes next"...

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Today is our final hike in Beaujolais, France.  There was only one real choice for what that would be:  back to Saint-Cyr-le-Chatoux to check on Littlest Hobo.  Walking with him in the Foret Cantinière has been a big highlight of my sojourn here, and the memory of him walking away from me in La Cantinère has haunted me... did he make it back home ok?

Plans made, we wake up to pouring rain.  I can hardly believe it.  I keep peering out the sky at the windows as I finish up the last of my packing.

Finally, the rain stops around 2pm.  We will not have time for a huge randonnée today, but I would really like to give it a go.

I plot a route from Saint-Cyr to Chavanière and back, on a new route and in a different direction than our previous hikes in the area.  Our hike will follow one section of the Sentier des Agneaux (Trail of the Lambs), but in a "backward" direction, against the arrows.  It is a 5-6 km loop that goes through a 200m elevation change, first down, then up again.  Although, as you will see in the map below, a mid-hike change of plans bumped that 200m to 260m, but maximized the new trails we were able to cover.

We get in the camionnette and drive to Saint-Cyr.  The sun is trying to come out, but it is still mostly behind ominous-looking clouds.  We park at Espace Monique Rivière by the trail map and head into town, looking for Littlest Hobo.

There are dozens of little songbirds flying around La Madrone.  The sheep next to the path greet us.  No wait, they are coming to eat the tasty lunch someone had put in their dishes.  They could care less about us.  lol.  Despite not being able to keep the sheep's attention, I find it fitting that we see them just as we are about to walk the Lamb's Trail.  Plus, now I can't get Victor Garbor's "Woooool!" out of my head.

Following the road into town and the "St-Cyr-le Chatoux Le Village" randonnée signpost, I am excited to see the Littlest Hobo laying under a car, on the same street where we first met him.  I am thrilled he made it home ok!

I run down to meet him, and he struggles to his feet.  He looks way too thin.  His coat has lost its lustre.  His once-sharp eyes are dull, and he doesn't seem to recognize us, although he weakly nuzzles my hand.  I am shocked and confused.   He seems to have aged 20 years!   Was this the result of us leaving him to get home on his own from La Cantinière?   Did he experience some horrible trauma while trying to get home?   I feel a wave of guilt and sorrow.

Then I check his collar and it doesn't seem right... I am pretty sure this is not the collar he was wearing last time I saw him.  Is it possible this is not Littlest Hobo after all?  He looks so similar, and is in the right location, but is not acting at all right.

As if in answer to my question, I hear enthusiastic barking coming from the door next to us.  I call out: "Is that you, Hobo?  Are you in there, sweetie?"  This prompts another round of happy barking.  I want to knock on the door, to see if anyone is home, and to verify that Littlest Hobo is in there, alive and well.  But I am shy, and convince myself that the multiple rounds of barking means that no-one is home.  

Colin muses, "This guy must be Hobo's father or uncle or something."  I nod nervously, unconvinced.  Colin continues, "Many people have more than one of the same type of dog.  We almost adopted our dog's brother as well."  I nod again, still looking at the door.  Colin tries again, "Listen to that healthy happy barking.  Surely, it's Littlest Hobo inside--he is barking because he recognizes our voices and wants to say hi.  See, he is ok.  He sounds good."  

Mollified, we head out on our hike.  We see a Golden Lamb head arrow, but we are going "backward" on the trail, so instead we follow the yellow randonnée signpost towards Les Aigais. 

As we select Le Bourg street at the intersection, we pass a couple with the biggest hiking backpacks ever.  We joke that they must be doing the full 12km Lambs Trail loop.  Now that we are old hats at travelling the Cantinière forest, Colin and I only carry one small backpack between us.  Sadly, on this cold overcast day, neither of us thought to bring a coat. 

At the entrance to Le Bourg, there is a very ornate white crucifix, which reads: Gratitude Protection 22 August 1944, marking the turning point in World War 2 and the liberation of several cities in France.  

As we head down the hill of Le Bourg, the wind is bitingly cold.  I half-jog, trying to warm up.  Colin says, "Soon we'll be going uphill... That might warm us up."  (Ever heard that phrase "Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it?")

The sheep grazing on the slopes seem oblivious to the weather.  We pass a paved road branching off to the right, and soon we reach the path we want: a gravel road heading off to the left, marked with another crucifix.  This crucifix has the initials BG on it. 

The trail continues a downward pitch, then levels off.  We pass through a variety of beautiful forests and fields before being deposited back on pavement at the Aigais randonnée signpost. 

We turn left onto the road.  The road turns at the end of the valley that cradles the Ruisseau des Aigais, and follows along the other side.  At the corner, a gravel path branches off the pavement.  According to the map, this path would take us close to the Bois Chapelin signpost.  However, today we stick to the pavement and take "the scenic route" to the Bois de la Chavenière signpost. 

