South of France, Easter.

A very sad start to this holiday as Felix passed away a few days before our departure, he will be sadly missed especially on our camper van trips.

                                             

Took a day to travel down to Cambridge after stopping the night we got an early start for Dover and the ferry, we then travelled for a few hours to reach the village of  Bellicourt, a commune in the department of Aisne in Picardy in northern France. We used the aire outside the tourist information center. 

 The area was the site of numerous intense combat actions and battles during World War 1 and an interesting area to see the St-Quentin canal, the canal at this time formed part of the Hindenburg Line, a German defensive position built during the winter of 1916–1917.

Off again, next stop Chalon-sur-Saone to pay homage to Nicéphore Niépce with a visit to the photography museum. Had enough time to visit the museum and a bit of a walk around exploring the area and do a few geocaches.



Then a dash all the way down to the South coast and Agay, a campsite that once set up we had half a dozen step to the beach and a couple more to the Mediterranean sea, below is a view of the site from across the bay.

Had a few walks around the area, one around the bay of Agay.

Two more in the hills above the town

A day trip to Nice with a walk along the Promenade des Anglais, a trip around the old city on a mini train, but most of the time was spent on the hill above the city, looking and photographing around the old graveyards.

At some point towards the end of our stay, Germany's schools seemed to have kicked out and they descended on us, the campsite became a lot more noisy, so we decided to pack up a day early and go off to the Camargue.

 

Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, "Saint Marys of the Sea", is the capital of the Camargue we stopped for one night on another Aire. Getting the early afternoon we seemed to squeeze a lot into 18 hours. A walk around the town souvenir hunting and a visit to the panoramic church fortress, back to the van and an hour or so fishing as the Aire was right on the beach, an early evening stroll around part of the marsh seeing Flamingos and White Egrets. Out on the town later for a meal meeting the only English people on this trip.

 

On our way back now to Calais, stopped off at Bellville Rhone for the night but still found time to walk around another clean and tidy town, a final french geocache or two. The Aire was just a car park but quiet and safe.

Got to Calais early evening for the ferry first thing in the morning.

After a short visit with the kids, called in at Scone for the weekend before getting home.

A fantastic trip just at the right lime of year for the weather. 

A trip of around 2800 miles over 2 weeks.

Next year will do something similar but travel via Hull and Zeebrugge, taking in Bruges.

Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know

Our 50th cache hide had to be a little special and as I am also getting bored with searching for urban caches, I wasnt about to make this one. In fact I don't think I will bother hiding anymore in urban situations, unless somewhere really interesting.
I was looking for some scrabbling experience as I had failed at getting to the top of Stac Polly and Sgurr nan Gilliean.

I found this in a book on walk and scrammbles in the Cairngorms, There wernt many as it was, for such a large area. The Stuic a rocky ridge on the Locknagar Massif, had been climbed way back by none other than Lord Byron. Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know was a phrase used by Lady Caroline Lamb to describe Lord Byron and as a child, lived for a short time at a farm adjacent to the South Deeside Road just east of Ballater. He spent some of his early childhood in Aberdeen where he attended the grammer school. He is reputed to have climbed The Stuic with a clubfoot and the time growing up in the area feature in some of his poetry, in paricular the area of Lochnagar
I was a long walk in and not that exciting once I had left the ancient forsest, mostly moor and bog. I climbed it from loch nan Eun and got the most way up, them my way was barred, in hindsite I think I should have been further over too the right, but I made my way off to the side and up a scree gully for the final few fifty feet or so. I think I will probably have another go at it sometime, as I still need the scrambling practice and this isnt supposed to be that difficult.Looks like you can come off Lochnagar quite easily down to the Loch, then climb it, wants to be a good dry day as that granite is slippy when wet, unlike the gritty grabbo of Skye.