Wednesday 28 December 2016

2016? What a Year It Has Been!


Ciao da Roma!

Looking back over the past twelve months, Dianne and I feel so lucky to have had such rich experiences. There has been sadness and struggle along with the delight and adventure we've enjoyed - but would life be so full without that?

January

Our first great adventure was taking our grandchildren away to the highlands of Tasmania for a camping and walking trip. One of us wasn't sure that this was a good idea: the other said, "Hey, let's do it!" Of course, it could have gone horribly wrong but as things turned out we had a fantastic time.
We packed up the car, piled the kids in, hitched up the camper-trailer and headed off to the Central Plateau, camping our first night at Penstock Lagoon. This is what our campsite looked like ...

At Penstock Lagoon

Yes it was a bit cool at times! We made our way from there to Cradle Mountain, and had a few days sharing one of Tasmania's iconic places with the little ones. Definitely one of the highlights of the year. Here are Asha and Zavier at the start of the Overland Track, Australia's premier bushwalk ... 

At the start of the Overland Track
No, we didn't do the full walk on this visit but played around the environs of Cradle Mountain. We were so impressed with the way the grandkids walked, as they don't get much practice at this sort of things in the tropics. Hopefully Di and I might get a chance to complete the through trip with the sprouts before we are too old and feeble - and they are still keen to do stuff with us.

February

Although we did a few day walks and bike rides, the highlight of February would have been our trip to Frenchmans Cap with our friend Peter Levitzke, with whom we cycled across Australia in the middle of last year. We set off in fine weather ...

Di, Pete & Doug setting off for Frenchmans Cap

... and walked through to the Lake Vera Hut, where Pete had a good afternoon's kip ...

Pete catches some zzzzz's


The forecast wasn't great, but we thought we might be able to sneak in a quick return trip to the summit the next day and did manage to summit, albeit it in drizzle and with very limited visibility ... 

On the summit of Frenchman's Cap


Also unfortunately, the ankle that I damaged in December of 2014 didn't like the long days hiking on rough rainforest tracks so much and I was pretty sore by the end, which didn't augur well for a major goal later in the year. 

March

After having the good fortune to be shepherded to Cape York and establishing very strong friendships on that and subsequent outback adventures, Di and I were "persuaded" to organise a get-together in Tasmania for Ultimate camper owners. This was certainly the focus of the month. Along with a large group of Ultimate owners, we spent four days en masse centred around the small town of Copping, where the Bream Creek Show was being held. From there we toured with our close friends down to the Tasman Peninsula and then up to Freycinet National Park. We had three great day hikes in this time, including a visit to Cape Pillar ...

At Cape Pillar, overlooking Tasman Island


... which we also visited by sea with our friends on the classic Tasman Island Cruise. The few days we spent camped at the beautiful Fortescue Bay ...

Fortescue Bay

... passed all too quickly, as did our few days together at Freycinet National Park. We managed to fit in a bit of cycling around this sociability (which we aren't brilliant at) so it was quite a well-rounded month for us, all things considered.

April

Last year, when we were training for our rain-sodden and rather spartan ride across Australia, Di started researching. She found a bike tour in Europe that really appealed to her, and persuaded me - without too much difficulty - that it would be a good thing to do. A company called Ride and Seek was going to be running its inaugural tour from London to Rome. With that trip fast approaching, it was time for us to get cracking with our training. Well we did get cracking, logging over 1700 kilometres on the road. The two best rides were our trips to National Park and Bothwell. Both long and absolutely superb days out on the bike. We also managed to squeeze in a few good day hikes - including this ramble on the slopes of Mt Wellington - to prepare for our other big adventure, but more on that later.

May

We were just starting to hit some form when, with just two weeks to the day until our departure for Europe, I received news that my Dad had died. Naturally, I hopped on a plane to Vancouver Island to be there for the funeral and to spend some time with my family. I'm probably not alone in realising that you don't fully appreciate all that your parents did for you when you were growing up. Despite the fact that we weren't a well-off family, I can say categorically that I had a wonderfully rich and rewarding childhood thanks to my parents. They must have liked spending time together, my Mom and Dad, and they must have liked kids, because they produced five of us over a period of six years and four months. Not sure why they stopped really, but it was probably a good thing. Anyway, Dad loved the outdoors, and loved sharing it with friends and family. Here is one of my favourite photos of my Dad, doing what he like doing best ...

Jack Bruce


So, home to Hobart and one week to get ready for our departure to Europe. To say I operated in a bit of a fog during this week would be an understatement. Before I knew it we were landed in London, and meeting the people that we would be spending the next month with. And what a fantastic bunch of folks they were. Here is a group photo taken in front of Buckingham Palace the day we set off ...

