Summer in the UK

It is now the almost the final chapter in our journey and, sadly, it was also time to sell our trusty steed, the KTM 990, though we still had time for one last trip. Taking advantage of the brilliant UK weather, we headed towards the Welsh coastline. The journey took us on a spectacular drive up through the Elan valley and then towards the Llyn peninsular. Typically the sunshine didn't take us all the way there (this is the UK!) and driving through the rain at the end of the day to Dolgellau we found a pub, complete with a cosy room and yummy pub grub. The next day, the sun shining once again, we continued along the coast to the little town of Abedaran; with its two pubs (one with an amazing terrace overlooking the beach, and the other with an awesome restaurant) and a fish and chip shop, it seemed a good place to make our base for a few days. What I really loved about this part of wales was the Welshness-pub conversations between locals were conducted in Welsh, and an exchange at the shop more often than not ended with a 'diolch' than a thank you.

 

The stunning coast line of the Lyn Peninsular

The trusty KTM

It wasn't all sunshine! A bracing walk along the coast in the wind and rain

More stunning coastline

Whispering Sands

Llyn peninsular

Yet another "beer + view" picture

After days of  walking and fish and chips in the sunshine (mostly), it was time to say goodbye to the bike and take it to its new home in Bristol. We took advantage of delivering the bike by having a day out in Bristol with Liz and Bruce, seeing the magnificent Brunel's SS Great Britain, walking along the canals and then to a fantastic lunch at the Glass boat. An excellent day.

On the deck of SS Great Britian

We then headed to Cornwall, where there was still the Lizard to Plymouth section of the South West Coast path we wanted to get in before hanging up our hiking boots. I really love this part of the world and the weather was incredible; along with the amazing scenery- there were many glasses of cider in the sunshine, oysters and prosecco, yummy scallops and really rather too many evenings where we ate fish and chips.

We then had an excellent week 'on holiday in Holt' with Liz and Bruce. The days were spent in the best traditions of a British summer:  car-booting, vintage car hill racing,  country showing, beautiful Worcestershire walking, fancy meals out, delicious meals in, pints at the Fox, Christmas in August (okay, not that traditional but fun all the same!), and as always good food, good company and a lot of drinking fizz in the Garden.

 And so the final leg of the journey has ended here in London, where we have been to art galleries, visited the sights, seen some shows, caught up with good friends (that night is a whole other post I think, Nick and Kirst, especially as more things 'come to light' as bags and pockets are emptied) and spent more time than we should have at Gordon's.

Its hard to imagine that over 13 months have past since we set out from Cairo on that first day, heading towards the Sudan. It has been an amazing year and while it is hard to imagine life 'back in reality', the adventure of Hong Kong awaits. Thanks to all those who we have met, caught up with, crashed with and those who have followed us on this trip.



Tour of Mount Blanc

 

 

 

We had a bit of time out from life on the road in the form of the Isle of Wight Festival and then a trip back to Cairo for Chris and Rania's wedding (possibly an indicator of how good a time we had is the distinct lack of photos that we took.....we were having too much fun to bother with photos so had to pinch some from facebook! ) Thanks to Chris and Rania and all the Cairo crowd for a fabulous time, albeit slightly 'La-baroned!'

 

Festivals have gone up-market since the old day- no longer cider and chips and gravy, but champagne and crab on chips

 

It's tiny, but the caption on the cider says 'Pace yourself'

 

Ahhhhh- the Bride and Groom

Reunited with the girls

We flew into Geneva. We were lucky to have our friend Jacqui in Montreux, so we headed there and had a great time catching up, drinking beer beside the lovely lake and indulging in that very Swiss dish, fondue. Thanks so much for having us Jax.

 

Jax- fondue chef extraordinaire

Our knees and ankles have been starting to feel the effects of so much use of late, and as we are no longer spring chickens, conventional wisdom and research into the subject suggested that it was time to give hiking poles a go. I have used the single pole from time to time on steep mountains (generally when I am not using one it means I have inadvertently left it somewhere-I may have left a Hansel and Gretel trail of them throughout the Himalayas), but have always been quite cynical about duel pole hikers- from my observation, pole holders generally seem quite aggressive out there on the trails, swinging their poles like weapons, and I have also doubted my ability to co-ordinate my own pole usage without tripping over or impaling myself or someone else.

But with a bit of trial and error and quick tutorial on you-tube, we were swinging our poles enthusiastically, if not professionally, and they definitely do decrease the impact on your knees on steep descents. There was still a lot of snow and ice on the Tour of Mount Blanc and I definitely would have found some of the passes much trickier without the reassurance of the poles so I think we are definite converts.

