Leaving our prison outhouse (we realised as we left that it had prison bars on the window)/mountain "refuge" and setting off onto paths with spectacular views of the valleys below and snowy Canigou looking as awesome as a mountain ever has above, spending most of the day descending (2100m altogether) which, on the GR10 also means a lot of climbing because just like George Michael said "you gotta get up to get down", finding an old plane crash site where the wreckage has melded with the rockface, crossing many waterfalls and bouldery bits, a weirdo in a turtleneck following us for ages with a camera – no matter how slow or fast we went he was there right behind us like a freaky shadow –, the path switching between thoroughly reasonable underfoot to goblin paths of slippery rocky hell on and off all day, a kestrel hovering, choughs zooming by, a huge toad making me jump as he jumped, red leafy trees, another closed "refuge" where patou dogs literally surrounded us as we ate our lunch, a hippy telling us about a magical tipi around the corner but not having time to stop and investigate, the landscape changing dramatically over the day from wintry snow peaks to vivid damp multicoloured autumnal forests to Mediterraneanesque rocks of pale sandy colours, eggshell blue lichen, palest green shrubs, pink heath and pine trees, our knees and feet getting totally ruined by the incessant descent, a baffling amount of rain, a slap up dinner which was much needed as we have eaten all our food again and realising the end is in sight... but not yet here. We must march onwards!
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In Arles-sur-Tech we camped at the Camping du Riuferrer which was very quiet – not that surprising given the fact that it was now October. There was a separate section for hikers in a little glade. The sanitaires were clean and the campsite peacefully situated near a river. It was about ten minutes walk into the small town of Arles. In Arles we found another excellent local restaurant, Les Caves Mouragues where we feasted on huge homemade pizzas and treated ourselves to some well earned digestifs. If you are hiking the GR10 West to East I advise you to go and get yourselves a meal here. The vital statistics: Total hiking time: 8h20 Peak: 2185m Total ascent: 270m Total descent: 2186m
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