Andorra Climbing

We headed off on our turbo adventure south from France to meet up with Bern, Paul and Isabel in Spain. Our route took us through the Pyrenees towards Barcelona, absolutely stunning country.

Sometimes it's hard to get climbing in when you are moving quickly across a lot of ground. What you really need is for someone to build a gigantic climbing pinnacle right on the side of the highway in spectacular settings. Of course it needs to be open to the public (or the sign's need to be able to be interpreted that way:)

Thank you ANDORRA!!!!

As we drove through Andorra, we stumbled upon this huge man-made pinnacle, set up for climbing – yayyy! Mum and Dad Steggles watched on as Nathan led one of the hardest climbs we have ever done. It was made slightly harder due to some of the holds being a little loose (the anchors all looked good though) And he didn’t fall off! I found the climb super hard to do on top rope. We were exhausted after just one climb but very satisfied that we managed to do a climb in yet another country – yayyy! p.s. Andorra is stunning! And tax free!!

Grenoble Expedition

After our rockin' time in Lyon part 1, Wales and Lyon part 2 (posts hopefully to be added) we ventured up to see Agnes, Pierre Louis and the kids (ditto on post). From here we headed down to Grenoble where we ran into Tim Hellyer on the corner of the street. He told us to wait there but never came back. Thankfully we remembered how forgetful he is and moved on to a stunning Chateau guest house in the Verdon.

After a wonderful night of feasting on the owners variety of home-made wines and liquers, beef roast over their open fire, a host of other home grown delicacies, topped off with fresh berries and cream from garden and cow respectively, we continued south.

Although we had mentioned how wonderful the walking in the area was and bought a map of the area together, I think Dad was planning on skipping the treking sector of the trip (based upon his selection of black leather dress shoes for the day- nice try Dad!!!!:)

We looked at our map, spotted a nice route and away we went. After driving through the ski lodge area we arrived at around 1500m altitude and started our scenic stroll…. 2 hours later, we found ourselves at the foot of a steep track leading up to the top of this gigantic mountain.

To Mum and Dad's credit and our astonishment they decided to push on rather than walk back on the relatively flat path. This was a serious mountain hike and we remain astounded at Mum and Dad's effort. Most of the time we were walking along a path only about a foot wide! Well done to Mum and Dad who survived the walk and the altitude!! As often happens we found that the tracks, signs and map were at various stages of disrepair, innacuracy/disagreement. After about 5 hours of walking it was starting to get late and we'd seen the most spectacular part of the walk already (that's our story and we're sticking to it :) ).

Lucky we had Mountain Goat Nathan to run/bound back down the mountain and get the car, run 5 km, open some gates and bring the car up the fire trails, while we waited for him as the sun was setting…. Of course we were excellently prepared for the walk with exactly just one bottle of water between us (why carry excess rate) and no food (why eat when you can walk?)– well done Team Adventure Steggles! Perhaps we’ll try Everest next hey Mum and Dad?

If we get faster internet we'll try to add some more photos as with all the blogs:)

Climbing a Volcano

We found a really nice camp site near Rocher de Costaros. The owners were super friendly and had a great bar set up. They baked us hot chocie croissants and made fresh espresso in the morning. The bohemians had created a great atmosphere but they were pretty relaxed in all things, especially the cleanliness of the bathrooms....eeewwwww. I didn't think our leg strengthening exercises for africa and beyond would start this early. We had a great time chatting to them about travel and things. They were serious travellers......when we said we'd taken 9 months off from work as a big pre-children adventure, the owner earnestly frowned and lamented, "Yeah, we only get 6 months off a year....." What the?!?!? I think we need to become camping ground owners. Especially now that I know you don't really have to clean the bathrooms:)

They helped us with directions to the climbing nearby where we climbed the inside of an old volcano (after navigating around some road blocks and a nice walk to the cliff)- see below...

This place was stunning and the walk in was a little scary, given we had to scale the sides of the volcano to reach the climbs! We hope to return here one day to do some nice multi-pitch climbs (anyone interested?).

We didn't have any topo but met some really nice locals who lent us their's. Continuing to blast the myth of rude French people. However this proved to be the northern most point in France in which people were happy and able to converse with us in French. North of here it seems people's ears are more finely tuned/impatient.

