Stormy times.

This was the scene down in the harbour earlier today after some crazy wind last night. The sea is definitely not supposed to be lapping over the edge of the this pier! I guess its a combination of a storm surge and a spring tide.



There is a lot of other storm damage around the port too. This is the dinghy park in the Base Nautique where a thick sludge of seaweed has been washed ashore. This is the same seaweed that gets washed onto the beaches during the winter months. The council leave it where it is as it stops the sand getting washed away. Nature rocks! though I'm sure the Base Nautique crew don't think so as it looks like one big clean up job is required down there.

We hopped on our bikes to go over and have a look at our favourite sunny haunt - Lido Beach - but we couldn't get to it as the route was 'Barre' and half the beach was blocking the road. We had to cycle out around the race track and back through Pesquiers to have a proper look.

It seems Lido has been spared and in fact the storm may have rebuilt the beach a bit as sand is piled high against the walls lining the beach.

The forecast for the weekend is much of the same though less wind is on the cards. We're planning to head over to Almanarre Beach tomorrow to see how it fared.

It's hard to believe that last Friday I was in for a swim. It will take days for the water to clear up before its nice to go in again without fear of bumping into things in the cloudy murk so that might be that in terms of my swimming for 2008.

I definitely don't subscribe to the Christmas swim in the forty foot. Nutters one and all.

Menhir du Lambert

I receive an email everyday from the Oxford English Dictionary with a random word. I look forward to reading it and it's a welcome distraction from the barrage of work stuff - you can sign up for it here. Anyway - sometimes OED make it relevant to the current world news - when the US elections were on for example they sent 'chad' one day and tied it in with the Florida debacle from a few years ago. While I'm sure the OED are not reading our blog, todays word -

pillar, v.

Brit., U.S. / [< PILLAR n. Compare earlier PILLARED adj. and PILLARING n.]

- could not have been more relevant as we set out this morning to hike to the Menhir du Lambert.

Anyone who has read Asterix & Obelix will have heard of these ancient stones that Obelix used to make (and also wild boar!). As soon as I read about this one on our guide I knew we had to go and see it.

I say, 'I knew' and 'we had to' very carefully here as I think my hike credits rating is at an all time low with Una after today.

The description in our guide book (which I admit I only skim read) includes the keywords 'sturdy hiking boots, steep climb and 450m'. These are not words which flow easily into Una's brain as she (correctly) conjured up visions of a fairly tough hike. But fair-do's she said nothing, we bought a Topo map in Collobriers, found the start point above the village by the ruined Church and headed off on 'GR90'.

At first the going was hard enough, then it got really steep and tougher. At this bench I announced that 'I was thinking in a glass half full sort of way and the only reason that a bench would be put here would be to mark the top of the ascent and so that people can rest before sauntering off into the forest with all the hard yards out of the way'. I was completely wrong and still we continued up. Finally we sort of levelled out and the keywords from the description and the heights on the map started to fall into place. We were definitely not at 450m yet and I was not sure we were going to make it. Compared to yesterdays 'walk in the park' this was a serious outing!

The walk does get easier and there are no sections where you descend and lose height that you then have to make up again. After the first 4omins or so where it seems you are barely moving on the map suddenly the kilometres are racing down as you parallel along the mountain. The colours of the flora and the ancient trees on the route at this point are incredible.

After a few more junctions (some of which are marked and some not - so a map is definitely handy) and one long winding hill the path takes on a different rocky sort of theme then suddenly out of nowhere you pop out of the forest, into a clearing and there they are - two Pillars of Stone - outstanding in their field!

We wandered over and took a few pictures (and gave the stones a hug - it seemed the right thing to do) then headed towards the Forest Rangers house (Georgian Style with outdoor swimming pool) to see if there was a bench or something where we could sit and have lunch. The ranger is clearly not at home at the moment and his house is well boarded up for the winter.

The ascent took us about 1hr45 mins though it definitely felt longer and the return trip to the car which is mainly downhill just 1hr15.

Instead of returning home the way we always do from Collobrieres this time we took the D41 road in the direction of Bormes Les Mimosa and Col du Babaou. This is an amazing mountain drive for those who like incredible views into the far distance and dont fear narrow winding roads with sheer drops into forests. We picked up the St Tropez road and used this to return to Hyeres.

The 'Part Deux'
The hunt for Sanglier continues. We came close to spotting one today that we heard in the bushes, at least thats what we think it was we heard! Also we spotted this cartridge on the ground (which I took home and binned) and also a sign for hunters. I thought about staying in Collobriers for dinner and sseing if we could find a menu with some tasty wild boar on it but we were both so tired after the hike that our maison and a hot bath beckoned very strongly.

Great day, another great adventure.

Dolmen de Gaoutabry

Despite the mistral winds we are currently experiencing we set off this morning to hike to a local Dolmen. We had actually planned to visit a Menhir near Collobrieres but we changed tack this morning and will hopefully do this tomorrow.

This is a really easy hike, i.e. not too many hills and we were lucky to have Diane's suggested route though I reckon you would need an SUV (or maybe a 2cv if you are French) to get to where the suggested start point on the map is. Since a broken sump would seriously hinder our poor car we parked well down the dirt track beside a vineyard.