In front of Buckingham Palace

You can see shadows, right? Beautiful sunny day, right? Well the day deteriorated and it was raining by the time we reached Dover, 160 kilometres later. In fact, although we had the odd good day, our traverse through Belgium, northern France and even into Switzerland was largely rain-drenched. Some of you might remember that this was when they had record flooding in that part of Europe. Anyway, despite the rain, according to my record keeping, we cycled something like 930 kilometres in the week from the 23 to the 29th of May. To say we were all a bit tired would be an understatement. However, the visits to many historic sites, great company and occasional gem of a day amongst the rain meant that we would not have wanted to be anywhere else. We finished the first week of our cycle tour and the month of May in the beautiful medieval town of Troyes on the River Seine where we were very happy to have our first rest day.

June

The weather did gradually improve. and for most of our time riding through Italy we had sunny skies.  The first three weeks of the month saw us traverse through Borgogne, into Switzerland and the Alps, across into northern Italy and the Dolomites and then finally to Rome via Venice.




Over the month of our journey we cycled for 26 days with 3 rest days, covering about 3200 kilometres and ascending over 38, 000 metres, sharing great times with a fantastic group of people.  Here's another photo of our group, this time taken the morning we rode into Rome ...

One short ride left ...
If you want to read about our journey in detail, you can go to the blog I kept during the journey. Finally, in respect of the bike tour, we can't recommend more highly the folks that guided us through it all. Ride and Seek are a great company who really do put first the interests of their clients. They are so good that we are planning to ride with them again next year, along with some of our "fellow travellers".

The last week of June was a much more relaxed time. After enjoying a couple of days in Rome we made our way to Avignon to visit our friend Philippe, who we had met in 2014 while hiking in the Écrins National Park in the Southern French Alps. He delivered on a promise to show us the the fabulous Camargue region, which is the delta formed by the two outflows of the Rhone River, a place not so frequently visited by foreign tourists. Like many other regions in France, in the Camargue traditions are enthusiastically maintained. The following photo shows two aspects of those traditions: the Gardian houses and the Camargue horse ...

Camargue Gardian's house and Camargue horse

We had a fantastic time with him and his partner Veronique before heading north for another challenge. Di took this photo of the two of them back at Philippe's house outside Avignon, which he has rebuilt from a total ruin over the course of a couple of years ...

Veronique et Philippe à Le Petit Mas


July

From Avignon we made our way by train and bus to the tiny town of St Gingolph  on Lake Geneva at the northern end of the French Alps. Di had been wanting to walk from Lake Geneva to the Mediterranean Sea by traversing the French Alps since 2009, when we started planning adventures for our retirement. For some reason, I agreed that it would be a good idea to follow our cycle trip with this fairly extended hike. Di  did a massive amount of research and planning before we left home, plotting out the most scenic - and arduous - route that she could, and booking all of our accommodation in advance.  Here's a rough overview of the route we took and some figures of the amount of ground covered and metres ascended in our traverse ...

From St Gingolph to Menton by foot


This route combined sections of the GR's (Grande Randonnées) 5, 52 and 55 and travels through both the Vanoise and Mercantour National Parks. After we did the first five days alone, we were joined by Philippe and Veronique - and their friend Philippe, and then our friend Michel joined us a couple of days later. We had some great days walking together before each of them drifted off back to work and Di and I continued on our way. If you want to read about the trip you can do so here but be warned: it's a bit of an epic. Because of the length and variety of the traverse it's pretty well impossible to pick out a handful of favourite photos to share, but if you want to see 100 or so of my favourites you could look at these photos. In the meantime here are just a couple to add some colour to this narrative ...

Di in the magnificent Mercantour
Looking towards the Col de Chavière

We spent about the same amount of time traversing the Alps by foot as we did cycling from London to Rome, covering about 1/7th of the distance but ascending nearly as much as we had on the bike tour. Due to some bad weather, we skipped two of our scheduled days of walking but managed to cover pretty much all the rest of what Di had lined up for us. But by the time we reached Menton we both felt like we deserved - and needed - at least a few days of complete rest. 

August

Before leaving Europe for home we had arranged to visit our friends Michel and Brigitte in Toulouse and then travel on to Michel's homeland of Brittany to do some walking with them along the GR 34, which runs for something like 1800 kilometres along the entire coastline of Brittany. We thought this would be an easy cruise after the previous couple of months, but Michel set us a fairly strenuous schedule and it turned out that, rather having become fit as the summer wore on, we had just gotten worn out! This was the second section of the GR 34 that we'd done with the two of them, and we were just as delighted this time around as we were when we visited in 2012. Our previous trip had been to the west coast; this time we walked along the pink granite of the north coast, broken up in the middle with a wonderful few days pottering around the gorgeous Île-de-Bréhat. Here's the route we covered ...


