Feeling ambitious after so many successful randonnées, I look at the map and choose a slightly different route. Instead of taking the first left through the vineyards at Le Crèt, and heading East to Le Grand Bola before turning South towards La Burie, I decide we should take a new route that skips Le Grand Bola, and hugs a creek called Ruisseau de la Grenouillère directly down to La Burie.
I find the name of the creek amusing, because "Grenouillère" can refer to a frog pond (which makes sense given our area), but it can also refer to a "onesie" style pyjama. (Yes, I'm thinking of YOU, Matt and Mel! hahahahahahaha) Actually, I guess the onesie is named aptly in French, since wearing it gives a person a frog-like appearance. lol. Here, I'm pretty sure that Ruisseau de la Grenouillère is referring to the creek being filled with frogs, and not large Frenchmen in onesies. Oh my goodness, what an image! :)
Standing on Rue Le Cocon, looking straight down towards Le Crèt, I can see La Burie perched near the bottom of the hill to the left. Two paths seem clearly visible running along the side of the hill between a small square field and La Burie. I surmise the lower one must enter La Burie from the side, and the upper one would probably meet up with our previous trail at the vineyards just up the hill from La Burie.
The map shows several possible trails leading along the creek towards La Burie (shown with dotted lines below), so I figure I can't go wrong. Famous last words... ;)
Perhaps the biggest "spoiler" of this adventure is the fact that the lines on the map are dotted... ;)
The hike starts out all right: we pass our usual path that leads to Le Grand Bola, and easily find the second path, right next to the first house of Le Crèt. (Fun fact: The next day, we run into a man on Le Cocon who tells us the adjacent vines and the small herd of local cows all belong to his son, the current owner of that house--the very house where he himself was born in 1929!)
Beside the house, a mechanical cow seems to cheerfully welcome us as we pass. A very large real cow seems to be giving us the stink eye. We soon find out that we should have listened to the real animal. They always know things we humans do not.
Despite the cow's warning, the path seems clear, and so we head down towards the La Grenouillère creekbed. At the bottom of the hill, there is a small dirt animal track leading directly onward into the bush, but the wide grassy walking path seems to turn sharply to the right. The choice seems obvious, so we follow it, and step directly into 3 inches of mud. Unbeknownst to us, we have stepped directly into the creek, nearly completely hidden by the tall grass. Our shoes are completely covered over with watery mud.
The air fills with Colin's curses, as we skip and hop awkwardly out onto the other side of the creek. The path continues onward, nonplussed at our struggle, and follows the opposite bank until it opens into the small square field we had seen from above. We can see the grass is shorter along one edge of the field, as if someone has mowed a walking path through the otherwise untouched grass.
Piece of cake! We think. We've totally got this! According to the map, we simply need to walk directly across the field, and the path would lead out towards La Burie. However, when we get to the opposite edge of the field, we hit a wall. Well, actually, a fence. Past the fence is dense unpassable brush. It might as well be a wall. Confused, Colin checks "HERE maps" on his cell phone, which tells us that we are indeed facing the correct path. We stare ahead blankly at the fence and bush. Something is definitely not right here. We start walking the perimeter of the field, thinking that maybe it's all just a few feet or meters off. About two meters up I see horse tracks... then running shoe tracks. "It must be this way!" I call. Someone has come this way before us. Colin does not look hopeful, and mutters, "Maybe some other suckers like us tried to take this path before and got stuck too."
In the end, we end up walking the full perimeter of the little field. There are no exits to the fence. At one point, it looks like there might be a trail leading through the fence that would join up with a more established trail above, so Colin hops the fence to check it out. A dead end. Probably an animal trail. Annoyed and disappointed, the only option seems to be to go back out exactly the way we came. Back through the mud of the creek, back up the hill to le Crèt, and start the randonnée all over again.
Completely unthrilled with this turn of events, we decide to try the little animal trail we saw where the path crossed the creek, in hopes it would dump us out onto our familiar path to Le Grand Bola. After thrashing our way through the bush, it opens to a grassy valley with no obvious trail. Colin starts cursing again, as he steps into a cow patty. Should we just go back? Should we try cutting up the hillside to find the other path? Colin is getting more and more agitated. He voices what I've been thinking: if there are so many cow pies here, this must be the cows' home turf... and now we have a new worry.
Looking North up the valley, I see a lone tree that lifts my spirits. I call to Colin, who is swearing his way through more cow pies: "Look Colin!! That is the uniquely shaped tree we passed on the other path... Remember? I took a photo of it with the cows underneath! I'm sure of it!! The other path is right on the other side of that tree!!" The certainty in my voice convinces Colin, and we head towards the tree. Thankfully, today the cows are still up in Le Crèt, and we pass through the valley easily.
The trail to Le Grand Bola is right where I remembered it to be. I am relieved and happy. Colin is grumpy: "How are we supposed to go into town with our sneakers covered in mud and cow pies?" I assure him that everyone around here is a farmer... we will just look like locals. ;)
Looking back towards the little square field, we can easily see the trail from Le Crèt to the creek, and it really seems like there is a path leading from the far corner of the field away towards La Burie. But experience tells us it's a no-go. We conclude the owner of the field must have blocked it off at some point, and then the brush filled in the junction.
