Waterfall---Douche

Happy Hazelnut tree

The day we were going to check into the house in Douche, we got there quite early. We drove from the town called "Lamalou les Bains". Cor blimey, it freaked me out a bit, I felt like as if I was warped into "twilight zone"(remember back in 80's, this T.V program???). It was strange town.

One thing I wasn't happy about this town was there was NO free spring water. Apparently, there were free taps everywhere in this town, different spring water both still and sparkling! Sparkling is very rare to find, I was looking forward to taste, but it finished as dream... It's a hospital town, apparently, all spring water now goes to the hospital for their patients. So, if you want to taste the waters, need to get into the hospital as patients!

Anyway, we were glad to get out this weired town into the beautiful mountain!

We pottered and sunbathing by the river.

Cor, it was heaven! We sunbathed here the day before I went back...(Sunday) It was sunny day, I wanted to get the most of it, I put suntan oil, laid on the rock, listening to the water coming down and...fell asleep(as usual). 

I had very relaxing "long weekend" here in France (ended up that way). 

I would defo love to come back to Douche and St. Guilehem le Dessert for more walks!

 Beautiful waterfalls!

 Lying on the rock was very comfy and warm(not hot!)

Water was lovely and chilly, very refreshing

Circular walks ---Douche

Up in the mountain, it was a bit chilly. Downstairs wasn't too bad, but it was nice climate for walks anyway. When I saw this, 3hour circular walks didn't sounds much of hard work, and I couldn't wait to start. 
First, we walked round the other end of foot path. It was going up footpath, Marcus thought, if we went up first while we have energy, it wouldn't be so bad. Quite often, I saw people start this walk from where the car park was, then way themselves up and down.

I was lovely foot path all the way, clearly marked and different texture, beautiful flower and rocks. The most importantly, full of wild life and fantastic view!

 Followed the yellow footpath

 Going up and saw the village underneath

Pretty footpath

It was quite popular but not very busy, we saw lots of people walking and chilling out.

 Then footpath took us to the woods, felt very old and ancient. Almost as if someone still hunting in the wood.

Beautiful tree, very green, reminded of La Gomera.

 When it opened up, there was stunning view.

After an hour or so (maybe less), we reached this open land with refugee house for walkers. It didn't have electric(of course!), it had a big fire place and upstairs room for sleeping. If group of people camping and sleeping in this house, I think that would be fun but I wouldn't fancy myself sleeping there...A bit scary...yes, I'm a wimp.☹

There were foods people left behind for other walkers. It was very dark upstairs.
Outside, we saw people were having BBQ and chilling out on the grass. There were bins next to the house. 

this is the name of the house

We carried on walking, found this on the side of huge rock. Obviously, someone made it and camped there. 

Next to it, there was a view point where we had our snacks and lots of walkers were chilling out there too. They were coming from both directions, soon this small view point was filled with walkers.
Walked back down on rocks, we continued walking the footpath. Then we finally reached the top.

 Map of the walks

Sun footpath marking, so, part of this footpath leads to St. Guilehem! and Spain

 Stone monument on the top

 Sit here to look the view

Now, we were going down the mountain. It was easy going down, and quick too. This walk finished at the car park downstairs. Took up about 5 hours including pottering time. (We potter a lot!)

It was lovely walks, we found hazelnut trees, not a few of them, absolutely loads! We'd love to be here in season and have fresh hazel nuts! ☺ Can't wait for our next adventure!

Gite communal de Douch

16th/June/Sunday
We drove up to Douch, about 2 hours from St. Guilhem. Marcus booked a house there till Saturday. I could only stay there for a night. 
Cor, blimey, it was cutest village I ever seen! It was tiny medieval village with communal allotment in the front surrounded by mountains and river/water! Birds were singing and had lovely footpath!
Checked in 2pm, we got there fairly early, so we drove to the river and potter round for an hour or so. Then check in. The landlady wasn't there to show us round, (she was at work), instead her grumpy husband showed us round. He told us where everything was and "welcome brioche and jam" on the table in the dining room. He didn't speak English, so, all conversation between us were lousy French/English(us) and French(husband), but we communicated o.k(I hoped). He wasn't really grumpy, He invited us for his B.Q.Q with other guests, but we kindly declined the invitation, we are veggies.....
The house was very rustic and cute, well equipped and cool shower!