Although it was a bit damp setting out on first day ...


by lunchtime it had cleared up and the rest of the trip was gorgeous. Here's a classic Breton coastal view ...


... and a picture of the four of us in one of the small coastal towns along our route ...



We also once again spent a few days in Michel's home town of Val d'Izé, visiting with his family, capping off another wonderful visit to this gorgeous part of France.

Finally, we were ready to head home. We sped back to Toulouse, got on the plane ... with one little hitch. After that mindless religious maniac had driven his truck through the Promenade des Anglais in Nice killing 86 people and injuring hundreds more, security had changed significantly since our arrival. The security guard at the airport manning the scanner would not allow us to take our hiking poles in our carry-on luggage so we had to leave them behind as we didn't have time to go back through security and check our bags. 

Once we recovered from the journey home it was straight into the garden as there was a lot to catch up on. About a week of hard yakka knocked it back into shape. I borrowed the green-waste bins from a number of our immediate neighbours to get rid of all the weeds, and we could finally see the garlic we'd planted and get some other things into the ground.

September ...

... proved to be another very full month. It was great to finally catch up with a number of friends back in Hobart. And having heard from our daughter just before departing for home that we would be allowed to have the grandkids for the last week of the month, we booked tickets to travel on the ferry across to the mainland. We had just started getting ready for that when Di's Mum suddenly got sick and passed away shortly before what would have been her 98th birthday. Thankfully, all of her children and grandchildren were either in the state or able to get to Hobart in time for the funeral, making for a fitting celebration of Beryl's life, one that was very much dedicated to supporting her family. This photo showing those family connections is one of Di's favourites ...

Beryl, Di, granddaughter Yolanda and great-granddaughter Asha
Before we knew it we were on the Spirit of Tasmania with our camper-trailer and the bikes on the back, headed for Brisbane to pick up our grandkids, pausing a few times along the way to do a bit of cycling. We had a great week camping, bushwalking and generally mucking about along the border of Queensland and New South Wales. Here are a few photos to illustrate ...









After dropping the kids back at the airport to fly home, we had a short visit in Brisbane with our good friends Max and Prue Borrows before we started our return journey to Hobart.

October

On the way home we got some good visits in with a number of friends in New South Wales - people we have met during various adventures both travelling around Australia and on our recent bike tour. We stopped in and said hello to Graham and Liz in Bonnells Bay, Chris in Port Hacking, Kay and John (who are a bit of a team but not "together") near Wollongong and, in Wagga Wagga,  Chris, Roberta, Emilie and Ian, aka as "Team Wagga". We had some great rides along the coast (especially in Royal National Park), in the Snowy Mountains, and in the flatter inland country. 

Here's a photo that Kay took for us outside the cafe along the waterfront in Wollongong ...


We were back in Hobart by the 22nd and, yes, it was time to get stuck into the garden yet again, this time for the spring planting. There wasn't too much weeding to do as Spring hadn't really sprung much. In fact I was a bit worried about the lemon tree that I'd planted but the nurseryman reassured me that all the citruses had been knocked about by the cold and windy weather that had transpired while we'd been away. The upside of everything being so slow was that the little amount of weeding I had to do!

November

It was great to finally be home and look forward to a more settled period. We managed to put the brakes on after a pretty busy six months and just appreciate being home, socialising, catching the odd movie and doing a bit of cycling and a couple of day walks. The only "away" time we had was to go up to Launceston for a charity cycling event called "Sally's Ride", which was a fun day out in the fabulous cycling terrain of the Tamar River and surrounding countryside.

December

Finally, with a bit of sunshine and warmer weather, the garden has started to blossom. The tomatoes are taking off, we've harvested more blueberries than ever before, the strawberries are producing nicely and other things look promising - apart from the cherry tree, which is decidedly sick. (Come winter time, once it has dropped its leaves, I'm going to get some serious help from the people down at Chandler's Nursery to get rid of the nasties that have got my precious tree in their thrall.) Although we love to travel, we really appreciate being back in Tasmania, where life is easy and we have such a beautiful, safe and relatively unspoilt environment. We do sometimes wish we didn't live so far away from people with whom we've become connected through our various adventures but modern communications mean that it is at least easier to keep in contact. We've been away to the east coast for a couple of rides, using a caravan park in Bicheno as our base camp ...


