Haute Provence les Alpes - Legs, Arms, Feet Spaghetti
You know those adventures that you just absolutely-no-doubt-about-it have to get yourself into? The clarity, the mess, the surprises, the moments of “uh-huh!”. I crave them daily, even in their most basic, humble forms.
For months, in fact, years, I’ve been wanting to go hiking in France. I wanted to stumble upon little villages with old French men sitting quietly outside their front doors watching passers by like the two old men in The Muppets.
So, when Matt agreed to join me on a 6 day hike through Haute Provence les Alpes, automatically the adrenaline pumped through my body and I threw myself into the bare minimum of planning necessary. We bought maps in a geographic shop in the centre of Paris, we traced routes with pens, sussing out topography and distances. The greatness of hiking, of adventure in the wilderness is that there isn’t an image of what the places look like that you’ll be passing by. Sure, you could visit a search engine and type in town names, but the whole purpose is that in wandering along those lines on paper, everything unfolds as you take each step.
After a few beautiful days in Paris wandering and eating, we took to the internet in search of a way down to Nice from where we’d catch a tiny single-carriage train through the mountains to St Andre Les Alpes. Joakim, a 21 year old guy from Nice was travelling back from Paris and so we caught a ride overnight with him, listening to classics like Lenny Kravitz, Mariah Carey, The Beach Boys, and even dedicated “Wake Up Lil’ Suzy” to Matt when we turned around to find him fast asleep, mouth open and in a wild snoring phase. Joakim and I talked all night - mostly about music, nonsense really, and sang along to our favourites, sharing new tunes with each other.
He was kind enough to drive along the coast to Nice from Cannes. We swung around capes, past beaches, backtracking to see the super cars parked outside Cannes’ biggest hotels and clubs, following the moon along the water’s edge. The car veered through Antibes, and into Nice just as the sky was a dark, deep blue, arriving at the main Piazza in time to watch the lights turn off and the statues that seemed to have been wandering the city at night come to a complete halt.
We thanked Joakim, impressed with how the journey had panned out, and headed straight through Old Town to the ocean. There, homeless people slept on the hard pebble beach and began to stir, readying themselves to pack up and seek a corner of the main street to plonk themselves on for the day, hoping for human kindness.
We sought human kindness of a different kind, finding a café that was just opening as we sat down. Two relatively cheap espressos and a couple of hours later and we were winding up the hills slowly on the little tram car.
In St André les Alpes, we found ourselves in the hot sun, navigating little country streets to the campsite. There, a little girl named Zoe showed us to the reception hut on her bike. We set up tent, threw on some fresh clothes and set out to explore the river. Due to the dry weather, it was mostly dry, and after about 20 minutes of walking, we accepted defeat and instead pursued food.
The next day, we finally set off on our first day of hiking. We had left a little bit later than planned, and so the gruelling sun’s heat and a winding track on a steep hill punished us accordingly. “Oh no, six days of this” I must have whimpered at one point. Or at several points. Endlessly, even. When we passed through a little area called Courchons, we realised we were going to need a lot more water than planned. Bravely, we gate crashed a family’s backyard party and asked in broken French for a place to fill up our bottles. Generously, the head of the family offered us another 1.5 L bottle of water straight from their groceries that they had only just arrived home with. We were taken aback by the kindness of strangers, and this certainly wouldn’t be the first time.
Further along the farmer’s track we stopped under a tree with a rock as a cutting board and a lunch of bread, saucisson, tomato and sheep milk cheese. A cheeky snooze and we were on our way again - the terrain turning from dry undulating fields of long grass to a hillside with views overlooking Lac Castillon - a beautiful azure blue, almost glass-like surface sunken into the hills of the surrounding area.
The day was long, gruelling, but so so beautiful. Our late arrival in Castellane (involving a wrong turn up a back street that offered to us an adorable dog with its head and front legs hanging out a peek hole) eventually came about and we rewarded ourselves after our first day with provençale foods - fresh pasta with soft beef fillet and a salad with warm dried figs, mushrooms and goats cheese and jambon cru.
Day two, when we awoke at 10:00, was essentially scrapped. We both were a) exhausted and b) impressed by the little town that we’d found ourselves in. We found fresh fruit in a little store and headed to the banks of the river where Matt read and I slept - for almost three hours. There was a warm breeze, and the babble or the water over stones below us. The perfect resting place.
Finally, on day three, we set off again. An overcast, muggy and increasingly humid morning despite our departure at 7:30am was the setting for an insane ascent up another mountain, this time past hillside farms and sheep herds, following a rabbit at one point along a path, and crossing down into the Verdon which we followed until we arrived at a riverside campsite that wasn’t really close to anything else. With our bags off our backs, and food in our bellies, I instantly dozed off again until I was shaken awake by Matt: “it’s gonna rain, let’s get this tent up.”
