I head out as usual to the intersection at Le Cocon and Le Cocon (see "A Tale of Two Cities" for photos of this part of the route). Since I missed the turn by taking the upper road (right hand fork), today I stick to the lower road (left hand fork) to see if I can spot the road from below.
I use my phone GPS to track my location. When I get to the intersection and take the "correct" road, it becomes apparent why I missed it the first time. Although it has a pilgrim's cross at the corner, it REALLY seems like it is just someone's driveway: there is a mailbox at the bottom, it heads directly for the house, then passes the house, then connects to the road above. I walk back and forth along the tiny stretch, photographing the route from all angles. Then I congratulate myself on solving the mystery.
heading up to the house from D157
view down the road/driveway from upper Le Cocon showing "road" going past the red car and house
approaching the house from the upper Le Cocon
view from the house showing both upper and lower roads at once
looking down the lower road towards D157
looking down towards D157 from the house
I start heading back towards the Le Cocon and Le Cocon intersection along the upper route, then decide to try a new route back, as a reward. I head up a grassy path I've always been curious about.
It's grassy and steep, but butterflies are all around me and birds are chattering on my left, then swoop across the path to alight on the tree to my right. I'm sure they are simply defending their territory from my intrusion, but it all seems very magical.
Out to my right, I can see the Highway D157 that I will return on (centre of photo) and on the right of the photo I can see Le Cocon heading back towards the gite.
At the top of the crest, I reach a fork in the path. The right fork will take me down over the hill directly towards Highway D157, but barely appears to be a path after a few metres. I also see some farming equipment that way, and figure it is more of a farmer's access road than a path. The left fork will take me to the Highway D157 on the more official looking trail. Not shown in the photo is another path, 90 degrees on the far left, which appears to go straight up the hill to the Cret de Meltrue. It's tempting, because I can see a cross up on the very top of the hill, but in the end I decide against it. It's hot out and there is no shade on this hill. I am ready to go back.
After a very short jaunt through light woods, I come out on Highway D157, make a sharp right hand turn, and follow the highway back to the intersection of Le Cocon and Le Cocon.
Where the highway curves back on itself in a V, I get a great view of the other end of the path that would have taken me directly down to the highway from the crest of the hill. It's not much of a path. It runs alongside a sausage-like row of hay bales encased in plastic. The Cret de Meltrue is above it on the left. You can just barely make out the path heading up to the top of the Cret. It runs from the two ends of the > shape made by the trees on the right side of the Cret. The green line running horizontally through the middle of the photo is the path I walked. I zoom in on the Cret de Meltrue and my path running below it.
Heading down the last stretch to the intersection of Le Cocon and Le Cocon, I'm feeling pretty good about myself.
Back at the intersection of Le Cocon and Le Cocon, I make a hairpin turn to the left at the sign to go back to the gite. Right before Le Cocon starts its last downward plunge towards the gite, I get a nice view of Le Cret in the distance.
When I get back to the gite, Colin and I have a simple lunch, and heasks about the location of our afternoon randonnée. I feel like I'm on a roll, finding the Cocon route I missed, so I suggest we try to find the pond we missed in the Bois Flachère yesterday. I also felt like we motored right through the forest yesterday, and didn't get to see everything it had to offer. This time, we can simply drive to the parking lot, then spend more time exploring the forest. We come up with a tentative randonnée route that will take us past the ponds and to a little castle, but decide that we can also just explore where the forest takes us. In the end, we hike around 6.5 km.
We start at the Les Granges randonnée signpost which is adjacent to the parking lot. This time, instead of heading directly into the heart of the forest, we follow the directions to Le Chevrier. This path will skirt the edge of the forest, and give us an opportunity to get in to see the La Flachère castle that is shown on the map.
We pass La Ferme des Granges, whose tree-shaded patio is very lively with a big group drinking wine. As we pass, they pause and stare at us, surprised. I guess this area doesn't get much foot traffic... or perhaps strangers. We wave a "Bonjour!" which seems to satisfy them.
We get to a fork, and take the right road, which is marked with a little yellow VTT arrow. According to the map, the left fork dead ends at Le Poyat. For a brief while, we are in the shade of the forest. However, the shade brings with it millions of tiny flies that we swat at uselessly. They seem to be everywhere!
We reach the first of what should be an access road the castle. There is a locked gate barring the road. I reach up over the gate and take a photo: yep -- the castle is there all right! The randonnée map does not show any wall or gate blocking access to the castle. Colin says not to worry... there is another access road coming up soon, at Le Poyat.