Another ride on a quiet road we hadn't even visited before by car took us through some lovely terrain east of the Midlands Highway, and delivered us this cute little surprise when we cruised past the old, decommissioned railway station in Parattah ...



It has been a thoroughly wet last Wednesday of the year. Di reckons that the rain is a good thing, because I need a day off the bike - which I probably wouldn't take if the sky was clear and the roads were dry. (It's actually not that bad out: do you think I should sneak out for a quick spin after dinner?) 

We feel incredibly lucky to have had such a full and rewarding year. The sadness for both of us losing a parent is tempered with the realisation that both Jack and Beryl had rich lives - and that their best days were behind them. We wish all of you with whom we've shared the year - either in person or via our wonderful modern connected world of the internet - a great 2017 and look forward to catching up with you, either here in Tasmania or on the road somewhere.

Friday 11 November 2016

A Fond Farewell ...




Have just come back from a bike ride (not one of my better efforts) and discovered that Leonard Cohen has shuffled off this mortal coil.  A great loss and a sad, sad moment for those of us who know and love his work. (I wonder: was Trump's anointment as the future leader of the most powerful country on Earth the final factor that caused this great humanist to sign off?) Of course, the news is in all the papers. Even our local rag has quite a nice article - syndicated no doubt.

An expat-Canadian, I came to Australia as a baby - well, a very young man, which is the same thing really - fell in love, stayed and made this country my home. Time and distance have, inevitably, taken their toll and eroded my sense of being Canadian - or "Canajun", as the also late, great Earle Birney - godfather of modern Canadian poetry - would have it. (Going to get a bit sidetracked here. If you don't know the poem " David" that made Birney's name known to the wider world, and you love mountains and the effect they have on the psyche of those of us who do hold them dear, you really ought to read it, as much for the story as anything. On the other hand, two other Birney masterpieces, "Bushed" and "The Bear on the Delhi Road", rather than narrate, paint wonderful pictures of man's tenuous relationship with aspects of nature. Like Cohen, another great Canadian literary genius.)

One might think, with this dilution of my sense of being a Canuck, that I might not feel Cohen's departure so deeply. Not so, it turns out. Having studied Cohen at uni in Canada and transported his two (relatively unknown) novels and some of his poetry with me in a suitcase when I made permanent my move Downunder, I introduced my darling Dianne to him and, if anything, she has become even more enamoured of him than I. (As I said, I was really only a baby when I made this southern migration and isn't our childhood memories and experiences that remain strongest?)

So, here we sit, playing what music of Cohen we have, letting his genius re-infuse our consciousness. All the old great tunes. Naturally, there are peaks that really stand out; we all have our favourites. For me, Suzanne and Marianne are the two that really do it. (These two Youtube videos are worth looking at just for the fact that they span almost 40 years of Cohen's career.) I guess that's the hopeless romantic in me. But for greatest impact on the music scene and the most covers by other artists one cannot go past the seminal "Hallelujah". Jeff Buckley's cover is widely regarded as the definitive version, but K.D. Lang's performance of this great song at the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame induction of Cohen in 2006 is a ripper, for both the performance and the occasion.

Vale, Leonard Cohen. And thank you.

Thursday 13 October 2016

The Wind Will Blow


(Psst: The photo is a hyperlink ...)

It has been quite a year, and not yet nearly done. So why bring it up now? Not one for end-of-year letters, this seems to be as good a time as any. And this morning I woke (early, as seems to have become my wont) to the most wonderful dream. And, as dreams often do, it got me to thinking.

The dream was about my Dad. Those of you who are close will know that I lost my dad earlier in the year. Perhaps as a result I have spent more time this year thinking about him this year than in the past few years. And I'm not really sure why this dream came to me this morning, but it was one of those vivid dreams that one wakes to and the details remain clear and strong. The dream was about my Dad's funeral, but not the one we had: it was a funeral as if he'd died aged 50 or 60, and it was a joyous, festive event celebrated by throngs of people with whom dad's life had intertwined or even just bounced off. Everybody was happy to be there and tell their story of Jack. A wonderful thing: the dream woke me with a smile, and thoughts came crowding in.

Without going into the blow-by-blow, we've had our ups and downs in 2016, my Dianne and I. Thankfully they've been mostly ups. Big peaks that stand out about the wide open fields of wheat blowing in the wind and the occasional muddy depression.

We've had two weeks away Ultimate camping with our darling grandchildren; the first early in the year at Cradle Mountain; the second just past in the border country where southeast Queensland meets northeast New South Wales. This might not sound like like a lot of time, but when they live almost as far away as they could be in this county every moment is special.