We head onward to our good friend, Le Grand Bola, and decide to take the easiest and most direct route to La Burie. At the junction near Le Badier, we have a decision to make. Now cooking under a 35-degree sun, we wonder whether it would be better to take the grassy switchback through the trees, which would offer us some shade and be less steep, or the more familiar but sun-drenched route along the long stone wall leading past Korian Les Bruyères, which leads down onto the Highway, and then back up the steep hill into town. We decide on the switchback, and try to locate the direct cut-through we missed the last time (see "Létra At Last!"). We locate a path through the field that seems a very likely suspect, and confirm it with "HERE maps."
However, this does not seem to be our day for new routes: halfway through the field, the trail simply dead-ends. Looking ahead, it is very unclear where the path would meet up with the switchback to Létra. Exasperated, Colin turns on his heel and curtly announces, "We're going back! No more of this today!" Although "HERE maps" has been a blessing for most of this trip, and impressively accurate considering it's showing us little-known randonnées in the rural French countryside, today it seems to be letting us down.
We walk the rest of the way on the paved path past Les Bruyères (the ochre building seen below on the right). This time, like the last, there are several people outside the facility, so I again don't take a photo of the castle. I carefully angle myself so I can at least get a shot of the old gate without bothering anyone. One lady is painting her toenails on the lawn. Others seem to just be enjoying the sunshine and each others' company. Colin and I agree this seems more like some kind of luxury resort than an addiction treatment centre.
Arriving in Létra, we pass a group of three young men on foot, two of which seem to be talking to each other on their cell phones. We exchange Bonjours. Turning right onto Le Bourg (by the way, every street in downtown Létra is called Le Bourg... go ahead, check it out!), we notice brand new French flags and freshly cut flowers still arranged on a war memorial, plus a man vacuuming up the metallic confetti that seems to have completely blanketed the town the previous weekend (see "A Rainy Day"). Hot and sweaty, we look to Le 57 Bar across the street from the Vival, in hopes of a cool beverage. It is closed. We had forgotten that both the bar and the restaurant are closed on Mondays. Why did we reserve bread on Mondays?!?!?! We might have to change our bread day.
We walk into the Vival, and to my delight, the owner cheerfully bellows "RITCHIE!!!!!!!!" As he hands us our bread order, he comments, "You said you would come and you came! This doesn't always happen, and then the bread gets wasted. But you are sincere!" He prattles on in very regional French, "Is Ritchie an English name? Scottish? There is a Scottish guy in this town... do you know him? I think he's Scottish... Maybe he's Irish? You can tell by the accent... well, actually, I can't tell the accents apart... Will you be wanting bread again next Monday?" Buoyed by his friendliness, we agree to be back the following Monday, and buy a couple small food items and some chilled water before we depart.
Heading out of town, we decide to take the upper road towards Le Badier. Boiling in my own sweat, I wonder: How could this possibly be the LESS steep road? As we reach the crest of the hill, I complain to Colin, "I changed my mind... let's go the other way!" However, by now we've committed, and going back actually seems worse than carrying on through the shady tree-lined switchback down to the Creek Badier.
After the switchback, our curse of the day seems to lift: for some reason, this time we find the connecting path to La Burie! Exiting the cut-through on the other end, we make a note of where the path joins the pavement: right at the start of the stone wall (see top of photo below). The trail is completely NOT obvious from that perspective. No wonder we missed it from that end.
In La Burie, an unseen female bard is singing a French folk song, and it feels like we might be in a movie. We impossibly take the wrong road, but are rewarded by a cute dog and a small frog pond filled with koi. Luckily, we quickly realize our error, and get back on the correct path. Let's face it, it's hard to get lost in a town with only 12 houses. ;)
Leaving La Burie, I am rewarded again... this time by a myriad of beautiful butterflies, each more colorful than the last, who all pause to pose for my photos. Walking the randonnées has been providing the exquisite experience of being accompanied by butterflies of all shapes and colors. They actually flutter along beside us as we walk, staying with us for up to 20 feet at a time. I have been trying to photograph them for days, but today, they all wait motionless until I say a heart-felt "Thank you!" at which time they merrily flitter off.
I am so pleased that I forget the heat and all the wrong turns. I grin all the way back to the gite. :D
Sorry, you two, but I am still chuckling at your adventure today. Colin, how do you put up with her? I hope you can laugh about it now that you had another shower. Is this a rehearsal or a replacement for Le Camion? What could possibly go wrong??
ReplyDeleteRe le bourg: my dictionary translates it as 'a market town'. Perhaps to distinguish it as a town with shops vs a village of houses only??
We had planned to do the first 100km of the Le Puy Route of the Saint Jacques de Compostelle next week (May 18). The Way of Saint Jacques is the French equivalent of the Spanish Camino Santiago, and it runs 500 miles through France before joining up with the Camino Santiago. I spent yesterday mapping out all our hotels along the way. However, the weather forecast for next week is rain, so we're thinking we'll postpone our walk and wait for nicer weather.
DeleteNice weather is worth waiting for....
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