Day 39: Artigue valley to Rouze (Tom Bombardil's farm)

Waking up to rain and cloud covering the views of last night, spending the day in a cloud getting slowly but thoroughly drenched by mizzle (up up through a forest, over moor, lunch in a berger's hut then down past a lake, down a track with no views but who knows we could have been anywhere), a pond full of tadpoles, emerging out of the cloud and the first person we saw in 24 hours was a lorry driver with an 80s mullet who saw us but carried on taking off his trousers anyway (?), 2 vultures perched on a heathery mound, flowery villages, a mean growling patou dog who led us to his sheep rather than away, a field of mules and donkeys, gobliny passages, and then arriving at THE MOST AMAZING place ever - a gîte d'étape farm run by the friendliest man ever where we found everything we could ever need like a pick your own veg farm, freshly laid eggs, goat cheese galore, a kitchen for cooking, a cosy room with a fireplace, freshly picked flowers, booze and so much homely comfort joy we didn't know what to do:)

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On our way to Rouze we found the floweriest section of the GR10 :)

The gîte d'étape in Rouze was honestly one of the most amazing places that we stayed in for the whole hike.

We had had a long and tiring few days and the actual day that we hiked here was incredibly wet and tough-going. Our boots were saturated, there were absolutely no views, just cloud and mist. The path was fairly steep all day long and at some point I think we just sort of gave up on the idea that we would ever find somewhere to pitch the tent. So when we found the gîte and stepped inside and realised that we could stay in the warmth instead, it was such a relief. We weren't keen at all on sleeping in dorms but nobody else was there so it was just like staying in a house of our own! The gîte is part of a farm – there is a fromagerie selling homemade cheeses and a huge vegetable patch that you can pick your own veg from. The whole thing is run by one of the friendliest men we have ever met - his whole face was a smile and he exuded a calm, zen energy as he welcomed us. Inside there is a big shelf that is a serve-yourself shop selling food supplies and a fridge full of beer and wine that you can buy. It is run on an honesty system – so you note down what you have taken and leave the money in a box by the door. There were so many useful supplies (all very reasonably priced) so we bought rather a lot of stuff! You can cook in the cosy little kitchen and there was a big table with freshly picked flowers where you could eat. We bought cheese, freshly baked bread and eggs from the farm, picked our own courgettes and cooked up a feast. We had the whole beautiful place to ourselves so after glorious hot showers, we put on some music, lit a giant fire and basically had ourselves a happy little party of joy. The whole place reminded us of the part in The Lord of the Rings where the hobbits end up at Tom Bombadil’s farm – a happy little haven of goodness, where we totally over-indulged in booze and never wanted to leave! 

The beautiful fresh flowers on the table in the Gite d'étape

The vital statistics:
Total hiking time: 7h28
Peak: 1998m
Total ascent: 1211m
Total descent: 1293m

Day 38: Cabane de Luzurs to Ruisseau d'Artigue

Waking up early in our cosy cabin to the sound of ravens cawing as the sky glowed orange in the east, walking to another unmanned cabin for lunch, meeting a friendly berger and his two exuberant dogs, heading down a very steep and overgrown path through the woods where the moss grew thick and coated all the tree branches like too much tinsel on a Christmas tree, a steep new track being dug out by diggers, rejoining the GR10 proper, another long foresty path along a river, playing with pebbles, spindly mushrooms popping up everywhere, a red squirrel, waterfalls galore on sheer rock walls, tired achy bodies, emerging to grassy plains, amazing mountain views and a river to bathe in, planting our tent on a bed of happy yellow tormentil flowers and scoffing an early dinner. It's half 7 and I'm waiting for it to get dark so I can sleeeeep

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The vital statistics:
Total time hiking: 7h37
Peak: 1605m
Total ascent: 641m
Total descent: 968m

Day 37: Sentein to the cabane de Luzurs

 A peaceful morning in our deserted campsite, another stomp along a d-road, this time blasting out some Led Zeppelin to motivate our tired legs, flowery villages, turning back onto the GR10 (E branch), vertical forest paths that eventually got flatter, nostalgic pink flowery aromas filling the air, a sizeable wedge of brebis for lunch and bounties for snacking, an aquaduct/leat flowing alongside us for a while like a mini canal, a stupid electric fence blocking the path, arriving at the étang de Bethmale where we wanted to camp to find it chockablock with fishing people (a shock after not seeing a soul all day) so carrying on up through a steep forest, over a col onto the GR10 (D branch) past unreal skies and into another forest that was so thick with cloud it was prematurely dark, finding an unmanned shepherd’s cabin and settling in by the fireplace while rain drums down on the tin roof...