In late summer early fall we had a spell of mainland visitors, capped by an Ultimate get-together in southeast Tasmania. We followed this with lots of time at home trying to get fit enough to undertake back-to-back-to-back adventures cycling, hiking and even more hiking again in western Europe. As with most great adventures, it was the sharing with others - both old and new friends made during the course of those adventures - that made them special.

Our brief return home was a whirlwind of activity (gardening, visiting, spring cleaning, preparing for this trip to see the grandkids) punctuated by two significant events. The lesser of those involved a person driving their car at some not-inconsiderable speed through our back fence, fetching up against the corner of our neighbour's house. The greater, more momentous, was the passing of Di's Mum. Having lived for just a couple years short of her century, Beryl endured the trauma of two World Wars, the straitened circumstances of the Great Depression witnessed more profound change in her time on the planet than most of us will perhaps see. The fact that throughout her nearly 98 years Beryl could always raise a smile was a great testament to who she was and how she felt about being alive.

Our current foray to the North Island has been relatively short for the distance we've covered. We've got just over a week to get the ferry back to the Main Island and the joy of reconnecting with more friends along the way still ahead of us. Thanks to those of you with whom we've spent time, however briefly, these few weeks have richly added to the tapestry of the year.

We're nearly home and, as I see the sun starting to shine on the canvas of the camper and wait for it - and my darling Dianne - to rise and shine I wonder what the day will bring. We intend a ride. One certainty is that the wind will blow: or at least that's what the local bike shop owner tells us. For at least some of the day we will be slogging into a headwind. We hope that we might catch a bit of a tailwind to finish the day but who knows? It could be a slog out and back. Whatever, it will be another memorable day, and just great to be alive and kicking.


Monday 5 September 2016

Death By Design

"You Can Bury It or You Can Burn It"

I've just been reading this article on The Age Newspaper's website. While the piece headlines iPhones, it goes on to discuss how all major phone companies are negligent in designing products that will have a short life cycle. (It appears that Samsung's new flagship model has been designed for an even shorter lifespan, with some of the recently released phones either bursting into flames or exploding, prompting a total recall of the device!) The article is all about a major new award-winning documentary, Death By Design, which explores the consequences of building in obsolescence and our insatiable appetites for new gadgets.

Burying it: computer motherboards ready for internment
Burning it: cooking up lead and cadmium
While it might be trendy to have the latest gadget, recycling our old ones is not done quite in such an honourable and responsible manner as we affluent western consumers would like to think. While the film isn't asking people to go back to Gutenberg and Semaphore as our primary means of communication: it is asking people to pause before deciding that they really need to change their phone, computer or TV. Can we extend the life cycle of our toys? For our children's sake, and for the planet's sake, let's hope so.

The trailer for the documentary is in Vimeo rather than YouTube so I can't embed it here, but if would like to see it you can follow this link.

"All these brands ... they just buy from the cheapest"

What I find most disturbing about all of this is the way we in the west have eschewed all responsibility for recycling the e-waste of our cast-off gadgets. China, which has become the country where most electronics are manufactured, is also the place where most of them are sent for so-called recycling. Unfortunately, it appears that most of what is recycled is merely the copper: the rest is burnt or buried. Isn't it time we started putting pressure on our governments to require proper recycling within our own borders? (This is a major theme of mine: I find it appalling that we Australians ship mine and ship uranium around the world but we won't use it ourselves and we don't take the waste back.)

For people living in Australia, Environmental Film Festival Australia will be screening Death By Design around the country later this year and into 2017. If you are interested in receiving news about EFFA, you can sign up here. It's worth it just to be able to click the box saying "I GIVE A FLICK!"

P.S. If you're curious about what the inside of a Samsung Note 7 phone looks like and how the battery is connected and a discussion of why it is failing, this is an entertaining little video ...


Addenda: 8th September

So, the iPhone 7 has just been launched. Much as I like my Apple devices, this article expounds on why you shouldn't buy the new phone. And I have to say, I concur completely. The world needs to send Apple a message about both shouldering its corporate responsibility to pay taxes and stop releasing an update that consists of largely cosmetic changes.

Wednesday 31 August 2016

Traversing the French Alps

A Walk in the Mountains?


We are now back home in Tasmania after an extended cycling and hiking trip in Europe. Finally I feel like I am getting enough on top of things to have a look back at our traverse of the Alps, from St Gingolph on Lake Geneva/Lac Leman to Menton on the Mediterranean Sea.