The skies begin to clear, and we pass a tree with another cool mushroom growing on it.  

We are watching for the next path branching off to the left.  If we stay on the paved road too long, we will end up way off track, unable to easily get back. We easily recognize the next fork, but because the stakes are high that we get this turn right, Colin double-checks it with googlemaps. 

This trail takes us back into the woods.  We stay right at the next fork.  Going left would take us directly to the Bois de la Chavenière signpost, but as I said, we are taking the scenic route.   ;)  Plus, the left fork looks steep.  ;)

We want to keep left at the next fork, and it is easy, since someone has carefully blocked off the right-hand fork with a log placed about two feet off the ground.  

The path starts to pitch upwards.  "Here we go..."  I pant.  We will be doing about 180m of elevation in the next 2 km.  The brown leaves cover the path and remind me that summer is ending and autumn is beginning.  It's at once beautiful and sad. 

We pass the Bois de la Chavenière signpost, the campsite we saw on our hike with Littlest Hobo,  then arrive at the Bois Chapelin signpost.  By now, Colin's plan of warmth-by-hill-climb has definitely come to pass. 

My original plan was to turn left and follow the flat trail we had done before with the Littlest Hobo, just in the opposite direction.  However, standing here, we decide we will take a path not taken, and head directly forward to Point 773.  I glance at the map and notice the route is slightly shorter.  I don't think to ask why. 

The trail is very rough and rocky, and heads very steeply upward through thick brush.  I think of the wide clear flat gravel road we could have taken, and have second thoughts about our last-minute choice. 

While resting and trying to catch our breath part-way up, Colin notes, "I thought this probably was going to be a big hill, because the path we normally take goes so far around it on the map.  Only an idiot would want to walk over this."  Ummm... what you say now???  Something that could have been brought to my attention EARLIER!!! 

By the time we reach the top, just short of the Point 773 randonnée signpost, I am coated in a nice glistening sweat, but enthusiastically raise my arms in triumph:  "I'm a star!  I'm on top!"  

We follow the signpost arrow left and head down towards the nearby Bois Chai signpost.  At Bois Chai, we head left towards Le Crèt Pilon signpost.  

Since last time we took the right-hand fork up to the viewpoint, this time we take the left-hand fork, just for fun.  It leads along a grassy track back to Espace Monique Rivière. 

At the Espace Monique Rivière, we take a moment to honor the gravity of this moment:  the end of our last randonnée in France.  (I think Colin captured it better than me... I look more like grumpy cat.)   The fencepost facing us shows two randonnée Xs...  end of the road. 

On the drive back, I call out to all the landmarks as we pass them:  "Bye Allières...  Bye Chez Chris... Bye good bakery that's always closed... Bye think of the children..."

We see the grapes along Le Cocon are bigger, although not yet purple like the grapes near Ternand.  We decide to give one a try anyway:  we feel an affection towards these vines, as we have passed them nearly every day of our sojourn here.  I jump out of the camionnette and grab two.  It feels like closure to try one of the grapes before we leave.  The taste is disturbingly sour.

Back at the gite, I check the Littlest Hobo blog photos against the photos I took today.  It's definitely not Littlest Hobo we saw:  the markings on their noses do not match.  I breathe a sigh of relief.  Littlest Hobo was most certainly the dog inside the house.  

My shoes, which were brand new when we arrived in May, are worn through.  I calculate that I've walked about 850 km this summer.

We go online and pick our seats for the plane tomorrow.  Then I write a poem in the Livre d'Or (guest book):

Chamelet? / On est Pret!

Belle journée: /  randonnée.

Sac-à-dos  / comme il faut

Crème solaire  / pieds à terre.

'Tout à l'heure  / Chat Voleur!

Le Cocon:  / papillons.

Grand Bola  / vers Létra:

Vaches et veaux,  / bon caveau. 

Prées d'avoine,  / Croix des Moines,

Vieux lavoirs,  / champs de foire, 

Beaux villages  / sans nuages...

Il nous faut  / plus de l'eau!

Bar tabac,  / pizza snack:

Tous fermé  / chaque journée.

Pierres dorées  / vin rosé...

Beaujolais?  / Tout à fait!

We grab a bottle of sparkling rosé made by the Stéphane in Oingt, plus a large bottle of microbrew beer, and head over to Alban's side of the gite.  He welcomes us in, and his coworker Guillaume is there.  They frown and laugh as we present our booze:  apparently, Alban's ex-wife's family brews the beer we brought... oops!   Sore topic.   He pops it into a cupboard and opens the rosé.  Then another bottle of sparkling wine. 