Getting into the swing of things

Poles- good on the ice!

 

We had decided to do the trail the 'untraditional' clockwise direction, the reasoning being the start point- close to Montreux, and that we felt that it would be quieter this way round. It worked pretty well as we would often meet larger groups of people coming towards us at lunch times, and then we would see very little traffic on the track the rest of the day.

 

So we set out from Champex, and the first day is a  great introduction to the rest of the trip; a spectacular valley walk, and the snowy peaks towering above. The Tour of Mount Blanc is said to be one of the world's great 'classic' walks, and certainly we were straight into the good stuff; mountain wild flowers, glaciers and dramatic peaks. The first challenge of the trek is a couple of days in, with the pass over Col de Ferret, passing from Switzerland into Italy in what could be one of the most spectacular border crossings ever (well until the next one into France and then back again into Switzerland.) As usual the pics tell the story best.

Amazing wild camp spot overlooking the Dent de Geant



Beautiful valley

A cheeky marmot- they kind of chuckle and reminded me of the evil  gopher in those 'Caddy Shack' movies

 



Up the valley to the Col de la Seigne and to the French border



At the top of Col de Seigne - Mount Blanc in the background



Panorama from one of our wild camps

Ice!

 



And more ice- long climb up to Col des Fours

 



Are we there yet??????

 



Spectacular wild camp at Lake Jovet

 



Views of glacier de Bionnassay

 

Dome du Gouter

On the decent from Lac Blanc

A friendly chamois

We had contemplated following on from the Tour of Mount Blanc with  further 10 days of the Walkers Haute Route from Champex to Zermat, but we were starting to feel a bit travel weary and the idea of more unrelentling up and down, lugging our packs did not appeal (I was seriously envious seeing hikers who were using a luggage transfer service even though 'that's not real hiking!.). So we headed back to the UK for some rest and relaxation- and to spend a bit of time on the South West Coast Path (which is more like an energetic pub crawl with yummy food than a strenuous trek) before we head to Hong Kong and begin 'real life' again.

Travels without a Donkey- The Cevenne and Champagne



At dinner on our last night in Croatia, (a delicious truffle extravaganza in the hill top village of Motovan) we noticed on our water bottle a quote from Robert Louis Stevenson which proclaimed........

............which seemed a spooky coincidence as we were heading towards France to walk in the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson (or RLS as he is know on the trail) through the Cevenne, where he penned Travels With a Donkey. We sped through Slovenia and Italy in one long day of riding (lots of toll roads-though thankfully I had mastered the art of toll paying- see the last post!) and hit the French border at about 5pm, which was at the top of a spectacular pass in the Alps. There was ice still banked alongside the roadside, and , as we hit the border, it actually started to snow! And it was May!!! A bit chilly, we pushed on a little lower before stopping for the night.


Camping in the Alps

We woke to a stunning backdrop of snowy mountains bathed in sunshine, and had an absolutely spectacular drive over snow clad mountains, past hill top chateau, through alpine greenery, down through red hued gorges and onto the undulating slopes and vines of the Rhone valley. A journey made for being on a bike and we were seriously loving the KTM.



Riding through the gorgeous gorges in France

But, as if we had jinxed it with our praise, there was a small hiccup as we pulled in to check out a map at a tourist office in the Loire Valley.  We went to pull away from the car park only to have the bike fall straight over. I had been worried about a situation in which we dropped the bike, but thankfully it was fine (and almost comical) and we had it up-right straight away, with only a scratch to the panniers and a perhaps some bruised egos (though it was pretty quiet, so I don't think anyone witnessed our unceremonious toppling).

Further investigation revealed that the bike stalled, not because of driver error (or short legs), but because we were developing a problem with the clutch. Apparently a crappy clutch is a known KTM 990 problem, with many people on overland trips opting to replace the original 'clutch slave' (see how I am getting into the biker jargon here!) with a non KTM part. So while the bike may have momentarily lost its shinny orange halo, I do have to say it did seem to develop problems in what was the most convenient of locations. We were not too far from Le Puy en Valy, the place where we were planning to abandon the bike for a couple of weeks to walk the RLS Trail.......and there happened to be a KTM mechanic in the town. Clever KTM! The price of parts and repairs stung a little, but on the plus side we knew the bike was safely tucked away getting fixed, we didn't need to waste any time  and it had resolved the problem of where exactly we were going to store it for the time we were on the trail. Let's just call it very expensive secure parking.