Warning: this is a bit of an epic read for a blog
so you might only want to look at the pictures.
However, if you like a good yarn, settle in with
a cuppa and I'll tell you about our month of
hiking from St Gingolph to Menton.

Into the mountains

Since retiring in 2010 and traversing the Pyrenees,  my wife and I have become rather addicted to doing long hikes in Europe. We started out carrying camping gear but in the interim, thanks to ageing joints, we've transitioned to hiking hut-to-hut, with the odd gîte d'étape and cheap hotel thrown in, depending on what's available in any given location. We love being in the mountains and, besides the traverse of the Pyrenees, have hiked in Corsica and in the Ecrins massif of the southern Alps.

Di had been looking at the grand traverse of the French Alps since before we quit working: it was the other option alongside the Pyrenean Traverse that she most wanted to do and we finally decided to get on with it this year before we felt it was beyond us.

Here is a rather rough view of the the route, courtesy of Google Maps ...

Our route through the Alps
... and another map showing the hike in an overall context of western Europe ...

Alpine traverse in the context of western Europe
Di is generally the logistics manager for our European hikes and, using the Cicerone Press guide to the GR5, put together combinations of the GR 5, 55 and 52 in order to take in the most spectacular aspects of the journey south. Wherever there was a choice she elected for a high rather than a low route.

In Your Face From the Get-Go!

Having decided to start at St Gingolph rather that Thonon-Les-Bains in order to save a day, we knew we were in for a tough start. Here's a graphic from Google Earth showing the route to Chapelle d'Abondance ...

St Gingolph to Chapelle d'Abondance
Although we only had 18 kms of ground to cover, there was 1880 metres of elevation gain, the  second greatest for the whole trip. It was a bit confronting and we were very pleased that we arrived in a town and had accommodation in a hotel for the night.

Reacquainting ourselves with mountain hiking

We were pleased that our next day, although a little longer, had 400 metres less elevation gain.
This meant of course that overall, the gradients would also be a little less steep on average. The route took us into Switzerland for our only night outside France, and it was at the intimate Refuge de Chésery ...

Refuge de Chésery
There are two great things about staying in these alpine refuges: first, they are good value - one always gets plenty to eat at the dinner table; second, there are opportunities to meet and converse at leisure with other hikers - particularly if prepared to make a bit of an effort to speak a few words of French. We got friendly with François and Nicole (the couple sitting opposite one another dressed in red) and hiked on and off with them for several days before they left the route. 

I had to stop and take a photo of this sculpture, as it reminded me of the way logs were moved along the rivers in Eastern Canada back in the pioneering days ...

"Le flottage du bois"


There was a bit of rain off and on in the first few days of our traverse, particularly on the fourth day when we hiked from the hameau of Le Salvagny. The next photo is of the two of us standing in front of the Cascade du Rouget, and was taken by a cyclist out with a group who were about to retreat to the warmth and comfort of their hotel to watch the Tour de France. 


Cascade du Rouget

We didn't have that luxury and pressed on through mist and rain past the Chalets d'Anterne ...

Chalets d'Anterne

 ... then over the Col d'Anterne to the Refuge de Möed d'Anterne. It was here that we faced our first disappointment: word was that our route over the spectacular Col de Brévent had received a lot of recent snow and was not suitable for hikers. Staff at the refuge were advising strongly against going this way to Les Houches and the valley of Chamonix, our destination for the night. Reluctantly, we changed our plans and headed down a long valley to Servoz. At least we had excellent views of the Mt Blanc massif almost all day. Here is one view early on the descent ...

Mt Blanc from near Refuge Möed d'Anterne

On into the Parc National de la Vanoise

After a day's rest and doing the tourist thing in Chamonix we met up with our friends Philippe and Veronique and their friend Philippe and set off into perhaps the most  beautiful part of the French Alps. The plan was for them to walk with us through to Briançon for the next twelve days. Here are Veronique and Philippe tightening their laces outside the Gîte Michel Fagot (made marvellous by the wonderful Ameline) in readiness for the steep climb out of Les Houches ...

Philippe and Veronique in front of the wonderful Gîte Michel Fagot


The only downside to this part of the hike was that the GR5 and the extremely popular Tour du Mont Blanc share the same route for a day and a half, meaning that there were more people on the track than we shy Tasmanians are used to seeing! Di took this photo at the Col de Tricot ...

Philippe #2 in from of  the crowd at the Col de Tricot
The upside to the day was that our friend Michel had joined our party in Les Contamines, and there was some great bonding between the four Frenchies over a few glasses of wine. Michel was going to walk with us for six days through the Vanoise where he'd not been hiking, before having to go back to work in Toulouse.

