Day 84 – to forest at the south of Lake Pavin

The mountains as one looks to the south from Col de Serre, are the remnants of r Volcanoes of Cantal, the largest stratovolcano or conical volcano of Europe, which was formed from 13 million years ago and last erupted approximately 2 million years ago.

This morning, after three days here, I was reluctant to leave them. I went out expecting to be less than an hour, and we were out for double that. Once on the grassy ridge above, the view was uninterrupted for the first time, and it was impossible not to linger. Roja is a big fan of those tiny tarns, or lochans, found high up on mountain plateaus. His favourite, where he likes to go for his birthday, is on High Street, just before High Raise. We found another today, and while I lingered, savoured and pondered the skyline, he took to the waters, or the lido as we say in the Lakes.

We drove on to the north for 45 minutes to another area with remaining evidence of the volcanoes, around the ski area of Besse, where there are several crater lakes, the most scenic and visited being Pavin, which gives its name to a cheese also. Lake Pavin is a meromictic lake, one in which the layers of water do not intermix, as opposed to the more usual, holmictic lakes, in which at least once a year, the surface and deep waters mix. My pictures don’t do it justice, but the colours, shades of green and blue, are very different to what would be expected. Along with a French couple, I stood watching a two foot long Arctic Char saunter about in the shallows just after Roja had retrieved a stick, he must have awoken it from a slumber.

The circuit of the lake is only about three kilometres and popular, even today. I extended it a bit, and took in the peak, Puy de Montchal, at 1407 metres, which gave some excellent views. There was some cloud today, but quite a bit of sun also, though the temperature never got above 10C. This time last year I was in a heatwave in the Vosges, not that far from here.

We haven’t moved far from the big car park at Lake Pavin. Quite a few motorhomes were staying put there, but it was only just off the main road, which was noisy. We took some minor roads and tracks into the forests at the south side of the lake and found an isolated forest pull-in. It did have the first mosquitos thought of this spring, quite surprising with the temperature, though I guess after all the rain we have had. They seemed to like the late afternoon best also, as at dusk, with the temperature lower again, they were nowhere to be seen.