I was very impressed the little house even had a wash machine in the bathroom! WOW!

Lovely fire place, would love to be here in winter (I bet extortionally cold!!) and lite the fire...very cozy...
I wanted to stay there more than a night, wanted to be there whole week! Neva mind, this place became one of many places for me to go back! I can't wait for next visit.

By the way, the landlady Marie spoke beautifully fluent English. I wish I could stay longer to communicate with them, her husband was ex fireman and now work in the park. I bet he has some  interesting stories to tell with bottle of locally produced red wine and cheese!

 Cutest church in the whole world!

Walks---St. Guilhem le Dessert "Bout-du-Monde"

13th/June/Thu
We drove up to Bout-du-Monde for walk.
This village was also very cute.
We parked our car in the car park and walked round the village into the mountain.

There, rock formation was amazing, as if someone built those rocks and placed them there.
I wanted to go there because I was told Neanderthal used to live there. Felt like yet again, magical place, and really old. Almost as if someone there walking with you, that sort of feeling I got.
there were 4 foot paths there. Blue, yellow, green and red. I think we did blue footpath. It was fun. Up and down the rocks and quite steep, we walked to the top and saw the other side of the mountain too!
To get to the top, there wasn't footpath, just walked through bushes and plants. Quite steep, so needed to watch where I put my foot when I came down.

This place, for me, it was easy to loose footpath. It was like being in a different planet! We spend about 4 hours or so there.

Theses are the view from the top to the other side. Red earth and blue lake, contrast of two were  
really amazing. I could see the telecom tower we walked to,  really, really small on one of mountain tops!

Then we came out from the left footpath. (Right footpath to the rocks)

It was hot that day, we had bottles of Perrier outside  the little cafe/shop in the village. Always taste refreshing after good walks. 

That afternoon, sun still out, we went to "Pont du Diable"(gauge down the valley) to potter. River water was cold and lovely dipping feet in. That was our favo thing to do after each walks. 

Walks---St. Guilhem le Desert

 We walked on this cliff top

We walked lots on this long weekend. Felt good walking in those mountains, and surprisingly, time passed very quickly. I felt only a few hours we were walking , but actually 4 hours went by... it was like that all the time in the mountain. 

12th/June/Wed

I was supposed to go back to U.K, but due to the strike I was still there. 
Today, we thought we were going to do easy walks, we did lots of walking previous day. We decided to walk to "Mouresse". This is another circular walk I saw in Marcus's walking book. It looked easy and didn't look like it was going to take ages, it did say it was 3 hour walks. 

Started off taking the same footpath to the Roman Arch. Then follow the yellow footpath.
Font de Pamlier, though forest track, then max Negre. Down back to the same footpath.

What this footpath made fun was that we walked up to the cliff top (it was a bit windy) and sat there for a bit. The view was great, looked down the valley, I even saw our footpath!

Funny thing was when we were on the top of the telecom tower mountain, I felt everything was so tiny and small, but when I was on the top of the cliff, I felt the cliff was very high!

This trip made me want to do rock climbing, must be feeling awesome when climb up to the top!

Although the guide book said 3 hour walk, but actually took us about 5 hours including pottering time. We took really easy and lovely walks!
I think person who walk and time for guide books have long legs, good walking shoes and fast walker! 

After this walk, we went back to the square and had buckwheat pancake and chips! Yummy!

Circular Walk, "Orange Footpath"---St. Guilhem le Dessert

It was sunny day with cool wind and perfect for walking.

On our 3rd day there, we decided to do "circular walk". Marcus told me he did circular walk here before. So, of course, I wanted to do it too. I didn't really think how long and how big the walk was going to be.... Anyway, "let's go for a walk!"

I wasn't quite sure what I expected, probably, nothing.