Aside: on the way to the refuge in Les Contamines we were surprised to find a little reminder of Tasmania ...

A hint of Tasmania in the heart of the European Alps


Day 7 was one of the loveliest days hiking I can remember, despite the crowds during the morning.  We crossed the Cold du Bonhomme, where we enjoyed marvellous views, an excellent lunch and the company of a flock of sheep - some of whom got up close and personal ...

G'day mate!
... and then it was across to the Refuge de la Croix du Bonhomme - where we split off from the Tour du Mont Blanc and on to have a bite to eat at the start of the wonderful Crête des Gittes ...

Michel has the munchies

The crête stretches for quite a distance, and affords fantastic walking with wonderful views either side ...


Early on the Crête des Gittes



Flowers and schist along the Crête des Gittes


Still two bumps to go!

The next day was another tough walk, with lots of up and down. There were more fantastic views ...

Flowers, alpage and snowy peaks

... Philippe and Veronique decided the pace that Di had set for us was a bit too torrid for them to really have an enjoyable, relaxed escape from work, and adjusted their schedule to move a little more slowly. We were sorry to see them leave but understood that they were unwinding and gathering strength, whereas we'd already had the benefit of a month on our bikes to get fit. Their friend Philippe continued with us through half of the next day ...

Philippe on the march

... before he too decided to ease up his pace. Hopefully we will be able to spend time in the mountains with Vero and the two Philippes at a more moderate pace the next time we are in France!


We had a few more days with Michel to enjoy the delights of the flowers ...


... the cosy company of families and other folks at Refuge d'Entre-Le-Lac ...

Refuge d'Entre-Le-Lac
... more flowers ...



... a stop at the fantastic Refuge du Col du Palet ...


At Refuge du Palet


... before descending to the ski village of Val Claret, over another col and on to the Refuge de la Leisse. 

The next day was another stunner, taking us down a beautiful valley ...

Alongside the Torrent de la Leisse

 ... up over a col, through a gorgeous hanging valley replete with marmots to the Refuge du Col de la Vanoise, through Lac des Vaches ...



... and on to Refuge les Barmettes for our last night with Michel, who we farewelled in the town of Pralognan.

Re-equipping and continuing southward, ever southward

By the time we got to Pralognan my shoes were in a sorry state. Although good for most of the tracks we were hiking at home they just weren't robust enough for the snow  and rock we had been encountering over the past couple of weeks. Luckily I found a good pair of Millet hiking shoes ...

New, blue (suede) shoes ...
... that fit my misshapen feet well. (And yes, they are made out of blue suede, but also lined with Gore-Tex.)

After having a coffee with Michel in Pralongan we left him to catch a bus and walked up the valley with some urgency because the forecast was for an afternoon thunderstorm. Arriving at Refuge du Péclet-Polset ...

Refuge de Péclet-Poset
.. just before the front hit with a big bang, instantly filling the skies with water and transforming the landscape into a streaming sea. The storm arrived a couple of hours earlier than normal, which didn't augur well for the next day. With the forecast for an even earlier storm, we resolved to leave early in the morning in an effort to get over the 2796 metre Col de Chavière - the highest col on the whole traverse - before the skies opened. 

We made good time to the col, although I had to stop a few times along the way to take the occasional photo. My attention was arrested by some flowers on a hillock ...

Approaching Col de Chavière

As you can see, there is still plenty of snow about ...

Closing in on the Col de Chavière


... and here's Di arriving at the col ...

Finally: the Col de Chavière
We didn't linger, as the weather was looking more and more threatening. Down the other side we went, where the skies seemed to be lightening ...

Is the weather lifting?
Disappointingly - but not unexpectedly - the clouds moved back in almost immediately, and light rain began to fall. However, a little way further down the valley our mood transcended the weather when we came upon a herd of bouquetin - all males - and managed to get a few photos despite the poor light. Here's one of the better ones ...

Bouquetin grazing
Shortly after the skies really opened and we donned our rain jackets. Here's a photo of Di, taken just as we were leaving the boundary of the Vanoise National Park, with water streaming down the hillside behind her ...

Leaving the Vanoise in the rain
It was another couple of hours downhill to the town of Modane straddling a major road and railway line just near the border with Italy. The town was shrouded in fog by the time we arrived, and had a pretty dismal feel to it. 

Our mood was not helped by the forecast: snow down the the 2000 metre level and strong winds. Given that the plan for the next two days into Briançon involved long hours of hiking with lots of time spent above 2000 metres we reluctantly made the decision to pull the plug on that section of the hike. Instead we bussed into Bardoneccia in Italy for a day's R&R and sightseeing ...




