Day 41: Villeneuve de Berg to Barcelona

No photos from today I'm afraid! 

Started by going to the swimming pool for the kids to have more lessons, and had a good swim there, even with my frustrations of this pool having more rules than any I've been to before!! (You can't even wear your clothes on to the pool deck - need to leave everything in the change room!)

Then time for me to leave! So caught a bus, then 2 trains to get to Barcelona that night, then a quick metro jump to my new and final home for the trip.... Oh wait maybe I have photos of this...

Day 40: French family life

So my plan here is to just rest and do whatever the family do. Easy. Today is a Saturday so at the nearby town of Aubenas there's a market worth me seeing, so I get dropped there for a couple of hours (while one of the kids at swimming lessons). And nice and early before it was busy which was awesome. Lovely markets filled the old streets, nougat, cured meats, all sorts of meat and veggies, preserves, clothes. All the usual, but damn nice stuff!! And I also had a chance to check out the local castle..

Back home in time for more yummy food!

And then off to the river for a swim in some icy but beautiful waters. We all got in eventually and then it was gorgeous! I didn't want to get out... And then realised my feet were numb and I was a bit dizzy... Water must've been colder that I realised!!

Then home for Dahl!

Day 39: Ajaccio to Villeneuve de Berg

Early flight from Ajaccio the next morning to Marseille, where I caught a train to the Ardeche region in the Rhońe Alps - an area in the south of France just north of Provence. Here I was to be staying with a family who are the friends of a guy that I met on a train from Paris to London a few weeks back! Philippe, the father, collected me from the station and we drove to their little village Villeneuve de Berg, which is close to Aubenas. Philippe was a cool guy - has lived here for about 7 years and before than in Paris and has also spend a lot of time abroad, and travels to places like Brazil regularly for work. He runs a supply business for world percussion instruments!

At the house I was greeted by his 3 children, wife Charlotte (Mum on the right) and three children Doris, Merlin and Solal, as well as their friend Aurelia visiting from Paris with her son Adrian (back left). After settling in it was time for lunch and I was greeted with this! Heaps and heaps of healthy fresh organic produce. Turns out this tribe only eat organic (and basically no meat), and I don't blame them, the soil must be amazing here. During my stay with them I had by far the best tomatoes I've had in my life (all colours), the best peaches, pears, feta and more. The quality really did amaze me. Everyday they would eat these gorgeous healthy meals, maybe with a risotto or something, just what I was needing after the last few indulgent weeks!!

One thing about the French life is that they do they're summers well. The standard annual leave for a French person is 5 weeks, plus extra for any accumulated hours over 35/week. So in other words they (like much of the rest of Europe) take half of summer off, and a large majority of them go to Brittany (as these guys did for 4 weeks). Philippe was working however, but the rest of us went off to a relatives place to use the pool and laze under the willows that afternoon....

But I didn't swim, instead the much needed rest I was after begun the minute I sat on this love swing. Got a few pages into my book and dozed the rest of the afternoon away. Bliss!!

(Oh and also ate a yummy crepe that Charlotte had pre made and brought with us!!)

Day 38: Corsican mountain love

Today was not going to be a stuff up like yesterday!! I have a rockclimbing session booked in the town of Corte, about 2 hours inland of here, and got to the only bus that goes that way a good half an hour before it was scheduled to leave. And then one hour passed. And no bus driver arrived. So I went into the main station to discover that the bus is not running today!!!! Because today happens to be both the day of Mary's Assumption (apparently this island is really catholic...) and also Napoleons Birthday, and Ajaccio is his town of birth!!! So in this city only its a double public holiday which for some reason means my bus doesn't run. So so so upset!! The only other option is the slow train, but that left while I was waiting for the bus... And no more trains for a few hours, which would skew our meeting time by hours!! I was so shattered, looking like the two things I can here for would fail, and this one especially which had been so well organised!!! So I was crying and went back to my hotel, planning to call the climbing company to see if by any chance we could still climb if I arrived super super late. On the way up to the room I thought I'd just see if reception had any bright ideas. I asked them if there was any other way to get to Corte at all, they said no.... But then one of the staff caught up to me saying that a guest that overheard my distress at the counter is about to drive to Bastia (other wise of island, but e only road there goes through Corte) and can give me a lift!!!

So yay, plan back on. This means I will arrive only 1.5 hours later than planned rather than 3! And the drive was awesome. She was a really cool lady, with her little dog, travelling back home after being in Ajaccio for meeting (she works in real estate). We had a great chat about all things Kangaroo. The drive took about 2 hours and took us up from sea level to about 1500m (on the road, the surrounding mountains over 2500),  through some of the best looking mountains I've seen. Really rocky and stunning in the low cloud. Unfortunately no photos really, other than these ones from a bad viewpoint... But may e it gives a small impression??