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La Cabane de Luzurs

The vital statistics:
Total time hiking: 7h36
Peak: 1414m
Total ascent: 1128m
Total descent: 437m

Day 36: L'etang d'Araing to Sentein

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...

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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

Day 35: Melles to l'Etang d'Araing

 

Waking up to rain, the sun coming out as we walked along a long and winding road, a screeching woodpecker, a creepy doll perched on the garden wall of the only house we'd seen for miles, tough steep forest paths, buttery noooodles for lunch by a waterfall, the biggest frog we've seen in a while, emerging from the forest to rewarding views due west back where we've been, the landscape changing to high mountain plateaus of golden grass and boggy marshes, vultures overhead, 4 isards/deer leaping about down below, a kestrel hovering about, finally cresting a col and heading down to a lakeside refuge for a 3 course feast with friendly fellow ramblers before pitching our tent.

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Beautiful views on the path up to the Etang d'Araing

After realising that we couldn’t restock or find anywhere to stay in Fos the previous day we were a bit worried about supplies running out and where we would camp. I called up the refuge http://www.refuge-araing.fr/ at the Etang d’Araing because I had heard that some refuges in the Arriege area will sell hikers supplies. The gardien said that as it was nearing the end of the season, he couldn’t sell us supplies but that we were welcome to eat there. So we booked ourselves in for dinner and breakfast and also ordered a sandwich for the next day. Up to this point we had only eaten in refuges for lunch when you can usually just turn up and buy omelettes and sandwiches. Evening meals are a bit different – you have to reserve and you don’t get a choice of what you eat as one meal is prepared for everybody that is staying. It is even more imperative to call ahead if you are veggie as this will involve them preparing a separate dish. The meal at the refuge Araing was really tasty – 3 courses including veggie soup, an omelette and ratatouille and homemade mint chocolate cake. It was an interesting experience to eat dinner at the refuge as it meant we met other hikers that were staying there and to got to hear about their adventures. It was very convivial with everybody sitting around one table and serving each other the food. We got top tips from hikers coming in the other direction about potential resupply sources and must-see places. And then afterwards we got to wander back out under the stars to our tent for a peaceful nights sleep by a beautiful blue lake.

Altogether dinner, breakfast and lunch and showers for two people came to just over 60 euros (pitching the tent outside the refuge was free) so it wasn’t cheap but it was a bit of a change from our usual cooking routine and the gardien gave us some useful advice about where we were going next… 

The vital statistics:
Total time hiking: 6h32
Peak: 2185m
Total ascent: 1477m
Total descent: 257m

Day 34: Forest by cabane d'Artigue to Melles

Sleepy forest mornings, paths that went up instead of down but then zigzagged peacefully under pine trees for an hour, arriving in Fos, the village that promised much (a shop, a restaurant, a campsite, a bakers, a hotel) and delivered nothing but an eery deserted gîte d'étape where we spent a weird hour waiting; nobody came except a Belgium hiker who was equally confused so we left money for the coffee we had made and continued on to the flowery village of Melle in the sunshine and found an amazing auberge with friendly owners who fed us very well and gave us local bivouacing secrets courtesy of their collie

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The vital statistics: 
Time spent hiking: 5h30 
Peak: 1293m  
Total ascent: 314m 
Total descent: 862m

Day 33: Bagnères-de-Luchon to a forest just past the cabane d'Artigue

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!  

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Views of Spain

The vital statistics: 
Total hiking time: 10h06 
Peak: 2174m 
Total ascent: 1998m 
Total descent: 1288m