Over the last couple of days, I've been talking to friends back home in Vancouver Canada, who are comparing the France heatwave and orange alert to their own heatwave and air quality advisory. France wins overall for heat (40 degrees vs 25 in Vancouver), but it seems Vancouver is winning for smoke and ash. I am amazed by the photos of Vancouver being published online and the number of fires so close to the city. Even Burnaby Mountain was on fire! That's only 7km from my childhood home and where I did my first university degree. (Fortunately, this fire was quickly contained, unlike other BC fires.) My friends Nihan and Rehana in the city of Vancouver send me photos and say they ended up with sore throats after going for even short walks near their homes. Jan, who came to visit us in June, reports ash falling on her Vancouver Island home.
Now that the heatwave here has broken here, our temperature here has dropped from 40 to 26 degrees overnight. (Sorry Vancouver, here, 26 is just not that hot. It's all relative!) So I feel safe planning a longer randonnée that will take us from La Cantinière up to Saint-Cyr and back again. It's a loop of 11.5 km total, with the highest elevation being 752m and the lowest being 586m.
We park at the intersection of Highway D116 and Rue La Cantinière, and walk towards the village of La Cantinière (population so small I can't even find it listed online). Right at the start of the town, there is a herd of goats up near the fence. They are very alert to our presence. These are probably the same goats I saw up on the hill when we saw Alban here before. They are very friendly, and Colin feeds them leaves while I pet their heads. One tries to eat my dress while my attention is diverted.
Next, we walk through the town of La Cantinière and onto the path towards the Bois Magnin randonnée signpost. Past the town, the road turns to gravel, but is still flat and easy to navigate. Around the corner, we see a sign announcing the official beginning of the Cantinière forest, which spans 380 hectares. Although much of the greenery around has died in the heatwave, there are still some gorgeous wildflowers along the path.
There are a number of really neat insects along the trail here, including one that starts us debating whether it is in fact an insect or a hummingbird. It turns out, it is a Hummingbird Hawk Moth. I managed to take a photo of it together with a butterfly, to show its relative size. We spend a few minutes watching it gathering nectar. Next, a black dung beetle catches my attention, as it struggles its way blindly across the path.
When we get to the Bois Magnin signpost, we take the hairpin turn towards Point 773. It all sounds very secretive, perhaps like Area 51 or Warehouse 13 or something from the X-Files. The path is a bit rougher than the one we were just walking on. We soon run into an unexpected fork, and stand at the intersection a long while, trying to figure out which way to go. It seems like the right fork will take us back to La Cantinière, so we take the left fork.
To our surprise, it pops out of the wood and runs along a beautiful vista. Then greenery obscures the view.
Point 773 is a little disappointing: it's just a randonnée signpost. It turns out that it has an elevation of 773 m. See how that works? ;) Going left will take us to Le Bois Chapelin, which we don't want to arrive at just yet, so we head right, to Bois Chai. Bois Chai is only 0.3km away, so we arrive at it quickly. The Bois Chai signpost is at an intersection with four possible roads... only three of which are on the map. The arrow to Saint-Cyr-le-Chatoux could be either of two of them. We use googlemaps to determine the correct road, which is the right-hand road of the fork Colin is standing on in the photo.
The road is fairly easy until it splits, at which point it gets pretty steep and rocky. It appears that either fork will get us to Saint-Cyr, so I choose the right-hand fork, because I want to "collect" my randonnée signpost, and check out the view from the hill with the car parked on it.
The randonnée signpost points us onward towards Saint-Cyr... happily for me, right over the little hill. The top of the hill gives a great 180 degree view of the area, but it is a little windy! Looking back, we can see the path we just descended. Looking ahead, we can see Saint-Cyr-le-Chatoux, population 125.
We can see a church in town, so we decide to visit it before we turn around and head out again. As we get closer to town, I can see that if we had not gone over the hill, but rather followed the path around the left of the hill, we would have ended up at Espace Monique Rivier, which has a parking lot and a picnic area with a little pagoda.
The map shows that we should be crossing a river before entering town, but we see no sign of one. Right beside the church I find another randonnée signpost! Bonus!! ;) This one is Saint-Cyr-le-Chatoux--Le Village. It points us basically back the way we have come, to La Madone, where we are heading next.
For some reason, we encounter more people here in this tiny town than we have on all our other randonnées put together. There is a solo male hiker, a woman on a horse, a woman sunbathing by her car, and a couple walking towards us with a border collie. We say "Bonjour" as they pass us and head towards Espace Monique Rivier. Their dog stays behind to lean up against my legs. I am thrilled, and give him lots of pets, asking him, "Hi Petit! Oh, you want to be our dog now?" He seems to agree, as the couple gets farther and farther away, and then eventually get into their car. I guess he is not their dog after all! We figure he must live in one of the houses nearby.
