Hiking the GR6, GR5 & Tour du Mont Blanc 

DAY 14: Friday June 15th - Chateauroux les Alps to Pallon: 

Walk 25k, 8hrs: Blue Skies, a very warmish 18°C to 27°C

Accommodation: Anvienne Presbytere de Pallon  

Another magic blue skies day, lunch watching gliders take off into the Alps, an unexpected beer at the end, and a totally unexpected nice refuge, the Ancienne Presbytere de Pallon.

We awake to blue skies, pack and head downstairs to breakfast - 2nd worst breakfast so far - Trip Advisor here I come.  The tea was hot but the bread was rock hard.  Leaving half an hour later, the Boulangerie is open right next door and we buy quiche and fresh bread.  Today is spectacular.  Surrounded by high snow capped alps and below is the fast running River Durance.  The road leads to a V shaped track that winds in and out of a gully.  We follow it to the spectacular fast running Torrent Couleau and spy a large rock where we have our coffee - with a real breakfast - Ian has quiche, and I have fresh bread and cheese.

We get to a minor road, one of 5 arms of the Chemin de Compostelle that meet in the Pyranees at Jean St Puy, then crosses into Spain to Santiago, the burial place of St James.  Pilgrims have followed these routes for thousands of years, but our track, the GR653D goes from Montgenevre near the Italian border to Arles in France, and has only recently been designated.  We'll be following this to Montgenevre - the high Alpine pass where Hannibal, Charlemagne and Napoleon crossed with their armies.  We stop for a cup of tea in a small picnic area adorned with sweet smelling roses - time to stop and have a whiff.

We follow a narrow road for 7k to Mont Dauphin Gliders Airport.  It's now 1.30pm - time for lunch.  We are well stocked with lettuce, capsicum, tomato, cheese, ham, sausisicon, onion, mayonnaise and fresh bread.  We keep it simple and save the onion, capsicum and salami for tonight’s dinner as I think there’s a communal kitchen in Pallon.  It's relaxing sitting by roadside surrounded by alps, with fields of red poppies over the road and gliders silently taking off.  They’re winched into the air on a long wire which drops and parachutes down at a certain height.  Watching them glide on the thermals was a magical lunch.

Time to move on.  My shoes are great – they’re red/black, so they have to be good.  And the hot spots on two toes didn't turn to blisters.  It's up hill now and we’ve just broken our second cardinal rule of walking - don't walk uphill after lunch - my friend Donna calls it lunch legs - the blood drains from your legs and is diverted to your digestive system.  By the way, the first cardinal rule of walking is don't stop for lunch before 1pm - any earlier and you're ravenous by 7.30pm the usual French dinner time.   Up and up and by now it's 27°C and we're thirsty.  The country side is forested in stark contrast to the denuded mountains around us.  By 4pm we see our first sign to Pallon - 1.5k.  A bit further on and suddenly, we come to a few houses and there's a building with a terrace and red umbrellas - the giveaway sign of a bar/restaurant!  We get closer and discover that it’ a chamber d'hôte.  How could my research miss this!  I only found a basic gite in Pallon and nothing else for miles around.  We find out later that it’s new.  Phew! It was only opened in May and isn't on the internet yet.  We stop for a beer - too good to pass by - the gite can wait.  

We ask for directions to the Ancienne Presbytere de Pallon - it's just around the corner 400 metres.  We get there at 5pm and the minister/caretaker shows us to our room - just 2 beds - most rooms are dorms of 6 to 10 beds.  The showers are hot and there's a kitchen plus there's a clothes line in the sun.  We have a shower, do our washing, hang it out, and I do diary for a few hours while Ian reads the Courier Mail he downloaded 2 days previously.  In the kitchen, we stir fry our capsicum, tomatoes, salami, onion, and take dinner outside on the patio - brings back memories of our youth hostel stays in Europe in the 1980's. 

After dinner, we take a stroll back to the bar/restaurant called the Auberge de Dormilhosa - and have a really nice red wine.  The owner is a rugby fan so in broken French/English, we talk football.  It's a mild night, about 20°C, and on the way home we stroll up the road to the Hydro electricity dam across the torrent.  Pallon is set in beautiful surroundings of trees and rushing torrents - from expecting a disaster, it turned into a memorable delight.