Today mostly involved getting inadvertently adopted by two animals: firstly by a campsite cat that followed us to our tent last night, charmed us, became a purring machine and then refused to leave no matter how many times we put her out. So it was a cosy night in Colin, in which the cat took up much of the foot room and totally ignored the meaning of a two man tent; secondly by a very friendly dog of ambiguous ownership who followed/led us out of town and onto the GR10 and refused all attempts to be parted from us for over 3 hours. We didn't encourage him at all and were really worried but he definitely knew where he was going and had no ID. Then we met a lady who owned the local gîte d'étape who recognised him and said lots of stray dogs in the area do the same thing with hikers. She tried to lead him back to town on a lead but he escaped and carried on with us so she told us to look out for a lady at the next col who could help – and sure enough we found her and she immediately started calling up friends to see if it was their dog (it wasn't) so she took him in to either return him to his owner if she could find them or to take him back to town and investigate further. He liked her a lot and we were happy that he had someone to look after him – definitely no space in Colin for a huge white dog no matter how friendly! Then there was a tiny frog, many many sweet chestnuts ripe for foraging, a convoy of hunters driving down the track with their bloodhounds and two dead deer in their truck which made me so sad and angry :( steep paths in the sad woods, wind rustling through the trees sending down golden confetti flake leaves as the forest glowed in the late afternoon light, good views of Canigou and rows of mountains fading into the hazy horizon, a perfect red spotty toadstool, conflicting feelings about being almost finished (I can't wait to reach the sea. I don't want the adventures to end), lots of careering down helterskelter hills, many cols and a march along a D road at the end as the light faded and we reached a free camping spot where an owl hooted and all the village dogs howled as we dined.
***
The vital statistics:
Total hiking time: 10h 44
Peak: 1414m
Total ascent: 2025m
Total descent: 1772m
Waking up early for a refuge brekkie, lazing in the tent whilst the sun evaporated the raindrops, heading down the valley past a dam built in 1935, turning off the GR10 to take a local footpath through the vallée des Biros down to a village for supplies, jaggedy mountains glowing in the mountain sun, mounds of tiny mushrooms, foresty paths zig zagging down gently to a river as the sunlight glowed green all around, emerging onto a road where all the butterflies were dancing like crazy round buddleia bushes and pink flowers, arriving in Sentein (another deserted village) to find a shop selling all we need and an empty campsite all to ourselves to while away the afternoon hours watching the sun disappear behind the mountains as the dandelions glowed and the spiderwebs shone...
***
We decided to turn off the GR10 at this point so that we could buy some much-needed supplies. The path down through the vallée des Biros was a beautiful diversion – cool, sunlit forest with well signposted paths, emerging into a valley that was full of butterflies fluttering in the hot sunshine.
There is a small epicerie in Sentein https://balacet.wordpress.com/2015/06/11/lepicerie-a-sentein/ which has everything you could need for hiking supplies. We bought a huge amount of food there!
The campsite in Sentein http://www.ariege-pyrenees-tourism.co.uk/camping-municipal-la-grange/sentein/tabid/22679/offreid/e05654d9-4292-4611-8593-fdf10428f046/more-information.aspx had already closed for the season when we got there, or rather, as the lady in the shop said, it was “closed, but not closed” – meaning that the sanitaires were open (hot water not guaranteed!) and we could pitch our tent if we wanted. We would have happily paid – it was peaceful, clean and worth the very nominal fee they were asking (about 3 euros according to the sign) – but there was nobody there whatsoever.
The vital statistics:
Total time hiking: 3h54
Peak: 1924m
Total Ascent: 13m
Total descent: 1144m
Eating brekkie in the sunshine, strolling along a river watching gliders get launched by tiny planes at an airfield, the steep uphill starting and lasting for hours (ascending 1998m overall and descending 1288m = a tough day for breaking in new boots), pretty villages, butterflies, an entire loaf of bread's worth of cheese sarnies for lunch, tired legs as the hills carried on going up, kamikaze crickets and grasshoppers constantly diving under our feet, views over Spain and epic mountains all around, our 4th snake slithering away, some peaks on the Spanish border and confusing balissage, a herd of tinkling goats, silent gliders overhead, finally heading downhill (ouch!), an isard leaping about on a sheer rockface, two friendly Collies - one got Gavin to throw him a stick, foresty paths and finally some flat ground to pitch our tent. We ate 3 twix, 2 lion bars and 2 snickers as snacks today and still managed to devour a huge serving of noodles for dinner - hiking is hungry work!
***
 |
| Views of Spain |
The vital statistics:
Total hiking time: 10h06
Peak: 2174m
Total ascent: 1998m
Total descent: 1288m