We reach the intersection of Le Poyat, and turn right. We pass a yellow randonnée signpost, urging us onward toward Le Chevrier. Pavement begins, as this is a real and official road. Yet... there is indeed another gate blocking the road in to the castle. It is all very very weird. I again pop my camera above my head and snap a shot of the castle to see what we are missing.
With a sigh, we give up on the castle and head towards Le Chevrier on --what else?-- road Le Chevrier. We are not in open sun, and it is a hot one. When we get to a fork, Colin mentions that there is a way to cut off the Le Chevrier signpost by turning right. There is even a city sign pointing right to "Chevrier" at the fork. Since both roads are through open fields, I choose to go the slightly longer route and "collect" my randonnée signpost.
Very pleased with myself at finding the Le Chevrier signpost, we follow the its directions to head towards La Contardinière. Our plan is to head back into the forest at La Contardinière and wander around a bit on our way back through to the parking lot. The road of Le Chevrier changes its name to Au Cret as it turns back to a dirt road and we walk slightly uphill past some houses.
We next pass several different vineyards. The first is big and bushy. On the other side of the path the vines are sooo teeny, they must have just been planted this year.
We come to what looks like a fork, where Au Cret makes a 90 degree left turn, and the right fork becomes Rue La Contardinière. According to the map, there is supposed to be another access road to the castle here, called La Flachère, but there is only a very solid very ugly white wall.
The wall runs on and on. A little farther, the left side of the road opens to huge vineyards and a view of the countryside. Colin tries to snap my photo. "Look enthusiastic," he urges me, "You look exhausted!" I am cooking in the hot sun and totally drenched in sweat, but I give it a try.
We see that our planned route will just be a lot more open-air pavement, so we take a chance and enter the forest here, on a small path clearly marked with a randonnée "X," meaning "wrong way." It takes us into the shade of the forest, and we try to use the GPS on our phones to guide us through. It really really doesn't work. Every time we try to make a plan on a path, we miss the turn, or end up on a turn when we try to go straight. Finally we give up, and say "let's go wherever THIS trail takes us!"
We eventually end up crossing the official randonnée path that cuts through the heart of the forest. I recognize where we are from yesterday's walk. However, instead of turning right and heading directly back to the parking lot, we decide to explore some more, and so we keep going straight ahead.
We keep right on the next two forks and pass through another swarm of flies. It really wasn't like this when we were here yesterday! What changed??? Colin reminds me that it rained last night. Does a rainfall spur the hatching of millions of flies? I need to learn me some more entomology. Ok, got it! Thanks to the internets! ;)
Finally, we decide to switch it up and take the left fork. This seems to be the horse trail. It loops us around heading back towards La Pecherie randonnée signpost.
Colin notices that we are running parallel to the river, and if we cross it here and go a little out of our way, we can see the pond. I'm excited: "Pond! Pond! Pond!" I start to chant.
Our little cut-through trail takes up to the main trail, where there are several picnic benches. We hand a right, and a couple metres later it is revealed to us: The Pond!
Just as we get to the pond, the battery in my camera dies. Great timing! :p As we get close to the water, tons of tiny frogs make frantic leaps into the water. While it is certainly not a huge or beautiful pond, it is much better than the puddle I saw yesterday, plus it has interesting weeds floating all over it.
Then, something stirs in the waters... is it an eel? Eels don't live in ponds, do they?? They live in interstellar garbage compactors. I assert it must be Ogopogo. We creep forward towards the water. Something is definitely stirring in the deep. It turns out to be giant fish, popping their heads up in the weeds. We watch many of them for long minutes. Why is my camera dead? This is where a zoom and an HD video camera would really come in handy! I try to capture the fish with my phone, but the following is the best I could muster. Colin manages to capture a video of a wiggling trio of fish on his phone.
It's time to head back. so we walk the length of the pond and leave where we came in. As we leave the pond, a couple with their dog arrives. The dog heads straight into the pond and starts swimming around. If he had arrived before us, I'm sure we would not have gotten to see the strange amazing sights we saw.
We walk out the same way we walked in yesterday, but today there are no pétanque players, I note. As we arrive at the parking lot, Colin laughs, "You spoke too soon!! Look, there they are!!" Sure enough, there is a group playing right in the parking lot. At least they are not playing near where we parked, so we don't have to weave our way through them to get to the camionnette.
No comments:
Post a Comment