The route is easy to follow and signposted with this really cool dolmen icon on trees along the way. The Dolmen itself is amazing and its hard to believe how old it is - 2800 to 2500 years avant J.C! They don't build stuff like that these days!

We didn't stay too long at the top since it's been a cool enough day and the wind was fairly honking up there! Our return route took us around another mountain before rejoining the path back to the car. 1 and 1.2 hours all in, no stress, nice easy pace, great start to a day!There's always a Part Deux!
Our morning exertions had given us quite an appetite so we decided to head for Bormes Les Mimosa for a little lunch. Pete, Clare, Coaimhe and John had given us the heads up on this little gem of a town from their two visits. They are not wrong about this sleepy and stupidly photogenic hamlet high in the hills above Le Lavandou. What an amazing place! And it seems that the villagers are all about quality too as we had a really delicious, no fanfare, no fuss, no big bill lunch in Café du Progréss .

After lunch we set off on a short tour of the town which thankfully was completely deserted. I have a feeling I've visited somewhere like this before but I can't think where. Maybe I'm mistaken as its easily one of a kind. It's all winding narrow streets, tunnels leading to other streets, little alleyways plunging down to gardens. All this and a backdrop of Ile du Levant (which was certainly living up to its name today) and the Mediterranean in the distance, as I said - stupidly photogenic. Una has renamed me Kodak I took so many pictures. Maybe it was the light today, that really low bright and fresh winter light but I just could not help myself! I'll post all of the images to flicker now.

Getting the balance right..

We receive these great DVD bundles from home (thanks Aidan) and one of them contained the second part of the Bourne trilogy. I had not paid much attention when these films came out, all i can say is.. 'three really fantastic films'. Also I received a few comments about the Laurence Ferrari post so I'm just levelling the playing field and this post is specially for Una.

Why the News is always happier in France

Its down to one woman! Laurence Ferrari

Every day we watch '20 Heures' on TF1 for the days news (and to try to learn a bit of French).

This news presenter has one of those expressions that is always happy no matter what the news is! At first it's a little disconcerting, especially when she is talking about flash floods, vandalism of the SNCF railway system or protestors smashing up police cars in Beauvais but after a while it kind of makes the news more palatable.

Maybe Ireland could do with a presenter like this or someone should just ask Sharon Ni Bheolain to smile a bit more! Then the news from Ireland might not always be so depressing.

All the bank managers could be fired too...

Finally

It starts with what sounds like a standard jet aircraft but it quickly becomes clear that this is not AirFrance123 taking off for Paris. I'm talking about the Air Force jets that buzz our house regularly.

Now I'm probably too old to still get a kick out of seeing them but hey I'm Irish and we don't have an air force so I can't help myself. Every time I hear the incoming sound I jump up with my trusty Sony phone/camera and try to get a picture.

The fact that you are hearing the sound which they made about 20 miles away doesn't help as you try to spot them hurtling at breakneck speed across the sky so you end up with a lot of pictures like this...

I've been trying to do some work but two of them we're having a little ColdWar2.0 practice dogfight at about mach 2 & 50,000ft. Not great for concentration or indeed snaps for the photo album.

Finally a few minutes ago my patience paid off when one of them came tootling (una fashion) across the sky. The pilot was probably adjusting his seat belt before engaging the after burner and rattling the tiles on every roof for miles around but I did manage to get these two shots before he pressed the button.

It certainly looks like a fun job.

November Weather

The South of France rocks!

Scorchio!

Every swim could be our last...

Its been another beautiful day here and the lure of lido is too strong. These days when there is no wind and the water is so clear and calm its absolutely amazing to get in for a swim.

Porquerolles CycleWalk

The Ile de Porquerolles has been high on my agenda to visit for a while. Una, Aidan and Vona tootled over for the day way back in April and I have been looking at it pretty much every day and wondering.. so with a super weather forecast we set off on Saturday morning with our bikes, togs and a picnic. The driver of our boat has clearly not heard about throttling back to save fuel but I guess at the price they charge to hurtle you across the channel they've got plenty of money to burn! Upon arrival we wasted no time and set off due south across the island to the lighhouse which sits high up on some dangerous looking rocky cliffs. The island is 'quite' flat, though I'm sure Una would disagree with my definition of its terrain, and is cris-crossed with dirt tracks. Heres the map of our route for the day.

View Larger Map
Having just made this map I'm amazed there wasn't a big argument yesterday over the actual route. I didn't realise we had covered so much distance! All in all we had an absolutely amazing day, the highlight for me definitely was the swim on Plage d'Argent, after the disappointment of Plage Fay at the Western end of the island, Plage d'Argent was a real treat. Water so clear and a white sandy bottom. What a place, though as usual we were there when there were no crowds - true pauluna style!

All of the photos are here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/23725143@N02/

We're back!

Last week we went on a fantastic hike with Diane, the route details of which are shown here.


View Larger Map


View Larger Map

After returning home it kind of got me thinking about the blog again and putting up a few posts as one quickly forgets all of the adventures. So this is going to be a backwards blog from now on.