Category: Walking

A Swedish Stroll

Our last evening in Kalmar. Malcolm decided on relaxing at the hotel, but mindful that the next two days woud be entirely seated on trains, I felt a walk was in order.

It starts very near our hotel. Kalmar’s Old Water Tower was built between 1897 and 1900 and operated until 1972. It was converted into 11 private apartments in the 1980s. The majestic brick exterior remains a central navigational sight, while I’m left wondering whether circular furniture is required.

I’m actually on Kvarnholmen (the city center island), which is surrounded by the sea (the Baltic/Kalmar Strait) and the town moat. So I decide to walk as far as I please on my side of the moat and waterways, and come back as far as possible on the other side. There’s nothing better than strolling along a path that’s vaguely urban – though tree-lined and traffic free – with more open views over the water, and little islands vying to be Bempton Cliff Marks III, IV, V etc. owing to being extremely noisy with bird life.

Eventually, I come to a waterway so broad it seems like a lake. I’m at the desirable suburb of Varvsholmen, and who wouldn’t want to live there with views like this, including the sight of the almost 4 mile long bridge connecting Kalmar to the island of Öland? This was once the longest bridge in Europe. We really should have gone to Öland , but … next time.

And then I pick out a route home by crossing a much more workaday bridge to find a different path. I know when I’m getting back into the home-zone, because …

But I’m done with surprises yet. Here’s the Cultural Centre, with its library, art gallery, theatre, creative spaces – all closed that Sunday evening, but still offering me two pieces I could find out little about, but still enjoyed.

And then onwards, past the white and almost homely looking prison, and over the little wooden bridge to the town walls, the water tower, and the hotel, for our last night in Sweden.

For Jo’s Monday Walk.

Dawn. Worth Getting Up For?

You’re  not crawling out of bed at 3.30 because you’ve got an early shift at work.  You’re not getting up at silly o’clock because you’ve got to go through the whole dismal business of airport security and a flight before beginning your holiday.  No.  You’re getting up because you want to.  You can even largely skip getting washed, let alone finding presentable clothing.

That was me, last week.

3.45: I crept out of the house before it was even light, not waking anyone else up. In the car, on the way to Studley, the full moon shone cold white in an charcoal sky. The first glimmer of light – a sort of navy-with-apricot-ish coral stole across the horizon. Rabbits loped along the verges.  A barn owl rose silently from the road ahead, clasping its prey.

About 4.05: At Studley, those rich salmon sky-tones were flaring brighter now. A blackbird sang.  Just the one. Within minutes, he was joined by others.  Then robins, song thrushes. After that, wrens, bluetits, then blackcaps, chaffinches, chiffchaffs and nuthatches.  Even a curlew.  Even a tawny owl.  Not that I’d have known all this if it hadn’t been for Merlin.

I walked towards the trees, not yet quite in leaf, silhouetted against  the brightening sky.  Deer, more curious than startled, came to gaze at me before resuming grazing, or sometimes deciding that fleeing silently away together was a better option.

Gillet Hill gave views of Ripon and beyond, the now magenta sky beginning to halo the cathedral. But maybe the view from St. Mary’s would be even better?  The deer thought so.

The church was a fine sight in its own right, but haze now hid the cathedral, and down the hill I went to catch, at 5.20 (not 5.35, as advertised), the sun rising over the horizon.  I watched it climb – rather quickly, rather dramatically actually.

Then the early morning chill (1 degree ….)  finally got to me, and I elected for the warmth of the car home, then a hot shower, cosy clothes, and – just a bit later, breakfast, fresh-brewed coffee, and the chance to share news of my adventures.

Wasn’t all that worth getting up for?

The correct answer is ‘Yes’.

For Jo’s Monday Walk

Plateau de Sault Calling Revisited

This is one of an occasional series from our days living in the Ariège-Pyrenees. We returned to the UK pretty much exactly 12 years ago. As we’re feeling nostalgic, please indulge me if I spend a few posts over the next few weeks revisiting the Good Old Days. Even though this post is Old News, I hope Jo will consider it could qualify as a Monday Walk.

Plateau de Sault Calling

March 17th 2012

Down here in the foothills of the Pyrénées, nobody’s interested in how far you walk as you stride up the mountainside.  It’s all about the DNV (dénivelé, or number of metres you’ve climbed – and remember a hillside can go down as well as up: coming up again after a descent starts the DNV counter all over again).  On Thursday, we did 791 metres.  That’s 2959 feet in real money.  Our mileage was less impressive:  19 km. or 11.8 miles – in the circumstances pretty damn’ good.

But we didn’t know the statistics till we’d finished.  We were far too busy having a very special walk.

A signpost and waymarks

To reach our departure point, you leave Belésta via a switchback forested road, over the Col de la Croix des Morts, and emerge onto a high and slightly bleak plateau.  This is the Plateau de Sault, home of the region’s potato growers.  We stopped at an insignificant track signposted Langrail and parked the cars.  As we got our boots on, we met another walker on a brief holiday from his home in Durban for a good long solitary hike (‘Durban?  Where do you suppose he meant?  Durban-sur-Arize in the Ariège?  The one in the Aude? South Africa even?’).  He was the last person we met all day.

