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| The view back up to Colomers Refuge |
Sue and Martin's Big Adventure
Day 35 - Sunday 29 August 2004 - Stage 27 (continued)
Postcard Summary (on yesterday's card)
Relaxing
Camp to Salardu
Nice morning descent through pine forest
– 3.7 hours, 12 km, 100m ascent
An easy and pleasant descent in trainers
to Salardu – a small village where a suitable hotel is found and we spend the
afternoon washing selves and clothes before adjourning to a restaurant (late
for us, they don’t open until 8.30 in Spain).
In between – beers and ice creams, and on the way down we enjoyed
coffees at another hotel, which had an outdoor swimming pool. All very decadent!
Diary Entry (by Martin)
We were asleep
by soon after 9 pm after a very relaxing evening. The extra hour gained from
not having to wait for Julie made a big difference. We woke to a (surprisingly)
clear sky, 10°C, but it soon clouded over.
We got away from
our relaxing camp by the lake (pictured - top), on a big but deserted path. The day trippers had
not yet arrived - Spanish eat late and start late. We were soon below Colomers Refuge
on a soft path through a pine forest.
At 10 o'clock we
emerged onto a road and the Bahns de Tredos Hotel - quite new - not in Véron's
book. As we had used all our treated water a café au lait was most welcome, and
sped us, both now in trainers, on our way. Quite a posh place with a heated
pool outside. Sadly, we also saw a very woolly dog with a pigtail.
As we continued
to descend in thin sunshine and increasing cloud there were an increasing
number of cars with their day trippers. The road was easy, our packs were
light, and we soon reached the place where we could take a narrow path to Tredos,
and on down to Salardu by 11.50.
Hereabouts there
are a few very old buildings, but many many new buildings in this developing
winter sports area. We wandered around and chose a hotel - Deth Pais Hotel -
they seemed very quiet. We were quickly installed and immediately washed most
of our clothes and used our two spare guy lines to ring a washing line on our
small balcony.
The room is very
comfy, and a rare TV opportunity brings us to a motor race from Spa -
Schumacher got his 7th championship - and the last day of the Olympics. An interlude
at a bar - mid afternoon - got us beers and tapas, to supplement our meagre
Tex-Mex (tuna salad) lunch.
Then a look
around the impressive old church before returning to our room as it started to
spot with rain.
Nice meal at Restaurant
Cabillac - paella - we were the only customers. Now out of season.
Spaniards - smell
of talcum powder and leave a trail of tissues.
Latest kit
failure - an eyeet on the KSB 300 GTX boots - 'mended' using Swiss army knife
to thread lace through hole. Also, Sue sewed up Sprayway trousers.
Stats
and route (Viewranger):
12 km, 100 metres ascent, 3.7 hours
12 km, 100 metres ascent, 3.7 hours
4 comments:
Having become reasonably proficient at French language I tended to do my walking there and only went to Spain a few times for climbing rather than walking - pity I never learnt Spanish. I read that Julie is till having an ifluence even though she has departed. A sad reminder of Schumaker's misfortune after all that brilliance.
I wouldn't say that Julie 'was having an influence' Conrad. We just moved more quickly without her. And I can't quite work out your reference to Schumaker... ?
Pleased to see that you are still following - Julie would certainly have struggled on the next few days, which hold a lifelong memory of almost innumerable tins of fish.
From your post:
"...TV opportunity brings us to a motor race from Spa - Schumacher got his 7th championship ..."
I see I got the spelling wrong, but I was just saying that your mention of him brings back sadness for his tragic misfortune after such a brilliant career.
Agreed, Conrad. I hadn't read my own posting! The Pyrenees postings are done in two stages. The first one takes a couple of hours and comprises dictating, editing, sorting pictures, plotting the route on Viewranger, etc. I'm up to Day 47 with that, so I'd forgotten the mention of Schumacher when I hurriedly posted Day 35 - the second stage of posting takes 15 to 30 minutes and is basically a copy/paste exercise into a new posting on the Blogger dashboard, though on this occasion I added a picture of the Day 34 campsite by way of a dimly lit photo of a picture in Sue's photo album. (Most pictures are taken from the Fujifilm CD that came with my photos.)
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