The next day was a  transit day via train to the charming, historic town of Oulx, where we had a couple of hours to wander around, taking in the sights ...




... and then it was the bus to Briançon, where we had a previously scheduled rest day. While we were disappointed not to be able to do the two days by foot from Modane, the truth is that we were pretty tired from the ten days straight of hiking that we'd done between Les Houches and Modane. An extra couple of days of rest did us the world of good, and it was nice to dip into Italy unexpectedly.

Exploring the Queyras

Most people who know a bit about the Alps are familiar with the northern half, less so with the terrain further south. As mentioned previously, we'd done some hiking in the Écrins National Park, hiking the  gorgeous circuit of the GR54, also known as the Tour de l'Oisans. We had also spent a month further east climbing in the area around Briançon and were looking forward to hiking through the Queyras region. 

Although generally drier than the topography further north, there are still plenty of high passes with lots of snow on them. As we expected the Queyras proved to be very beautiful. In fact, perhaps the most beautiful lake we walked past on the whole traverse was Lac St Anne near the Col Girardin ...

Lac Ste Anne (2415 metres above sea level)
Although perhaps too small for it to have been considered for National Park status, the Queyras Park Naturel is quite varied for its size. We walked through high dry valleys ...



... crossed rubbly peaks ...


... and walked past a number of ruined forts guarding high passes ...

Baraquements de Viraysse

We saw more marmots ...


... and beautiful lakes high in the mountains ...


We navigated what seemed like a whole world of rock up a high valley ...




... before we crossed yet another col and descended a massive scree slope ...


... and then found ourselves surrounded by a mob of sheep feeding in a high pasture ...



Almost before we knew it we were through the magic of the Queyras and ...

On to the GR52 and the Mercantour National Park

The jumping off point for the Mercantour is the medieval village of Saint Dalmas in Valdeblore. We arrived here early in the afternoon to find the gîte we'd booked wouldn't let us in until 4:00 p.m. Considering that we had a rest day scheduled for the next day, we wouldn't be allowed in the gîte between 10 and 4, and thunderstorms were forecast, we were none too pleased and went looking elsewhere. Happily we found a charming family-run hotel called the Auberge des Murès. (Highly recommended if you're passing through this part of the world.) After a lovely rest exploring the village we felt ready to tackle the rugged Mercantour.

Paradoxically, and somewhat irksomely, to make the most of the traverse south through the fabulous Mercantour one must walk north for half a day from St Dalmas to get into the heart of the park. But hey, once you're on the way, you're on the way, right?

This part of the GR starts relatively innocuously, with a long but gradual climb up through forest which eventually gives way to open slopes of grass ...



... but then the landscape changes quite dramatically, and one is immersed in a world of gneiss, with fantastic rock architecture everywhere and some quite rugged hiking amongst it all. Here's a sequence of three images to give a hint of what I'm talking about ...









 Amongst the wild landscape we were delighted to get up close and personal with a chamois ...



Every once in a while a fabulous lake will reveal itself ...



These are days to be savoured. Just look at this for a landscape ...



After all this ruggedness, wonderful as it was, we found it very pleasant to finally traverse via a relatively smooth section of path beside a small lake ...



... into the Vallée des Merveilles, a famous pre-historic site strewn with ancient petroglyphs.

And, after this there were only two more days of hiking to Menton.  The first of those was a bit of a killer though: 31 kilometres, with 1000 metres of ascent and 2600 metres of descent landing us in the old town of Sospel, which was an important staging post on the ancient salt route running into northern Europe from the Mediterranean.

One thing you can say about the route to Menton is that it is full value: even on the last day when you are so close to the end, there are still three cols to cross before the descent to the sea. Here is a photo of us - looking a bit weary and sunstruck - at the very last of those, the Col de Berceau ...



... and then finally, about halfway down the last incline, after the morning sea fog had cleared, we were able to see Menton on the Mediterranean Sea ...



And that's our story. If you're a glutton for punishment, you can see more photos here. We used the Cicerone Guide to the GR5 to plan our trip, and used the digital version when we were on the route. There were a number of errors that were irksome at times, but a new edition is out that apparently addresses some of those mistakes. Along the way we actually picked up the last three of the French topo guides for the route because we liked the layout and size, and found them very useful and informative about the natural history. Di also used the French iPhiGénie maps App for her phone so we had the equivalent of a GPS along the way, which was very useful in general, but particularly a couple of times on high cols when we were socked in with fog. The only thing we'd probably do differently is factor in a few more rest days so we wouldn't be so knackered, but it worked out that way anyway with our detour into Italy for a couple of days.