To started off, we walked to the Roman Arches/bridge. Then, we followed the orange footpath. We knew that if we followed yellow sun footpath, we would be ended up in Spain. We didn't want that....
He worked out somehow in his head, this "orange footpath" was going to be big circular walk, and that was what I wanted to do. 

This footpath leads to Spain...

There's no proper markings for "orange footpath"

Lovely footpath!

This is the first junction. left to Spain with white and red footpath, straight on to orange footpath & yellow footpath lead to Roman Arch.

Walk up to the arch, and top, just followed "orange marking". It was well marked up, Always either with yellow markings or orange on its own on some rocks. After coming out from the forest with a gate, there was big asphalt road went up or down. Orange footpath marked on the road to go up, so, we took left to go up. We just walked, walked and walked. 

Every time we came up to the top of mountains we were walking, the views were awesome. I was feeling nicely tired, as soon as saw the views, I forgot how tired my legs were.

We knew that, bit by bit, we were higher and farther from St. Guilhem. I didn't see the Chateau or the village. We now reached...

This place, only a few houses here, and it said something to do with goats, but no one to be seen at this point. We took the yellow footpath to get to the orange footpath, we were near to the telecom tower(I think). Now we were entering olive grow. It was about our snack time. And it was hot. 
We found some nice shady place under olive trees. We sat there, then heard bells.......
"shiiieeeee, Goats are near by!"
Then, suddenly, I saw loads of them coming down from upstairs. 
They stopped, looked at us with cute faces. I felt that we were on their way walking pass.
I couldn't get up, Marcus managed to get up before they came to us. I sat there, feeling not-sure-what-to-do, a nosy goat came and looked into my bag. I was licked by death by goats! Never experienced that before. They were cute. They wanted to follow us too. 

Look! cute smiley goats!

After the incident, we still carried on walking, walking and walking. We ended up walk to this telecom tower.

I took this photo from further down. By the time reached first big junction, it looked a lot closer than this.

It didn't look too bad to look at it from down stairs, but actually walking there was a bit of hike. This footpath go up and down in the mountains. I must say, the view from there was fantastic. It was the highest point in the whole area.

I thought it was a half way of the footpath.... no no no, it carried on and on and on.

Took us about 5-6 hours to get to the other side of the valley. Time to time, this orange marking started disappearing. Sometimes, we had to guess which way to go. 
We sometimes walked sandy road, like service road or cycling path.
One point, this footpath got blocked off with metal mesh fence, we could see people were still carried on under the fence, so we did. 

Now we were walking on the mountain top, rather like meadow. It was very pretty, didn't expect to see cute little flower like these on the top. Higher up, I saw lavender, honeysuckles and thyme. Never seen wild ones, very pretty. ( rosemary seemed to like to be little lower)

By then, we were wondering about how long more of this "orange footpath" going and "can we get back in dinner time?????"
We weren't sure how long, so, we decided to take yellow footpath to get down to the valley. We had feeling it was about another 4 hours or so to do whole thing, but we lost the orange footpath anyway. What happened to the guy and paint, orange paint run out??? It started well marked. We needed to finish another day. We took the yellow footpath from the above junction. 
This lead to where we came from , to the first junction.

We went straight on to circular walk, if you take the wooden gate path lead to roman arch.

 Finally after walking another 1.5hr or so, we finally saw our little chateau. From this point, probably another 1hour or so to get to the chateau, which connected to the other side of "orange footpath" In total that day, we walked about 8.5hours.

This day, we didn't quite do big circular walk, but it was more like "big figure of 8".
We walked to the square, and drunk lots of water. Dinner tasted yet again, delicious!

A few days after, we tried this "orange footpath" started from the other side, we walked about 5 hours or so, lost the orange markings, get lost a bit then went back to the valley. 
Later, our landlady Fanny told us it was long footpath, sounded even locals didn't do much of this footpath. Needed to start very early to complete this walk. Never mind, next time, we can complete this walk!

Found this cute church.

 Medieval. Only1 priest living there. Without gas, electrics, and Internet!!!!

 After the church, footpath lead to another forest.

Who's going to drive up here???