Colin spies an arrow sign proclaiming "FROMAGES" just down the road. Never being one to turn down cheese, we go to check it out. The dog follows us, pausing briefly at an open door on the right hand side of the road. "He must live here," I think to myself. Yet, as we discover no obvious source of cheese, and retrace our way out of the town, the dog still follows us.... in fact, he seems to be leading the way...!
We easily find the La Madone signpost, which also includes a map of the area and a hiking map of a route called "Le Sentier des Agneaux." It's trail symbol appears to be a golden goat's head. We see
The dog is still "leading" us down the road out of town, and I think to myself, "He looks like The Littlest Hobo, walking along the road like that..." I check my phone to find out it also aired in France, under the name Le Vagabond. I start singing the lyrics I can remember:
"There's a voice always calling me down the road... that's where I'll always be... Every stop I make, I make a new friend... Maybe tomorrow, I'll want to settle down... until tomorrow, I'll just keep moving on!"
I'm sure that any minute now, he will turn around and head back into town. Yet... he keeps onward. Every once in a while, he stops to sniff something, mark something, or make sure we are still following. Sometimes he even lets us pass him, while he is busy with his dog stuff on the side of the road. But not for long, as soon he is up in the front of the pack again, kilometer after kilometer.
We reach a sign announcing the official boundary of the Caniniere Forest. He pauses at the sign, waiting for us to catch up. He seems to recognize this sign. Maybe he walks with many hikers from the town to this point. Here, surely, he will turn around and head home. Nope.
Soon we arrive at Le Bois Chapelin, and the dog takes a right and heads down the path towards Bois de la Chavamière (after marking the randonnée signpost, which he has done consistently for every signpost on the whole trip). Since it is only 0.4km and we are curious about what is down that way, we follow and take a look. The first thing I noticed is the golden goat head telling me it's the Sentier des Agneaux. Next, we see a picnic table and garbage container, then a campsite. Next, the path starts to drop down rather sharply, and I start to rethink this "exploratory aside." Colin urges me onward, assuring me we're almost to the signpost. When we arrive, see see yet another Sentier des Agneaux signpost. This is when I call it quits. Maybe the dog is used to walking this path with hikers... he is used to circling back to Saint-Cyr at this point.
Yet, when we turn around to go back to Le Bois Chapelin signpost and continue onward towards La Cantinière, the dog follows us. We walk onward to the Source de Font Froide, which sports a multilingual plaque that we have much difficulty disciphering. All we an figure is that someone German from the Black Forest gave this water fountain to their French friends in the Pierres Dorées. I am worried that Littlest Hobo might be too hot, seeing as we are chugging a lot of water out of our water bottle and he has had nothing. He eyes the fountain, but doesn't try to drink. The water is cool and clear. I walk over and splash the water with my hand to make a lapping sound. He takes the hint and goes in for a drink!
As a car approaches on the road (!) we worry about our furry friend. We needn't worry. He notices the car coming, and lays down on the grassy shoulder of the road, waiting for the car to pass. I am impressed. That's a really good trick! Every dog should learn that one!
At this fork, we take the "wrong" (left-hand) path up to a small picnic area and take a rest in the shade. Littlest Hobo accompanies us, then heads back down to the "correct" path on the right. While we rest, I snap a photo of a great butterfly.
Soon we are back at Le Bois Magnin signpost, and start to worry. The Littlest Hobo has already followed us over 5.5 km from Saint-Cyr. How will he get home again? Does he always walk this far with random hikers? Should I not have joked about him being our dog now? Maybe he actually lives in La Cantinière instead of Saint-Cyr? Should we drive him back to Saint-Cyr? I check his collar to see if it will give any hints as to his home, or failing that, give us a number to call, but he has no tags on his collar.
He leads us all the way into town. Down in the valley beside La Cantinière, the goats are now happily grazing. The Littlest Hobo is VERY interested in them. As he stares intently at them, he has a certain familiar "look" about him, as if he can't wait to eat that monkey! (Sorry, only Spanish available for that clip.)
When we get to the Cantinère signpost, beside the pen where the goats were when we first set out today, we try to tell Littlest Hobo to go home, using all kinds of key words like "maison" and "chez toi" (anything we can think of that sounds like "go home"). Hey, it worked for the dog in Tracks! Unfortunately, Hobo is no Diggity, and only goes about 20 feet, then turns and waits for me expectantly. Whenever I turn away and head for the car, he follows me again. This happens about three times before Colin goes to get the camionette started up. He offers, “Maybe we need to drive him back?” I try to get Hobo to jump into the back of the camionette, but he won't. Finally, I get into the passenger seat, to see how he would react. He watches me closely. When I close my door, he immediately turns on his heel and heads back into La Cantinière! Problem solved! I hope. I watch out the back window to see if he tries to follow us onto the Highway, but I don't see him again. I hope he finds his way home. The way he acted with the car on the hike gives me hope. He is a really smart dog. Plus, since he has marked every signpost on the entire hike, he might be able to smell his way home. Our parting is bittersweet... I miss him already! So long Hobo... maybe tomorrow you'll want to settle down... maybe tomorrow, you'll just keep moving on.
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