The French guys were an inspiration. The better one was about 75 years old the other guy about 60. They blasted up multi pitch routes harder than our single pitch (Monsieur senior on lead) and then calmly came back down and had a sip of heart starter of some description with their pipe tobacco. I want to be like that when I'm 75:)

Magnificent Millau

The Viaduc of Millau - an amazing engineering feat!!
Millau was a cute little town and is now visited by tourists because of the Viaduc. We had a little walk along the water and picnic of some type of roquefort foie gras - mmmm.... We felt like our hearts may stop beating - it was about 80% fat, but oh did it taste good.

Climbing Campan

Driving along with our faithful PANDA and our trusty 1:100,000,000 (not so detailed!) scale map of France's climbing and with the aid of some nice French people at the local sports shop we found this nice spot on the side of the road. Great climbing, beautiful stream and picnic table all right at the cliff. Cliffs were very high and the limit of our rope! Nice views too.

Camping Pyrenees

We were driving and driving and driving deeper into a valley in the Pyrenees looking for somewhere to camp. It was getting darker and darker, when we pulled up into a quaint inn at the side of the road. It was dark inside and we hollered a little at the bottom of a set of stairs when a lady appeared stroking her dog. We asked in our best french whether she knew of a camping site nearby. 'Non'. Ok then, we then continued to explain we had all of our own equipment and would not need any facilities. 'aaaah, savage, oui c'est possible'. It was ok to camp 'savage' for one night in the Pyrenees. She explained that we were welcome to drive behind her property over a little bridge where we may find something suitable.

Yes very suitable!!!!!!!

Yummy Dinner!

Making Peppermint Tea in the morning...mmmm.

Climbing Arudy

So what do you do when you can't find a decent general guide book for France/Europe anywhere? Just drive around with a 1:100,000 map and think lucky:) After taking a detour tour through the not so exciting town of Arudy, we returned and investigated what seemed to be the access track to the crag. Thankfully our fiat panda had neither the girth or the limited agility of its namesake. We ended up following a narrow and precipitous rock path past a chemical plant to a dead end amidst goats in the depths of a secluded valley (only very marginal hyperbole!). Anyway the panda was nimble and robust and we made it back out and eventually found the crag.

The crag itself had a how to say.......urine stained, defunct, underground station atmosphere...mmmmmm FUNKY! Well it was dingy in corners but the limestone was pretty nice and the routes interesting. A little too interesting in fact (read above our skill level). Given the single non locking gate permanent anchor set up, I thought I'd be conservative and leave the last draw in, as well as cleaning an erant quick draw I placed a little wide on lead onto what looked like the correct route. Renu climbed to find I had given her a direct but perhaps too hard route to the anchor.

Thank you Australian Climbing Consultants for teaching us the most valuable skill of prusiking.

Climbing Mondarrain

Amazing spot!! We weren't too sure where this climbing spot was. We spotted a cliff and parked the car. Luckily we spotted a french man with his bouldering mat nearby. We spoke to him and he let us follow him up the hill - the walk was about 45 minutes up (which was a little tiring as we weren't very fit at that stage). It was so beautiful up there - paradise really. You can see in the photos. The climbing was very easy but super fun given the amazing views. The spot was more for bouldering so we gave it a bit of a try and posed for some photos....

You can see Nathan pointing in the photo below - the end of his finger shows the location of our car all the way down there.

A really breathtaking place where we would like to go back to one day.

Camping near Mondarrain

Here is our first campsite!! It is just south east of Biarritz. Our new tent is the best! (We did consider bringing the 6 man tent but thought it may be a little too big to carry around....)

We had so much fun. Check out our gourmet meal in the picture - the wine was 2 euros and the sausage less than that - French supermarkets are the best!!

Climbing Biarritz

Our first climbing experience in France! We randomly found this place on the internet and the best thing was that it was freeeeee! We met the groundsman (who was hiding in a warehouse) and traumatised him with our french and asked if we could climb the wall. He was very friendly and said we could climb as long as we had insurance and he held no responsibility for the quality of the holds on the wall. So up the wall we went!! And survived - yay!

French Classes

French classes in Biarritz, what to say! So much fun, with our energetic Prof Sandrine (see photo for example of wicked cool finesse) and our class of young OCDs (de TOC) haha not to mention the wise oldies (age > 17 years). Martin we are looking forward to seeing you in Australia next year. The wallabies are waiting for you......