Païolive Woods and Lac de Villefort

We thought we’d try that walk again.

This time we were much quicker off the mark as we actually knew where we were going. We could also walk there from the campsite, which meant we could leave our batteries on charge and the washing drying while we were out which was a bonus.

It’s already a better start.

Compare this to yesterday’s view.

After completing the first section that we did yesterday, the path heads through woodland and comes out to fantastic views.

You can see Ruby in the campsite in the background, well we could anyway.

Then we retrace our steps a short way to pick the path up again and head into the woods. One of the reasons I chose this walk is that the woods are a little different. In amongst the trees are these gigantic stone boulders.

The wood itself is also very lush with swatches of moss hanging from the trees.

The only thing I didn’t like was that parts of the path were muddy from the rain and this was now drying out. It had reached the perfect consistency of glue, which presents an interesting problem for the avid flip flop hiker. As flips flops have no tread by nature and are also very bendy, when you step on sticky mud they instantly and totally bond onto it with so much suction that you either fall over or just remain stuck to the spot. It was so hard to walk in the end I had to take the off and walk barefoot through the mud, which wasn’t something I wasn’t wildy happy about as it felt pretty horrible. Lee on the other hand was highly amused and decided to film my misfortune.

The walk then loops back around and you rejoin the original path, however now you can go back down a different route rather than retracing your original steps. We spot a cicada, which despite hearing all the time are quite hard to find.

We head round the hillside with views looking over the village again.

Then following the yellow waymarked path, we drop back down into Chassagnes.

Back at the van, we pack up and sort the water tanks ready to head off. We have decided to go to a little beach by a reservoir on the route heading further north. This has been created by the building of the damn you can see here.

This is a lovely spot, although noticeably a lot cooler which Ruby appreciates. It’s a nice scenic drive through the mountains to get here. Once here we spend a few ours on the very picturesque but busy ‘beach’. I find us a French Passion site for the night an hours drive north and we head off around 6pm.

Again, this is a beautiful drive to reach a spot just outside Arzenc-de-Randon. On arrival we go to greet the hosts, a necessity of the French Passion book, and are invited into her kitchen where she has a small unit that sells homemade pates and jams. We buy a jar of rhubarb stuff and a jar of questionable meat stuff for our neighbour. Dead animal – bound to be a win.