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:)