Our path through the woods.

It was the 14th March.  There were large patches of snow all along our route.  Yet we wore tee shirts all day and became lightly bronzed in the hot sun as we crunched through that still hard-crusted snow. 

A pause for breath

Through the forests we could see the peaks of our more local mountains: Maguy, born and bred round here taught us how to recognise each one.

A first view of Montségur.

Then, quite unexpectedly, we emerged into a splendid expanse of pasture interspersed with areas of snow.  In every direction, there was a distant fringe of mountains: our day-to day familiar slopes, the more distant and higher peaks of the Hautes Pyrénées,and behind us, bereft of snow, those of the Aude and Pyrénées Orientales.

Our path through the pastures.

It was a really special pleasure to tramp across this apparently unending pasture, enjoying views of our constant neighbour Montségur, as well as the small towns and villages where we all live, and much further away, the Montagne Noir, with the sky clear and blue above us.

A bit of snow to tramp through – then a lunch spot by a mountain refuge.

It kept us happy till lunchtime.  We’d arrived at a refuge by then, thoughtfully provided with a table and benches in the sunshine.  After the picnic, we left our rucksacks with Gilbert, the honorary man in the group and went off to investigate the Belvédère, the local viewpoint.  Craggily folded rocks plunged down deep towards the Gorges de la Frau and still we had our views of Montségur.  We were impressed.

Views from the Belvédère

Our route for the day was a simple there-and-back. But the views were quite different, looking towards more eastern slopes so we didn’t feel at all short changed that we were retreading our path. And most of the return was downwards too. Which was helpful. When you’ve climbed 2000 feet or more, it can get quite tiring as the day nears its end. Lucky that there was cake and coffee to look forward to, provided this week by Gilbert..

Nearly back for that all-important coffee and cake.

Astonishment and Awe

Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention

Be astonished

Tell about it

Mary Oliver

For this week’s Lens Artist Challenge, Beth asks us to show shots of what has astonished us, and takes her inspiration from this short poem by Mary Oliver.

For some reason, my mind was drawn back to Lockdown. For us, Daily Exercise was one of the pleasures of that peculiar time. Country dwellers, we could range freely over our home patch without meeting a soul. And here, it happened to be a wonderful spring, where plants, birds and all life could flourish in balmy temperatures and just the right amount of rain.

Walking by myself down deserted paths – M was exploring on his bike – I discovered Wonder and Astonishment anew. Day by day, I could watch leaves unfurl from tightly-bound buds; flowers appear; lambs totter their first hesitant steps.

I had the leisure to enjoy the intricately-designed feathers of a common-or-garden mallard, or the complexity of dandelion petals.

Best of all, creatures we rarely saw close up crossed my path. Who expects to stumble by a toad on a riverside stroll? Or, best of all, come across shy curlews nesting within a foot of a normally well-used road across the moors.

Skies, undefaced by plane trails seemed more multi-faceted and interesting. And back home, day after day, hour after hour, from dawn until darkness, this thrush gave an apparently unending performance with almost no breaks.

Such a time of loneliness, grief and isolation for many remains in my memory a period of joy in the rediscovery of the astonishment offered by the countryside just outside our front door.

Walking in Mountain Scenery

Since we left our home in France, eleven years ago, I’d forgotten the exhilaration of walking in the mountains. The Vosges are not the Pyreneees, far from it. But they offer the same reward of yomping, puffing and panting ever the harder, up the steepest of slopes before finally offering you views- across to distant slopes, and to valleys below: pastures, forests, settlements.

So in Alsace, Malcolm and I picked our chosen pastimes – walking for me, cycling for him. And on this day, we’d driven about 15 km. from ‘home’ to only a couple of hundred metres below the summit of Le Petit Ballon, so he could enjoy the exhilaration of zooming downhill, then along the valley bottom on a series of cycle ways to our holiday premises. I was to enjoy the different exhilaration of climbing to the top of the mountain before walking down and up and down and up the circular route I’d chosen to get me back to the car.

I passed cows first, the sound of their bells reverberating mellifluously far across the valleys.

It was a hard slog to the top, but I got there, and was disappointed by the presence of a bulky and rather ugly phone mast. And then immediately went wrong. I was relying on a walk description in a booklet I’d bought, and on the French equivalent of our OS maps. Which we’d long ago discovered do not do anything like as good a job. I was to follow several different series of balises (waymarks), which are also inconsistent in their usefulness (they tend to be there when you don’t need them, absent when you do).

