2013 Tour - Jour 22 & 23

Jour 22: Exploring the chaos

Having visited Huelgoat several times, I have never properly explored the forest walks and attendant attractions. Yesterday we visited the champignon and roche tremblant, so today we set off from the campsite to investigate the other 'novelty boulders'. There are a number of such scattered along a forest walk, such as the Le Gouffre and Grotte d'Artus. Let us first examine Le Gouffre: on previous occasions I have glimpsed this subterranean waterfall briefly but held off from a full exploration because of the presence on my feet of cycling shoes which do not make the best footwear for scrambling down wet granite. So imagine our surprise when we arrive to see a man lowering his 8-year old daughter over the edge of the railing and then watching as she rappelled down into the raging torrent; then, after lengthy instructions to his offspring below which probably went something like 'make sure you don't release the safety line from the carabiner . . . ' (which my kids would have done in a instant), over went Monsieur X accompanied by his 6-year old son . . . I can only imagine that they must have been related because I could not conceive of a risk assessment sufficient for the purpose of an organised activity.

After exploring the upper reaches we returned to find them still making their way through the subterranean passage.

Various other rocks awaited our inspection, including the Grotte d'Artemus, Grotte Diable, and the jumble of enormous granite boulders forming the Chaos, including a giant granite cleavage which I became jammed between, though S maintains that it is another part of the anatomy . . .

Eventually we emerged into the town centre where, not to spurn tradition, we had lunch in Le Brittany Pub. Immediately after this it started to rain in true Huelgoat fashion and continued to do so as we walked back to the campsite, where it then promptly started to rain even harder; but it is 'warm rain' I cajoled S . . .

Jour 23: Return to Morlaix

After surviving the downpour the sun actually came out. We could have been worse off, two English girls arrived by bike while it was hosing it down and then a French couple a bit older than us who pitched next door for the night. Despite being the first to rise we were the last to leave, '. . . because we had two cups of tea', according to S - well, you can't do anything without first having a cuppa. Once more onto the voie verte for the 25 km or so to Morlaix where we now reside at the Hotel du Port. It is market day today so S will be browsing the tat later on . . .

Later . . . we return from town with our purchases. Pretty good really, one half bottle of Sauternes (S) and a bottle of St Raphaël (H) to go with the cap . . .

One amusing discovery did come to light however, which requires a certain amount of back-story . . . In my planning phase for the trip I was exercised by the task of how to store essential condiments and spices in portable quantities for Le camping. Being a skinflint I didn't want to fork out top dollar for a bespoke 'multi spice and condiment set' from the camping emporium because I viewed these as, essentially, just small bottles. The solution . . . 50 mL polypropylene centrifuge tubes from the lab, the ones with the blue screw-on top. As a result I received much merry banter from S regarding my 'test tubes' and 'specimen bottles', but after a chance visit to a vendor of tourist tat in Morlaix I stand vindicated because, what do we see in front of our very eyes but Les Tubes á Epices . . .

Ca va . . .

 

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