In Yer FACE, grassy path!

This morning is a cooler 29 degrees Celsius.  I spend the morning blogging on the patio, with my new assistant: Chat Voleur.  Even when I move from the sunny side-table to the shade of the covered area, Chat Voleur moves with me, and resumes her place on my lap.  She bats at the keys, but her spelling is atrocious.  ;)

-     Colin just wants to do a short hike today, so we hike together to Le Grand Bola, then north to highway, then back down Le Cocon. It's a hike of just under 4.5km, with a total of 165m rise in elevation, and the same down again. For no good reason (i.e. I am erroneously positive that we have done this exact hike before), I don't take any photos.  

      While Colin is happy, the walk is too short for me, so while Colin returns to the gite for his evening shift, I walk off on my own.  I have been eyeing the grassy path from just above our gite through the valley to La Chapelle since our first few weeks here.  In May, the grasses looked like "tick central," as Colin would say, and he has steadfastly refused to hike this path, so I feel no guilt tackling it without him.  Although he was correct about the lush grasses in May, now the grasses are all dried and pushed over: no longer a great tick environment.  I’ve been meaning to do this hike in the early morning when it’s cooler, but haven't gotten around to it.  I figure that early evening might provide the same cool temperatures as early morning.  I plot a trail down the grassy path from Le Cocon to La Chapelle, then back up Highway D157 past the goats and llama back around to our gite. It's a 5.7 km loop. Googlemaps won't calculate the elevation, because the path is just that rustic. 

  

-     I walk North up Le Cocon from the gite and quickly locate the grassy path.  The grasses are dried and bent down, as I expect, but soon the brambles take over and prove a bit tricky.  Maybe I overestimated this path...?  

      I refuse to be defeated so quickly, and soldier on. Then the path opens up and I'm laughing.  The views are amazing from here. Then suddenly, the path becomes really steep and goes down down down.  I am super careful with every step.  I know if I fall here, it's likely that no-one will be along in a while. 

I turn a corner at the bottom of the hill, and face... a path covered with blackberry brambles.  Fortunately, though, the path is a gentle downhill slope.  So at least it's not all bad.  I carefully pick each step, avoiding both brambles and the billions of tiny grasshoppers who hop out of my way. 

A path unexpectedly leads off to the right. My cell phone's GPS tells me there is no path there.  I figure it can't be the right hand path I am looking for. I continue onward and soon the path flattens out to a nice even logging road.  Of course, that is exactly where I fall and scrape my knee up.  I also strain my wrist, trying to break my fall.  It's not a big deal, but I realize that hiking on a little-used path, all by myself, I really need to be careful with every single step, no matter how level and easy the path may seem. 

I see what appears to be a path heading off to the left, and take the right fork, as planned.  I double check it with my GPS. Yep--right on track!  The path stays easy and clear for a while longer, then disintegrates into a garden of weeds. I pick my steps again, thinking how Colin would truly have hated this whole path.  I keep looking to my right for the path I should encounter quite soon.  I never find it. Soon the path starts to curve right, and I finally stop to check the GPS. I curse myself for not checking it earlier: I've somehow missed the right hand path and have ended up at least 300m farther than I expected.

      I can see the rougher path on my left that would take me straight to Chamelet, and I don't want to do that, so I follow the more established path around to the right. I continue onward to Ruisseau du Cocon at the bottom of the valley.  I do never pass any path going right.  At the creek, there are two overgrown impassable possibilities.  I think one is actually the creek heading North.  The other is a totally impassable tiny little path.  There is no way the path I was looking for actually exists.  I content myself with photographing the many butterflies sipping on thistles at the curve in the road. I am pretty proud to get a photo of both a butterfly and a bee on the same flower.  :D

After the creek, I head uphill again. The path is slightly overgrown, but clears up again fairly quickly. Half way up, it opens to some really nice views. 

I arrive at the Rue La Chapelle right where it bends, and precisely where I could have taken the path down to Chamelet again (past the crucifix where we saw hail in May). But instead I turn right onto the paved road, which takes me straight to the church.  

Arriving at the church, I notice a power line running on the ground from the house across the street into the entrance of the church.  Intrigued, I follow it, and it eventually just goes into the ground near the church.  Weird.  I notice the church “floor” is now totally overgrown.  It looks nothing like it did in May.  I rest on the bench outside and find a magpie feather!  :D  

I leave the church and am startled to notice an old man on the balcony of the house with the electrical wire watching me the whole time.  I say “Bonjour.”  He nods, and I rush off up the street.  I soon arrive at the intersection at the North end of town, and choose the right hand fork onto Highway D157. 

 

It’s nice coming up this path on a cooler day and especially in the evening, when the whole route is in shade. The elevation change feels like almost nothing – very different from last time when I missed the turn at the llama. 

At the goat farm, a billy gives me a raspberry. Looking upward towards the llama hill, I see the llama rolling around in the dirt. I didn't know llamas did that. 

By the time I get up to the llama house, both the llama and the white horse are back on their best behavior. I continue onward past the house with the cross where I got confused before.  At the intersection of Le Cocon and Le Cocon, I take Le Cocon  ;)  back towards the gite.  Not to be outdone by horses and llamas, a cute red-backed shrike also strikes a handsome pose to welcome me. 

Farther along on Le Cocon, I am startled by a rustle to my right.  There is a cow there, right off the road.  That cow really surprised me.  He needs more cowbell.  As I pass by this section of road, a chorus of really loud crazy mooing begins, and goes on for a while, like a loud weird echo being passed throughout the herd.  

As I pass the entrance to the grassy path, I give it an "IN YER FACE!" Then I take in a nice view from the viewpoint. I'm rewarded by a beautiful feather. I hold it up in victory.  Actually, I've found many beautiful feathers on this walk, including another iridescent magpie feather. 

I head down the last stretch of Le Cocon and back to the gite. The Chat Voleur greets me in the driveway when I get back.  There seems to be many people in the yard: our host Alban is having some kind of BBQ party... I think it's his birthday.  He's now as old as I am.  He waves hi but doesn't invite us over.  It's ok.  We all grieve in our own way... lol.  I'm ready for a quiet supper and a cold beer... and both are waiting for me.   :) 

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