Thwarted by snow

Driving over the Col de Cayolle is a must As one of our guidebooks-to-nice-things-in-France tells us, it’s a beautiful pass. So that’s where we went (where the trip marker colours change).

It is true, it is a great drive and as it’s tight, the bigger stuff can’t get up from either side.

These guys did; 2CVs manage to do most things. Also this solo driver from Germany was here. You couldn’t miss him as the sound from his 911 Classic Porsche was something else. It’s a 1980 model and he told me it was a hard drive as he has no servo steering. It made our 110 seem positively modern by comparison.

It seemed as though a walk into a mountain bowl was in order and we armed ourselves with provisions for a few hours and donned the boots.

As soon as we rounded the corner, the noisy pass was out of earshot and we left people behind.

One walker did advise that if we could get up to Petite Cayolle then the rest of the walk to the beautiful frozen lakes would be straightforward. 

We imagined what might happen and started to focus on a snow slope in the distance.

It was a lovely walk, the path was dry except in a few parts and the streams easy to cross. Flowers were pushing through but it’s high and ‘late’ up here.

As we get nearer, the back wall of the mountain got steeper and we decided that lunch was in order as we contemplated things.

A solo walker came over the col and very slowly made his way down, making full use of his batons. We don’t have suitable walking poles, as we’ve never got around to sorting out two full pairs. Also they need that spreader thing at the end, to prevent them from digging into snow.

During lunch we were alerted by a noise behind us and to the side. A very large rock was making its way downhill, thankfully we weren’t in its path. It seemed to roll in slow motion and took an age to stop.  If necessary we would have got behind the boulder we were sitting on.

After lunch we decided to try to go up, by either walking in previous steps or making our own. However the shape of the slope was such that as we stepped onto it from the rocky path, we were already a 100m above the bottom of the snow patch. So a slip would be a slide down. It might have been fun.

Just for scale, a person standing on the col would have been a small speck on the skyline  

So we turned around, not so much because ascending was tricky; it wasn’t so bad. The thought of trying to stamp steps coming down without slipping though was more concerning.

We came off the snow and I tried a scree slope up the side but again it was disconcerting. It wasn’t easy to decide if the rocky traverse higher up was going to be exposed or an easy-feeling scramble.

That was that. We didn’t conquer Petite Cayolle but then no one else did either in the few hours we were there. Later we did see someone come onto the col from the far side but during our longish walk back to the road there was no sign of them actually trying to descend our side.

Gorges

The Var river has cut a massive slice through the mountains, from north to south. We took a long time to do a tour of the area so that we could drive north through Gorges de Daluis and south through a gorge formed by another river, Gorges Supèrieures du Cians. It made a nice side trip with the added advantage of a return to the lakeside campsite. We drove clockwise around he loop.

It’s now 32* days here and yet another holiday weekend. This time Monday is the day and I think that’s Whit Monday as we used to say.

Upstream from Entrevaux the Var gorge turns from an easterly decent to a southerly one. The road climbs the western ‘bank’ which is the side of a mountain and leaves the river and its huge debris spread across the valley floor, far below. It’s yet another airy drive for me as rh drive on the right side of the carriageway means the ground immediately falls away under my window.

I can’t get over the debris. The river has moved across the valley floor over the years and mostly that floor is covered in grey rocks and stone. There’s little vegetation so I suppose that it goes into flood and must be very spectacular.

We get very high and then within a few km the rock changes dramatically to a deep red, almost maroon and it’s time to stop for a walk to Point Sublime.

We are lucky as there’s a space in the small parking place and the walk takes about 50 mins uphill. It’s like being in Utah or Arizona or somewhere else ‘red rocky’. When we reach the lookout we can now appreciate the gorge. It’s yet another deep one - 200-300metres maybe but this is a narrow defile and the other side is just a stretched arm away. Well almost.

There’s only the odd couple or two walking here so it’s quite special. We can hear the road below and we will drive it, through the gorge in a bit.

So we look and wonder and then turn and walk back for a half hour. Here there are the largest lizards in Europe ??? and one of us managed to catch a glimpse of one - very distinctive in yellow rather than the usual brown / green of the smaller common ones that are everywhere else in these parts. Didn’t have time to photograph it though so this is an information shot.

Now we join the road for the drive through the gorge and it is a motorbike heaven. They come in large groups and like the cars, try to stop at each viewpoint. This means that some of us are lucky and others hop one to get to the next.

Tunnels have been blasted through and provide sudden darkness. I’m not sure how the bikers manage. Maybe they flip up their visors.

We aren’t far from the coast and a large group from Monaco Bikers or something, came past. I’m always trying to let them through as they need the thrill of the sweeping bends ands that’s hard to achieve behind a Defender. They always stretch out the right leg by way of thanks but also are constantly raising a left hand to acknowledge fellow bikers coming in the opposite direction. So they are kept busy.

