Le Grand Bola: Then and Now

We are back in Chamelet, back to the little town we have been calling "home" for nearly three months.  Has it been nearly three months already?  

I am amazed how how much this area has changed over the summer.  When we arrived, the grape vines were little more than gnarled stumps in brown fields.  Now, the vineyards are tall, green, and bursting with fruit.  On the other hand, the lush green grasses which covered the rolling hills have faded to a brittle straw. 

Even though I've been away less than a week, I have been very eager to return to the hikes I have loved so much, and judiciously selecting the last of the new hikes I have been meaning to get to before we leave.  With only 10 days left, only the best will make the cut. 

Today, work has been a priority, and so we don't have a lot of time to randonnée.  Therefore, I select the perfect short hike: it's only natural that I revisit Le Grand Bola at least one more time before I leave! It was my first real randonnée here, so I decide to do a comparison piece: Le Grand Bola, then and now.  To enlarge any of the comparison sets below, just click on the photo.

The temperature is really hot outside today. It's a high of 38 with a low of 18.  It's a big change from London, where the high was 18 degrees!  No wonder we find a little visitor in our nice cool gite this morning...  ;)  He appears to be stuck, unable to climb the slippery painted walls.  I drape a blanket from the couch to the window, in hopes he can find an easier climbing route back out. 

We slather on the sunscreen and head down Le Cocon towards Le Crèt, but take a left turn through the vineyards at the first house.  It seems like the world's colors has inverted. We head down the hill and pass the tree in the valley below the vineyard, where we saw cows grazing on our first randonnée there, and where we cut back to this trail from being lost in the field.  Today we stick to the path. 

Up over the hill on the trail above, Le Grand Bola is right where we left it, although much less green than before.  The path between the signpost and the frog pond is quiet.  We don't hear the frogs, but hope that they might still be there. 

Sadly, the frog pond is almost completely dried up. The bottom is gooey with algae, and there are no frogs to be seen. I hope they have migrated to a better, wetter, location.  We turn around and head back.  The views are still spectacular.  I will make sure we have time for a big randonnée tomorrow.