Then we arrived in my destination Corte! This is on the otherwise of the mountain - still high and hilly, but no where ear as high as the pass.

There I met up with my guide Agnés, a gentle and lovely lady who owns the local adventure business which had recently also become a shop for relevant equipment that her husband runs. She also has canyoning tours and such run by other staff but for rock climbing - she's your lady!! So nice to see this kinda of stuff done by a woman - especially seeing as she started this business many years ago. So off we went wi her expertise and my enthusiasm to some rocks, hopefully in the shade...! (And as always preceded by long walks up hill)

I stupidly forgot to take my camera up the rock as we climbed, which is a pity because the views from the top were amazing!! But he's what I was looking at, only this time from 70m below...

For my first outdoor climb this was perfect - I felt really safe with Agnés so got to really challenge myself. First I did a few short climbs- for this to happen Angés has to lead climb up first (this means with no rope holding her from above, securing the rope into fixed bolts as she goes) to secure the rope for me to climb on afterwards (because I'm not good enough to lead yet!!). And then we did a multi pitch climb. This is a climb where the aim is to get quite high - usually to the top of something - and where the height is far too great to achieve it in one climb with the length of the rope. Instead you need to climb a certain (predetermined) distance (as Agnés did at the start), secure the rope to a bolt in the rock (this bolt is much more secure than the standard ones and reinforced so you are generally quite safe), then the second person comes up while the first belays from above in stead of below (obviously some rope skills involved). Then when the second person is at the same level as the first, they rejigg the rope and bolts so it can be the beginning of another climb higher up, and so on until you reach the top. Mind you, the place that you change pitches at is not necessarily a ledge of any kind, usually just a portion of the rock with slightly better food holds to use while you attach the gear. So in this case we did three pitches and climbing probably about 70m in total, to the top. From there one person rappels down and then the next, taking all gear with you, and rappelling again from each pitch station (otherwise the rope will run out!! - which ours did 4 metres short of the end so Agnés climbed down a tree haha). 

There were some really tricky bits in this climb - cracks and such, and when you're climbing you often cant see the other person, so its just you, the rock and all the time in the world (which is often takes for a hard section ... Not much you can do other than keep trying to get up even when there's seemingly no where to put your hands or feet!) 

Looks small from here but that's the wall we just climbed... From deep below that green tree at the base.

After getting back to town and giving a million thanks for the great climb and lesson, I strolled (and got lost a few times) to the train for the return trip. Passed some cute ruins on the way....

Back in Ajaccio that night to discover fireworks for the public holiday thing. I only caught the tail end as I was right in the middle of my pasta when they -oh so loudly- started.

Day 37: Diving difficulties

Today I had organised a bit of a stuff up. Had long ago organised to do a dive in Corsica, but didn't realise until a day or two ago, soon confirming, that the location of the dive school I had booked with was a little out of Ajaccio. Only a little, but completely inaccessible by public transport in the early morning as I required. So had to wake up early this morning to call every other dive school in Ajaccio to try and find a dive to join. Which turned into lots of walking around the city looking for places and trying to call people, and resulted in a lovely dive school calling a few others for me.... But all to no avail! Not a single availability that day :( quite shattered at that stage, for one of the only reasons I chose to go to Corsica is because it supposedly hosts the best diving anywhere near my travel path. As a compromise I went snorkelling. And to be honest it was pretty shit snorkelling! We are quite lucky here in Aus!! Anyway, had some time to lie on the beach and at least had some water time. This is the rib we went out on to our snorkelling hole miles away in one of those background hills.

Returning to Ajaccio that night to find a Napoleon-esc parade in the Main Street. I'm not much of one for parades.... Home after a really tiring day with some takeaway :)

Day 36: Nice to Ajaccio

I found Nice a tricky place to get the information that I needed. Took a while, but eventually found the bus I was after - ''twas the plan to visit a heap of hilltop medieval villages today. But as it turned out my bus took 2 hours instead of 45mins to the first stop, and after than I waited over an hour for a bus that didn't show (which was to take me to the next village... The one I really wanted to see),  so chose to forfeit and head back to Nice after just the one. Which is fine really, you don't know what you miss out on when you don't see it! And I was tired anyway!

So here are some shots from St. Paul de Vence. A bit touristy but I didn't mind, 'twas nice and I was in a daydreaming mood, so did just that! :)

Checked out the shops in Nice then ready and off to the airport to fly to Corsica!