We ask Alban and Guillaume about their most memorable jobs with Acrobart.  The Eiffel Tower is a strong contender.  Then they start talking about local birds and I want to participate, but I don't know any of the names in French...  Alban brings up "two little eagles" he said he saw near the gite yesterday. Cool!  I thought I saw an eagle one time, but didn't know if they had eagles here.  After a few more drinks, Alban offers us a $5 bill that he brought home from his trip to Montreal a few years ago. 

The next morning, Alban drops us at the train station in Chamelet, and I shed a tear to leave this wonderful place that has stolen my heart and shown me a lifestyle of unprecedented inner peace and joy.  

What comes next?   I truly don't know, but living here has given me a glimpse of what my life could be like, and I hope this insight will guide me towards a glorious future.   Perhaps foottoearth 2: electric boogaloo??

If you liked this blog, drop me a line in the comments and let me know!  I'd love to hear from you.  :D   I'd be thrilled if this blog has been helpful to any hikers out there, navigating the randonnée trails in Beaujolais.  

Quintessential Pierres Dorées

This morning, our host Alban delivers the bad news:  he will not be able to drop us at the train station in Lyon tomorrow morning on his way to work.  His schedule has been changed, so that he will no longer be driving in that direction.  

Alban has a very interesting job for a company named Acrobart, based in Lyon, which specializes in "works in hard-to-reach-places."  This means on any given day, Alban could be dangling from a highrise or bridge, scaling a church steeple,  or crawling in a subterranean tunnel  anywhere in the region.  Unfortunately for us, this means that he doesn't often know which job he will be called to do--and therefore which city he will be working in--until the last minute. 

Since the Chamelet train station is not much more than a sign beside the tracks, we will now have to spend this morning driving to Villefranche-sur-Saone to buy train tickets for tomorrow morning. This puts a serious cramp in our hiking plans for the day.  We wrack our brains, trying to figure out a way to get out of driving to Villefranche.  

We know that the train through Chamelet passes through Les Ponts Tarrets in Légny, a town with a population of 650, about 14km to the south of our gite along Highway D385.  We had hiked through there recently, and saw they have more amenities there than in many other towns of the region.  Colin wants to buy a few souvenirs for his family and workmates before we leave, and I mention that Alban said Les Ponts Tarrets has a store with a good selection of "Produits du Terroir."  I reason that we could hit the Oedoria in Létra on the way, and perhaps between the two stores, he could find enough souvenirs to suit his needs.  Then, we could also feel like the trip served more than one purpose. 

Our stop at the Oedoria provides some success, as we pick up a few jars of regional specialties.  Feeling optimistic, we park in downtown Pont Tarrets and walk over to the Info Centre next to the train station.  It is closed.  We try the Produits du Terroir store:  it is closed.  We see a hotel in a mini-mall on the other side of the tracks, and we reason that hotel guests would often need train tickets... surely, the hotel would at worst know how we could buy tickets, and at best, actually do it for us!  The desk clerk is very helpful in telling us we will have to drive to Villefranche to buy train tickets there.  The irony is not lost on us.

Twenty-five minutes later along Highway D338, we arrive in Villefranche, and park next to the train station.   Even though it's only a few dozen metres between the train station and the yellow randonnée signpost titled Le Bourg, I snap a photo to feel like I did some hiking.  

After we use the self-serve machines at the train station to buy our tickets, I suggest stopping at the grocery store across the street for croissants.  While we stand in line waiting to pay, a woman chases her three shoplifting children around the store, screaming  at them while they laugh uproariously.  After leaving the store, we can still hear her yelling about a block away.  This day is certainly not turning out the way we had hoped. 

After all these shenanigans, Colin estimates we have about 45 minutes to hike, before he needs to be back at work for his skype "meeting time."  I notice we are near an area of the map I had always wanted to hike.  It would be more or less on the way home, and the landscape is dotted with castles, churches, and other points of interest.  I suggest a loop between Jarnioux Le Bourg and Pouilly Le Monial:  just under 4km. Colin thinks it will take too long.  

I try again:  what about Ville-sur-Jarnioux to La Pénière?  It would be just under 3km, and still pass a Lavoir (pilgrim bath), a church, a few pilgrim crosses, a Madonna, and whatever a "chirat" is...  as it winds its way through Collognes and Saint-Roch.  One bonus of this route is that it can be shortened or lengthened as time permits. 

The name Ville-sur-Jarnioux is not, as you might think, indicating a "town" (ville) but rather a Roman "estate" (villa) that pre-dates the existing town.  The town has existed here from at least 889 CE.  Today, it hosts an impressive population of 800 people. 

We park the camionnette in the parking lot, indicated by a big blue "P" on the randonnée map, and walk over to the yellow randonnée signpost bearing the same name.  Beside it, there is a copy of the randonnée map of the area.  The signpost arrows point to Oingt (4.8km) and Theizé (4.6km), where we have had really enjoyable hikes in the past, but today our first stop is Le Croix Chervet, just past the Southern end of town. 