The RLS path doesn't start properly in Le Puy, but it is less than a days walk to the official beginning, so this forms a kind of prologue to the journey. Le Puy itself was a buzzing place, filled with people with rucksacks- the Camino de Santiago goes through here as well.

It was a glorious morning as we set out in classically French country side and the first town we came to even had a farmer's market in the town square where we got some delicious sticky buns to munch on while we had our first coffee. The day continued along in similar style, though the official start to the walk in the town of Monastier was a bit of a disappointment- it was a ghost town sort of a place, and, as it was a Sunday, absolutely nothing was open. This is in sharp contrast to the lively market scenes depicted by Stevenson when he began his journey 1878. It was in Monastier village square where Stevenson acquired Modestine, the donkey which accompanied him on his travels, which he describes as "diminutive she ass, not much bigger than a dog, the colour of a mouse, with a kindly eye and a determined under-jaw". One of the treats of doing this trip was to read 'Travels with a Donkey' as we followed the trail- and some of the conditions and descriptions still rang true 136 years later- though we think that RLS was a bit of a wimp complaining of "interminable hills". Clearly, he had never been in the Himalayas!

 

 

 

Funnily enough the weather we experienced (after the first few days of glorious sunshine) was similar to Stevenson's experience; we too found that "all the way up the long hill from Langogne it rained and hailed alternatively". I had to laugh- one day where the weather was particularly grey and grim we spoke about it reminding us of Scotland, only to read that evening that Stevenson had described this section as a "journey through one of the most beggarly countries in the world. It was like the worst of the Scotch Highlands, only worse".

The wild weather made for some interesting adventures- one afternoon we set up camp and wandered to the Inn for dinner, where, by our cheese course (after our pretty delicious starter of local charcuterie and comforting beef bourguignon main), the weather had turned and was now very wild and windy. The owner seriously doubted that our tent would still be standing and he drove us the mile or so back as he was so worried (our trusty tent was fine!). We also arrived back at the tent one night (incidentally after our favourite meal of wild boar stew- food is obviously a highlight of walking in France!) and it was actually snowing, big fat flakes resting on the tent. It cleared into perfect and more settled weather after that, and it was amazing as we climbed out of the village that day to see the dusting of snow covering the peaks we had crossed the day before.

 

Rainy in Pradelles

 



Breakfast French style!!

 

 

 

 Strangely enough, just as for Stevenson, the weather improved for us as we reached the Cevenne proper and,  like him, we were (almost completely) "done with rains and winds and a bleak country". The landscape became more wild and varied and we were on 'springy and well scented' terrain, relatively empty with 'no company but for a lark or two' and into the 'steep rocky red mountains, their edges eaten by the rains and winds into a fantastic and precarious lace work'. On the route we saw red squirrels, deer, quaint villages and extraordinary displays of wild flowers. The trail itself ends officially at Saint Jean du Gard, but we continued further along to Ales across a fabulous ridge walk which itself was a highlight. In the end we had crossed 271 kms of French countryside in 10 days.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We then made our way back to Le Puy, where we were happily reunited with the bike.We headed towards the beautiful Puy de Dome, a remarkable landscape of 'sleeping volcanos' where unfortunately the views were obscured by clouds and fog when we reached the top, though the surrounding countryside made for some spectacular ridding. We then moved to Nevers, a very pleasant riverside town and home to the macabre spectacle of the body of Saint Bernadette (of the grotto in Lourdes fame), which I was intrigued enough by my catholic school background to seek out. It was somewhat of a shock to see her lying in a glass coffin - like Snow White- in the chapel, some 137 years since her original burial, but seemingly un-decomposed. James' reaction of "You have got to be ####### kidding me" pretty much sums it up!  You can imagine this said inappropriately loudly in this shrine and pilgrimage destination.

 

 

It was then onto Epernay, home of Champagne, where it seemed rude not to sample a least a few glasses (who am I kidding, bottles) of the local beverage. The tour of the Moet and Chandon cellars was interesting, and the hundreds of kilometres of fizz lining the walls of the underground cellars was mind blowing. Enough to make you work up a thirst. We also took a tour of a family run vineyard Domi- Moreau, which was even more fascinating, and though it did de-glamorize life as a champagne maker (its tough!), the product was good enough that we sent a case back to the UK.

And then we were  back across the channel to the UK for a weekend of music at the Isle of Wight festival and then off back to Cairo for a wedding. Tough life.......