DAY 2: Sunday June 3nd: St Saturnin Les Alpes to Chaloux:
Walk: 21k, 7hrs: 18°C to 25°C overcast and warm
Accommodation: Gite Chaloux
The view from St Saturnin
It's a pleasant 18°C when we rise at 6.30am planning to get away early. We still have WiFi so we spend an hour phoning home and sending emails, whilst having a cup of tea from our billy parked on the tiled bedroom floor. My hip bones are killing me, with one millimetre of flesh covering them, the backpack belt is causing grief. I grab two old T shirts I was about to chuck (Aldi specials at $5 each) and use them as padding. It works - sort of. We pack and leave by 8.30am, stopping at the boulangerie for 2 bacon quiches for breakfast and a French stick for lunch, then to the Charcuterie (butcher) for some tranches (slices) of dried ham (sec jambon). We leave on cross country roads and pick up the GR6 on our way to Rustrel. After one hours walking we stop by the side of the road for coffee and quiche. Yum, starving.
The boulangerie in St Saturnin
Into Rustrel where we buy bottled water, then off on the D22 towards Gignac. We see a sign to the Barries, ancient houses of the iron age people. Turning left at Gignac we take a short cut to Chaloux (it would have been an extra 5k to follow the GR6 to Viens) and head towards Chateau d'Autet. There's a jumble of tracks on this hillside so we resort to the IGN map of 1:8,000 which Ian has on his Samsung and voila, the GPS pinpoints exactly which goat track we’re on. We stop for lunch on a rock in the middle of no where - bread and ham from St Saturnin and a tomato from Paris. It's not as hot as yesterday but we are still sweating. We’ve climbed 700m (peanuts compared to 3,000m in the Alps), but a good introduction to uphill hiking.
Looking back to St Saturnin
I am struggling to position the weight comfortably on my hips. Ian likes using two trekking poles. I like keeping my arms free to move the pack from hips to stomach and generally manoeuvre the pack into a more comfy position. Already I'm toting up in my mind what weight I can post home. I had packed for a very cold trip and it’s warm. Yes, the Alps are yet to come, but I'm figuring I'd rather have two changes of clothes not three, than carry excess weight, and in my mind I'm adding up about 2kg of extra stuff to post home, including the trekking poles. We'll see. When we get to the Alps I might want it all back.
Jan struggling up the first hill with T shirt padding over the hip bones
After lunch we follow the GPS signal overlaid on Ian’s IGN maps. It's pure magic. The technology is so much advanced compared to 2010, our last cycling trip. The IGN maps at 1 in 25,000 scale show every tiny detail down to a little dot for each house. BUT, they are useless if you don't know exactly which track you are on. The GPS overlays pinpoint an arrow on the map.
We continue through beautiful forests. But one track was a pig path - literally. We had come across this before in Corsica. Wild pigs dig up the earth looking for succulent roots, leaving the track like a ploughed potato field - very precarious for the ankles. At last we hit the D22 and cross the main road. Time for another cup of tea but we are now out of water. Hopefully only a few k to go because it’s starting to rain.
On the terrace at Chaloux
The last 2k is easy and we stroll into Gite Chaloux, an old farm house converted into a Gite, owned by Gilles Rider. A dog greets us in the field. He’s friendly, and unfortunately will remember us in the morning. Gilles is there to greet us and we sit down to a well earned slightly warm beer before going up to our room in the loft. The roof slants from 2 feet in one corner to 7 feet in the other - so getting from one side of the room to the other means ducking and weaving but its comfy. The shared bathroom is downstairs.
St Simiane La rotonde in a haze
Gilles is very helpful and books our accommodation for the next two nights at St Etienne and Jas des Bailles. He is the third generation owner of Chaloux. We have a session typing diaries and transferring photos. Dinner is 4 courses - no meat, but still really nice. Entre of salad, main of baked carrots and quinoa, cheese platter then Cake. We sit with a team of ladies doing a painting workshop and 2 French ladies our age (20 something) who are walking the GR4 - it heads in a NW direction. There aren't many walkers on the track. These are the first ones we've seen all day, and we are the first ones they've seen all day. We chat about different GR routes they have walked. One lady is an astronomer from Paris and wanted to know why we hadn't heard about a solar eclipse in Australia in November - last thing on my mind at the moment. It's starting to rain heavily. We retire about 9.30.
Our day has started to pan out to a typical routine.
6.30am - wake and pack
7.30am - breakfast and book next night
8.30am - leave the hotel/refuge and start walking
8.30 to 10.30 - walk 6 to 8 k depending on uphill, flat of downhill
10.30am - morning tea for 15mins, boil the billy for coffee -
10.45 to 1ish - walk 6 to 8k
1ish pm - lunch for 30 mins - of bread, chefs, jambon sec (dried ham)
1.30 to 3.30pm - walk 6 to 8k
3.30pm - afternoon tea for 15mins, boil the billy for tea
3.45pm to ?? - walk rest of way
4 to 6pm - arrive at destination and have beer/wine/shower/type diary
7.30pm - dinner and chat - mostly Europeans (very few Americans or Australians)
9.30pm - bed