Our last night in France (for now)

After giving the reigns to Pete for a couple of days, I’m back!

This morning, we woke to cold air, but clear blue skies.  As the weather had been kind to us, we set off to walk along the beautiful Caranca Gorge as we’d discussed the night before, taking the high path first, so as to catch the amazing views before any potential bad weather came and ruined it.  We needn’t have worried; the sky stayed blue the whole way round the approx 10km route.  The ascent was fairly steep, but with unsurprisingly impressive views of the valley below as it took us up and around the rocks.

Our spot on Saturday night

It was on the walk that I discovered just how deep my fear of heights goes...the views were stunning and despite the rather off putting 400m sheer drop from the cornice when we reached it, I managed to take some half decent pictures.

I have always been a bit funny with heights, but sheer terror has never surfaced, until today.  We’re joking about it now, but I was close to tears when we were up there; something I didn’t expect at all.  It turns out there was another, narrower cornice round the corner, but after looking at it, I decided I’d had enough sheer drops for one day.

The view on the way up

The view from the cornice...you can just about see Dora, partially obscured by the grass

On the cornice....

On the cornice, looking back...!

The small gouged out bit you see on the left is the cornice

In the gorge - you can see the cornice again at the top of the picture

Luckily the cornice forms only a small proportion of the route we took, so it was over quickly, if not completely painlessly and a zig zag rocky path led us down into the gorge.  We were back in time for lunch and after a good feed with what are now becoming staples (bread, cheese, saucisse, tomatoes and now, Serrano ham!), we were back on the road heading for the next overnight stop in Port Vendre on the Mediterranean coast, just 8 (ish) miles from Spain.  It will also be our last stop in France for a few months as we head over the border tomorrow and into more uncertain territory.

France has been a comfort blanket, with its’ vast array of aires; it’s rare to pass a town without one.  Spain, on the other hand, seems to be still relatively new to the aires idea and as such, there are nowhere near as many.  We know that there are a few tolerated places for people to stay, but with tolerated places, there’s always a risk of being moved on; but fingers crossed, that risk is a low one from what we’ve heard.  Time will tell; we’ll let you know how we get on.