Another beautiful day and another walk

Another beautiful day, which we planned to spend by tidying and preparing the van for a night away from the campsite, a local walk, and getting ready for two long, mountain hikes over the next couple of days. After a lie in, we had breakfast by the lake. The campsite is so calm and peaceful first thing. It didn’t end the same way today!

After a bit of house-keeping, or should that be van-keeping, we did the Rue des Masques walk, which we enjoyed last time we were here, not least because it passes through Guillestre town where we could stop and treat ourselves to lunch.

We followed the River Guil to start with, then turned on to the Rue des Masques, which runs below cliffs of ‘pudding stone’. As we climbed, there were great views over the river and Mont Dauphin fortified town, and lots of strange rock formations.

There were dozens of French and Italian people climbing on the cliffs. They were there with their families, with babies sleeping in the shade and toddlers playing in the dirt. Lovely to see.

Finally, we emerged at the top, on the Guillestre plateau. John filled our water bottle at a trough, and we then followed a lane further up the Guil valley and through woodland before dropping down into the town.

We had a delicious lunch in a restaurant in the square and then popped to the supermarket for some supplies before making our way back to the campsite.

By now it was very hot so we decided we’d pump up the pack-raft when we got back, and have a play on the lake to cool down.

We then had dinner at Dan and Jackie’s pitch, next door. Then an entertaining evening began as Dan handed out his silent disco headphones to his niece, nephew and several of their friends. Before long, the children’s parents had come to see what was happening and were joining in, as were various other people! Everyone was singing and dancing to the music of their choice and it was rather amusing to watch.

With an early start the next day, and a tendency to drink too much when I’m with people I don’t know, I decided to retire to the van and get ready for our hike and night away. The plan is to do two 5 and a half hour walks on back to back days… good training for part 3 of our trip… Tour du Mont Blanc.