My booklet said to walk to the statue of the Madonna and turn right. I did. I walked downwards, and found a path which didn’t seem right. Coming across some walkers from a French rambling group, they greeted me cheerily. ‘Are you alone? Come with us!’ I was tempted, but they were going the other way. But they pored over my map with me and set me right before going on their way. Anyway, it turned out I had followed the Wrong Madonna. Who knew there would be two in more or less the same area? I adjusted my walk plan and carried on.

I passed through woodland, a rich loamy path, with weightless grey lichens clinging to every twig and branch. Then open pastureland with distant mountain and forest views.

Onwards and upwards, till I came to an open summit with boulders scattered randomly around, making a perfect choice of picnic venue for me, offering me views in every direction. It was just warm enough, just sunny enough. Perfect.

After lunch, the views became more open, the colours more autumnnal, the path, though inexorably upwards, was a gentler slope. I passed the peak with the bench I showed you yesterday, and meandered slowly down to the wooded valley. On my way down, I found a piece of history from 1915: the remains of a German téléphérique, used to transport goods and all the chattels of war: a reminder of all we’d learnt up at le Linge.

My final couple of kilometres were disappointing, along a road – the one we’d travelled ourselves en route that morning. But I’ve forgotten that now, and kept instead the memories of a fresh, bright day in early autumn: an energetic and satisfying walk.

For Jo’s Monday Walk.

Saudade for Our Little Corner of France

Saudade is a Portuguese word, introduced to us by Egidio, who proposes it for this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge. Here’s what it means:

... an emotional state of melancholic or profoundly nostalgic longing for a beloved yet absent someone or something. It is a recollection of feelings, experiences, places, or events, often elusive, that cause a sense of separation from the exciting, pleasant, or joyous sensations they once caused.

It’s what we both feel so very often about our years in southern France, now some ten years gone. Of course we remember the landscape – the foothills, the Pyrenees themselves, the seasons, the climate , the slower pace of life …

Of course we do. But we remember even more the happy Sundays and Thursdays we had discovering these landscapes with our two local walking groups. We were the only British members, and how different these expeditions were from their English equivalents. After a morning slogging up a mountain, we were rewarded with views, perhaps a stream, a wild-flower strewn meadow. Then Marcel the butcher would produce his own home-cured sausage; Sylvie offered her daughter’s sheep’s milk cheese; someone would bring bread; Yvette and I brought cake; wine was on offer, and an apéro, and after that someone or other would hand out sugar lumps, on which to drip just a little of their grandfather’s special home-confected digestif. After a nice long rest, we’d pack up and find a different path downwards.

Eating was at the heart of so many activities. Here’s another community meal, tables ranged over the town square so everyone could get together and enjoy each other’s company while celebrating some local highlight..

In fact enjoyment came high on everyone’s agenda. Every July, for instance, in a small village a few miles from ours, a group of volunteers spend months devising Le Jardin Extraordinaire. People come from miles around to enjoy strolling through bowers confected from still-growing gourds, and climbing upwards through woodlands with surprises: beautiful, silly, witty – every year was different.

Then there was the annual firework display on the lake at Puivert, which took the concept of fireworks to a whole new level. It reduced the audience of 1000 or more, who’d all come with families, friends and the makings of a fine picnic to astonished silence as the spectacle ended, before simultaneously roaring their tumultuous appeciation of the astonishing creations set before our eyes.

Our French friends taught us about ‘au cas où‘: the need to have with you at all times a bag or similar ‘just in case‘ you found walnuts, wild cherries, sweet chestnuts, mushrooms – all sorts of food-for-free for the thrify householder. I was au cas où–ing only yesterday, finding crab apples, pears, apples, mirabelles all there for the taking, just as our French friends recommended.

I’ll stop there. The feelings of longing, of saudade are strong …

For Egidio’s Lens-Artists Challenge #365: Longing.

From Marfield to Masham

Sunday afternoon. Sunny, warm, breezy. Just the time for a bike ride (‘im Indoors) or a solo walk (me). Marfield Wetlands suited us both as a starting point, though we went our separate ways after that. These reclaimed gravel pits, scattered with ponds, just by the River Ure are at their busiest in the autumn and winter months as a stopping off point for migrating water birds. Less variety here just now. But blue skies, blue waters greeted me: plenty of geese – Greylag, Canada and Barnacle, the odd cormorant and swan, and beyond, oystercatchers hectoring me from above, and more tuneful skylarks.

A walk along a brookside, then farmland with drystone walls.

Here are young cattle; sheep with their now-skittish lambs.

Primroses, celandines, willow catkins dusted with yellow pollen, blackthorn blossom.

Turn right through a field of cows, and reach the river banks, high above the river itself at first.

Right again, through pastureland with characterful trees, woodland, always with the river, sometimes still, sometimes chattering and clattering its way over its stony pathway.

Touch into the edge of Masham, then more fields with open views and here I am. back at Marland Wetlands again. Only four miles, but enough to send me home refreshed and content.

For Ann-Christine (Leya)’s Lens-Artists Challenge #343 – Seen on my Last Outing

And Jo’s Monday Walk.