Rivers and gorges

Down in the valley we accidentally saw a trough offering eau potable and when camping you never pass-up the opportunity for a refill.

With 20 litres or so of fresh stuff we were ready for another night ‘wild’. We watched the nearby river, foaming white and the kayakers in full force, all though they are mainly out of the water. The kayak season here coincides with snow melt but I get the feeling that the rivers are a little too forceful at the moment.

I heard some English speakers discussing “are you running that?” and the answer was “No, not for a week maybe”. I think the weather is warmer than usual and I know that there was late snow, so maybe we are seeing more water than is normal for this time of year.

The whole tour has been dominated by gorges and foaming rivers. Often there are gorge roadworks which involve traffic lights that always have a countdown timer on display. I like them.

Guillestre sits surprisingly alongside a deep valley which we didn’t see until we drove up to an adjacent hilltop where there’s another fortified settlement, Mont Dauphin.

It’s really shocking to see a perfect hanging valley that isn’t halfway up a rugged mountain!

In Queyras Regional Natural Park we drove up to Saint-Véran and we were in yet another beautiful high hamlet. This one says it’s the highest village in France and it’s probably right as it’s at 2,040m.

It’s another ski area that you’ve never heard of. There are so many that the UK packages don’t go to and I’m sure these are lovely. Accommodation would be limited though. I think that moving around every few days between this sort of area would be a nice way to see more skiing.

The style of house here, Fuste, is a bit ‘log cabin’. They all have tin roofs, in fact all the towns in these alps have houses with metal roofs but here they are then clad with timber strips. I think the important detail is the number of floors and the relative positions of family living, animals and feed. Stone built lower levels are for animals and storage with wooden upper levels for living accommodation. I think the highest levels had feed - maybe grain and hay, which would also insulate.

In this region, sundials are ‘a big thing’. The trouble is that I can’t help but have a good look at them. The first check-point is the displayed time. In England I believe it’s GMT but I can’t work these French ones out. They are at least a half hour from ‘normal’ time anyway.

This particular sundial has me thinking though…

The best feature though are the views. From up here the sky is huge, the mountain faces are expansive and the sun shines early and late. For this reason we had a look for another wild camp and decided to try a point above the village, accessed by a drive up a ski run.

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On y va

Hooray. We are off. The ferry was booked a few weeks ago and the pressure was then on to get all sorts of jobs finished on the house and Landy. Major cosmetic work was to cover the grey front doors with paint that matches the rest of the vehicle. On the engine a coolant leak had developed behind the water pump and so the P gasket and adjacent core plug were renewed. Also a cheapy head unit from those Chinese people replaced the old Sony fm radio. Now we have opened up the wonders of Car Play and all that comes with it. Finally the 9th gen iPad with WiFi became a 9th gen iPad with WiFi and ‘cellular’. This means we can use OsmAnd Maps which need no data and get their gps position off the ‘cellular’ chip in the iPad. More on this useful map in subsequent posts. We headed towards Portsmouth for a mid morning ferry via our old neighbours in S-I-V. There we had a great few hours updating each about our families and then proceeded to save the NHS, the country and the world too. I mean why no...

Onwards

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Peelies travels

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