So the road goes on, up and up and then down and down and we stop for a picnic when we get down to the river. It’s moving far too aggressively for a swim but also will be too cold and is barrage-controlled and so there are signs warning of sudden changes in height and possible death with it. So we sit in chairs and watch instead.

Later we go to Péone which is a hamlet with extraordinary passages and alleys linking the buildings.

They are built so close that they forms ‘stacks’ up the hillside. The passages are the only way to move between those ‘stacks’ and we make as much use as we can of them before repairing to the one and only bar / restaurant, just as they are emptying of the final lunchers (sic) and we have an elegant ice cream. 

Hoping for a single boule in a cone, we actually get a single boule in a glass dish and a bottle of iced water too. So we sit and eat it rather than walk and chew. It’s probably a better look for the hamlet.

Then we turn to go south again, thorough another crazy slit in the mountains. We just drive this and concentrate on not slowing bikers down or clipping them as they drive towards us.

It’s narrow and they can’t really drive with their knees on the white line because it’s too close to the vehicles in the other carriageway. I have to be careful but there’s no incident and all bikers that passed us in both directions did so safely. That’s a lot of bikers.

Castellane & Entrevaux

Castellane is a meeting place for people and their vehicles. As we roll in to the attractive square, full of parking places, a short line of ‘super’ cars follows us. There are several Porsche and BMWs of course but also a Honda S2000, altogether less common and more subtle I think.

There are motorbikes and the bikers make nice social groups, clearly sharing their experiences. They come in all shapes, sizes and genders(?) and there are many different makes of machine. 

There’s always awkward moments as a biker finds a space amongst all the others, stops and then has to dismount. No mistakes are allowed, as it would be domino time.

Dominating the town is the huge rock with church and statue (Chapel Notre-Dame du Roc) at the top. That’s a photo taken from a distance. It rises vertically from the town centre and so the view back down is rather good. It’s only a steep 35-40 mins to get up here and apparently 50,000 people do so each year. Mostly though, they seem to sit at cafés down in the town.

We camp at a little site only 10 minutes walk away,  which has a familiar mix of German, Dutch and French visitors. We’ve seen little of Britain here but there are English speaking voices in the cafés.

Outside the campsite is an all-in-one waste and clean water service point. These are dotted around France and for a fee you can dispose of your black and grey waters. This one asks for €2 from non-campsite users but unusually it’s open access and so it is an ‘honesty fee’.

We spotted a Defender parked at the side of the road. Madam was on the phone but Monsieur was clearly the guy walking along the road towards it and so I accosted him.

This is a very tidy all GRP conversation of a 110. The body was sporting the website of a specialist in Marseille. It’s quite pricey but a very nice solution for ‘complete living’, with heat, water, waste, shower etc.  https://www.psi-azalai.fr/

Now the weather has turned properly settled across the near Alps and so we move a little further east into proper mountains again.

We pass over an HEP dam and substation. The diagram shows the huge vertical drop available as they don’t have just this one, there’s five barrages on the Verdon, each with their own Centrales EDF.

Lunch is a picnic at a little lakeside harbour, accessed down a road that’s signposted ‘impossible for motorhomes’. That’s because it’s only about 2m between a couple of buildings near the bottom.

Entrevaux is a citadel town, perched on an inaccessible hill with the Var river acting as a natural moat.

The campsite Camping du Brec is in a surprising position about 1.5km from the town, also across the river from the main road, at the end of a cul-de-sac.

Here the owners have a campsite with its own private lake. It must drive the locals mad because it’s only for campeurs and that seems to be respected.

The water is warm and reasonably deep, although front crawl can catch the odd long weed. The owners have a selection of kayaks and canoes sitting on the beach and they are free to use. We fancied the Canadian canoe and had a couple of nice paddles à deux in the still waters. (Pic for attention).

The walk to the town is high above the Var and this is the first time that we have noticed the deposition coming from it. This valley is full of eroded material and in the subsequent days we follow it up stream and there’s millions of tonnes of it and it’s an industry to ‘quarry’ and process the gravel.

We go all French and have a long lunch as we otherwise wander these tiny ‘streets’. There’s no room for cars. They are in the midst of a small music festival and we are serenaded by a couple playing the fiddle and accordion, to a high standard.

Assiette de Secca is a local starter dish of thinly sliced cured beef.

Just when we think we’ve wandered all the alleys, we come across a group of guys at the door to an amazing motorbike museum. It is on three levels in the most inaccessible location and whilst I’m no expert, I’d wager that there’s quite some value in there.

Here’s just a few pics…