Hiking the GR6, GR5 & Tour du Mont Blanc 

DAY 3: Monday June 4th: Chaloux to St Etienne: 

Walk: 25k, 7hrs 30mins: beautiful blue skies, cool 15°C to 21°C

Accommodation: Hotel St Clair St Etienne

We awake to a very cool morning.  About 15°C.  It's been raining heavily all night but the morning sky is blue.  We have breakfast with our painting friends, repack, then head off at 8.40am.  But we have a friend.  The friendly dog from yesterday has decided he likes us (me) and he trots off with us.  He seems to know where he’s going so we follow him.  It's fun for a while but after 5k we begin to worry he'll get lost.  We shoo him off but that doesn't work.  Another k on and we pass a caravan park and do a detour to seek out the owner – lucky he speaks English.  We have this dog and he's been following us from Chaloux. Yes, he will ring Gilles and let him know.  It’s about 10k by road so we hope Gilles picked him up safely.  

It's such a beautiful day - Provence is turning into Haute Provence  High Provence) and the hills are getting bigger.  We follow the GR6 and at 10.30am, on cue, boil the billy for a coffee.  We're looking for a spot of sun - it's still cool.  The countryside is very Corsican, dry forest with stony tracks, and we continue to Les Bourbons which is the turn off to Ongles on the way to St Etienne.  Our GPS is worth it's weight in gold.  It saved a dozen arguments in the past 2 hours.  You can’t argue with GPS tracking!  

Ian said we should stop for lunch when we see the next table and chairs for a picnic (mind you we haven't seen one in three days) but lo and behold, 10mins later we come across a field of sorghum (could be barley) dotted with red poppies and there in the middle is a chair.  Yes a chair.  This is our cue for lunch.  I stroll across, pick up the chair, carry it back to couple it with an appropriate sitting stone for Ian, then roll out the lunch -left over jambon, goats cheese, rice crackers, and onions from Paris. 

We walk another 2hrs following the signs to Ongles, then get lost – thank God for the GPS. We reach Ongles about 3.30pm just in time to boil the billy for a cup of tea.  Only about 5k to go and we are following the D951 into St Etienne.  It's this road or the high route up and over a mountain, so after 3 days on the track, we choose the road - it's already a 25k day.  Turning the corner, far away in the distance, we see the snow capped Alps - our ultimate destination in 2 weeks time. It's still cool.  My thermometer reads 20°C.  We continue up the road and see the village of St Etienne perched on a distant hill.  The problem with seeing your destination is that it then takes forever to get there.  It seems like an eternity when we turn at the church cross to the Hotel Saint Clair booked by Gilles from Gite Chaloux.  It's all downhill from here.  

At the hotel, we check in and find our room is in brilliant sunshine.  Time to do our washing and hang it on a clothes line strung from the knob on the wardrobe to the knob on the chest of drawer.  Then we head to the bar.  The French Open is on TV.  We sit in the lounge with a wine/beer and do diaries etc whilst watching Richard Gasquet play Andy Murray.  The French commentator is going berserk as Gasquet is up 6-1 in the first set.  But Murray is a slow starter and predictably wins 1-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-2.  It's 7pm and after a few wines/beers, we’re ready for dinner - 4 courses.  Entre is rock melon with a slice of jambon, main course we thought was chicken and baked potato but by the end, the bone was too big for chicken, so we're not sure what it was - bloody good whatever.  Dessert was a slice of goat's cheese followed by creme brûlée - Ian's favourite - he finishes mine as well.  We waddle down to our room and find our washing is almost dry.  The humidity is very low