April 26: End of Week 1

We closed our first week of walking (and first photo album) today. It was also a short walk (only around 18km), so it also functioned as a rest day, definitely a measured stroll, rather than a push-through hike.

We found ourselves climbing back to the “wolds” for want of a better description – rolling hill country with densely wooded coulees and sweeping uplands with the same rocky outcrops as yesterday. Once again, the place was a-crawl with caterpillars and blooming with pansies, cowslips and also several kinds of orchids, which the fritillary butterflies seem to love, Violets, speedwell and unfurling ferns edged the path in woodland, which was the intense green of young beech.

Only a few days ago, the beech leaves hung on the twigs limply, like hatching butterflies. Now, they are already fully splayed out, but have not yet lost their bright, almost glowing green to the sun. On a more macro level, the pink is gone from the hillside views. The flushing twigs that gave a pinkish halo to the deciduous trees just getting ready for spring are now well into greening.

We are staying in the village of Saint-Chely-d’Aubrac which is a flawless medieval town with slate-roofed cottages and terracotta chimney pots. This is skiing country in the winter. Many parts of the trail today were signed for snow-shoes and several of the smaller roads which headed uphill to “stations de ski” were “ouvert”, meaning only that they were not impassable. There is still snow on the highest peaks of the Massif Central. We catch sight of them from the trail. However, spring is unstoppable at this point (unlike in Calgary, where it is still snowing).

We stopped for coffee just before lunchtime, at an auberge that doubles as a ski lodge in the winter. The wind was whipping along the ridge, sending the iron chairs skittering and upturning the big sunshades, which were crashing down like sawn trees. The beer garden was decorated with enormous cowbells on fancy leather harnesses. The wind was strong enough to send them clacking, which, given their sheer size, was quite impressive. We zipped up our fleeces and sat on the terrace, where we judged ourselves to be out of harm’s way, and pretended that the sunshine was warm. His coffee was delightfully bitter with a thick crema and served with a caramel. We watched the jackdaws clearly playing with the wind. They launched themselves off the bell tower and surfed back, cackling in a way that definitely described enjoyment.

Thankfully, Saint-Chely-d’Aubrac is well out of the wind. We headed down off the heath for almost 2 hours (around a 400m drop) to find it nestled in farmland and enjoying a calm sunny afternoon. It is full of swallows, hawking the flies rising from the brook. We stopped for a beer before finding our room and doing our laundry. We have socks and shirts somewhat precariously hanging out the window at the moment, to catch the last of the afternoon sun.