Day 53 – at Treignes

After a breakfast watching the swallows play around the old station building I loaded up the GPX route the guy had sent me in the bar last night and drove a few kilometres up the valley to Dourbes.

These hills take me to one of my favourite and much used quotes, from Lewis Carroll..

““When you say “hill,”’ the Queen interrupted, ‘I could show you hills, in comparison with which you’d call that a valley.’” (The Red Queen to Alice)

Usually such dumplings wouldn’t hold my attention, but throw in some Belgian bars and I am quite happy.

The ‘high points’ here are at about 350 metres, in places 400, from the valley base at 130 metres. It was a fine and cool morning, typical of May, and no surprise, I had slightly adapted the route, to start at the point nearest to where I was. That involved a steep climb of only about 50 metres, but on very loose ground, necessitating root handholds for security.

It also involved crossing the railway line. My timing was perfect, a train just leaving the tunnel as we crossed. A moment later though, the silence returned, and the tunnel reminded me of that wonderful adaptation of a short story by Dickens, The Signalman. It was one of the Ghost Stories for Christmas the BBC made in 1976, with Denholm Elliott. It has stayed in my mind ever since then, and is watched frequently…

https://dai.ly/x6c73c3

The route went over the hills to Nismes, then returned along the river.

I contemplated staying over at Dourbes, or at nearby Vierves where there looked to be a decent bar, but none of the possibilities for stopover were anywhere near as good as at Treignes.

I watched the rugby and caught up with a bit of business, and headed to the Authentic bar for a couple just after 7. It was much busier tonight, being Saturday, and I had already planned not to eat there, as had picked some interesting looking meatballs up at Intermarche this morning.

Route, as ever at Strava..

https://www.strava.com/activities/7179352512

Les Abannets Circuit from Dourbes – andy weston’s 7.8 mi run