We walk South along Highway D19.  Soon we see a city sign with the name Jarnioux crossed off, indicating the town limits.  Red and yellow randonnée flags adorn the lamp poles.  We pass a stone cross on the right side of the road just before Chemin Laval, and assume it is Le Croix Chervet, but then we notice that the painted randonnée flag on the back of the street sign indicates this is the "wrong way."  

We turn around and backtrack one block to Montée Chez Les Bois, where we spy the yellow randonnée signpost for Croix Chevret.  Here, the arrows for Oingt and Theizé are broken off... I take it as foreshadowing that these wonderful hikes will no longer be available to us after tomorrow. 

Our next stop is Collognes, and the randonnée map shows we can take either Montée Chez Les Bois or Chemin du Tacot to arc around the town.  I prefer Chemin du Tacot, partly because we already walked a different section of it previously, and partly because it's the route highlighted on the randonnée map.  As I mentioned in a previous post, the Voie du Tacot is a 24km trail that runs along the old Beaujolais railway line from Liergues to Sarcey.  In Jarnioux, the Tacot trail is well marked with signs either showing its name, or arrows painted with cute little green trains.  

We cross Highway D19 again, as it swings around the perimeter of the town.  Already, we see another crossed out "Jarnioux" city sign, indicating we've already reached the Western limits of the town.   We follow the Chemin du Tacot signs and arrive at what appears to be a little train station. 

The building is all boarded up, and the only signage we can find is a plaque reading "H. Cornaz & C -- 1900," which is apparently the name of the company that was contracted to construct the "innovative" concrete train stations along this line.  Thanks to The Google on The internets, I learn that the Beaujolais Railway was built in 1898 between Villefranche and Tarare. The trains stopped running through this area in 1934, but the tracks are still visible running along the top edge of the orchards and vineyards. 

Much of this area is covered in vineyards.  As I mentioned in my post about Oingt, the vines in this region are primarily the Gamay grape, which produce the famous Beaujolais style of wine.  However, the Chardonnay grape is also grown here, to produce the popular white wine of the same name.  As the road curves, we get a nice view of the town behind us.  We do not find the Lavoir, and assume it must be on the D19 Highway that runs parallel to the Chemin du Tacot. 

Chemin du Tacot completes its half-circle around the town and intersects with Montée de la Madone, which runs North-South.  At the corner is the Collognes randonnée signpost.  Looking up the hill to our left, we see Saint-Roch. 

The 16th Century Chapel of Saint-Roch faces a cross mounted on a cairn.  Directly in front of the chapel stands a pure white crowned Madonna.  

On the ridge behind the chapel, I can see another stone cross.  Concerned about time, we turn back towards Jarnioux and follow Montée de la Madone pass the Collognes randonnée signpost once again. 

We pass more orchards. The apples are beginning to ripen, and I see the same type of mystery fruit tree growing here that I discovered on Le Cocon.  I still don't know what type of tree it is.  

We cross Highway D116 and the road changes its name to Rue de la Mairie.  We follow it through the town to the Church of Saint-Martin.  The golden stones of the houses glint in the sunlight, and well-tended flowers spill out over low walls and into the roadway. 

Church of Saint-Martin is surprisingly large, for the size of the town.  A little girl stands in the street, blowing bubbles.  We circle the church completely, noting its fountain and lovely stained glass windows.  Construction of the church as we see it today began in the 12th Century, on the site of an earlier Roman Benedictine Oratory.   

We take the Rue de la Mairie to the Highway D19.  At the corner, I spot a store called Caverne des Merveilles.  I love the name!  We don't have time to investigate the contents of the store, which I am sure can only be something exciting from Through the Looking Glass or perhaps The Emerald City... or Omaha Nebraska...?  (Later discovering it is actually a shop of semi-precious stones and jewellery, Colin is happy to have dodged a bullet:  if I had known, I would have dragged him in, spending many minutes and dollars filling my pockets with rocks.)

One small stretch of golden houses separate us from the parking lot where we began.  The buildings here are an exceptional example of the Pierre Dorée style.  While every village in this region used to quarry its own golden stones, today only Ville-sur-Jarnioux, Jarnioux, and Marcy still have active quarries.  

Between the railroad trail, the vineyards, the pilgrim crosses, and the houses' perfectly golden stones, this village hike could not be more representative of the Pierres Dorées region.   In combination with our frustrating pre-hike experiences -- with the many unexplained closures and ridiculous procedures -- today was really quite representative of our entire séjourn in this region.  ;)

Back at the gite, I whip up some pasta using up the last of the green peppers and mushrooms.  Colin starts his meetings and I decide on the perfect last hike:  I have it... but you'll have to wait to find out which one I picked!  ;)   Stay tuned...