It rained quite a bit, and I was tired and cranky from being a) awakened from my nap and b) being hot and muggy inside a tent that wasn’t effectively keeping the wet out. Eventually, the rain stopped, the sun erupted from behind the clouds and we were free to roam. We wandered up to the little caravan shop on the roadside and a middle aged lady made us fresh baguettes with ham and swiss cheese “avec beurre?” “Bien sûr…”. I asked also for a chocolate drink and she heated up milk in a microwave then heaped Nesquik on top before stirring it in. My only thought was “thanks, mum.” What a classic mum move.
With ponchos off and the skies clearing, we wandered down that afternoon to the river to check the current and the temperature. It was too cold to swim and too strong a current to stay put in one spot, so we opted to skip stones and admire the pastel green hues of the water instead. An old French couple came and joined us, the man picking up stones and watching them ricochet 6 times or more across the water’s surface. He explained to me in French how to play, and then asked us where we were from, and what we were doing there in the middle of nowhere. We’d come to find during our trip that being Australian is really something different - that we had “come a long way to get there” etc. But adventure takes you where it wants to, we humans of this world have no control over that once we let go of control.
The next day was one of those days where the rain pays a cheeky visit to you as you're scaling a 1400m hill on loose gravel and your knees and stomach do not quite agree. I felt nauseous, unbalanced, and I was a bit off. But once we reached the top and arrived at the hillside village of Rougon, suddenly peeling the poncho off my skin like it was part of me, the promise of a coffee and a break was redeeming. The village was small, the people kept to themselves, and we were definitely outsiders. But after our visit there, it was mostly downhill until one more mountain that would get us to La Palud Sur Verdon, our third campsite green with lush grass and willow trees. We went into the village centre to bide our time whilst the reception was closed and ate poulet frites and glaces, happy to have our shoes off and to be visited by plenty of dogs during lunch. Again the heavens decided to open just as we were setting up our tents, but a couple with a beagle who we had noticed at the café we were at for lunch offered us a seat under their motorhome awning, and we all got talking about our travels, our cultures etc. We bid them adieu in seeking a quick sleep before heading into the village for the fete d’eglise - their yearly celebration of the church in the centre of the village, where they set of fireworks in a back paddock beside the village. Young, old, locals and travellers came together and “oooh la laaaa-d” at the spectacle before retiring back to their beds, and we did the same, with smiles on our faces and some beer in our tums.
Though we got up and were packed early the next day, our motorhome neighbours invited us round for coffee, and we sat there again chatting and laughing and teasing their beagle Joda (pronounced “Yoda”, you should have seen its huge alien ears) before we eventually set off. Another steep, never-ending mountain began our day’s hike. We then descended into a plateau and followed the map into what ended up being farmland with sheep. Before we knew it, an echoing barking noise could be heard from beyond the trees in front of us. We had seen signs which warned of sheep guard dogs, having no idea what to do with the arrival of one. We walked ahead, until the trees opened and four massive, furry white beasts with huge black eyes stood about 50 metres away. They looked more like bears than dogs - they looked like Beethoven the dog had fallen into a pool of white paint and come out with a fierce endeavour to “sick em”. Matt brandished a stick and I looked on, noticing a farmer had come out and stood beside the dogs with his arms crossed. I assured Matt and we walked on towards him. Speaking not one word of English, the farmer looked at us as I tried to explain that we were following a certain path on the map up towards Moustiers Ste Marie. He explained that yes, we could continue on up there - it was a rock face with beautiful views but quite a hard walk, or we could backtrack and walk flat for a while. We said we were keen to see the cliff and the view, and he said it was very beautiful with vultures flying overhead. I asked if we should be weary of the vultures, his reply being that we should try not to fall or lie down because they might think we’re dead. He then proceeded to tell us (probably concocted) a story of a woman and man that went walking up there, the woman falling over and being unable to move without the emergency services arriving in time, and her being eaten alive by vultures. Where our knowledge of French failed us, his exuberance and hand gestures did not. We had a laugh, thanked him, and headed up the cliff. Then realising it was a disused track and overgrown with bush, we had to backtrack, awaken the dogs again and wave the farmer goodbye as he laughed at us. “Trop dûr?” “Malheureusement, oui.”
Legs buckling from torturously steep rock faces and dangerously loose gravel descents, the top of the final mountain dragged us through a canyon pass and through a rocky wind swept landscape of shrubs, the breeze softly blowing a lingering scent of thyme, my mind careering back to that roast chicken with lemon, thyme and vinegar I had made for housemates back home only weeks earlier. To be honest with you, discussions and thoughts of food and experiences with food got us both (I think I can say “both” quite confidently) through the tough landscape on this entire walk. When, after 30 kilometres of walking, we made it to the next campsite, we sculled down a can of Orangina, showered and followed our noses into the hillside village of Moustiers St Marie, named after a chapel etched into the side of the canyon above. Matt demolished a pizza, I proceeded to motorboat a gigantic salad, and we each, post dinner, macked on with lavender flavoured icecream. After a blister-popping walk back to the tent, we lay side by side with out heads out the door, falling asleep under the stars as they swayed and danced à la Dean Martin in the sky above.
The last day was begun (yet again) by a coffee, croissant and stock up of fresh bread and meats, cheeses and AVOCADO (hell yeahhhhh). We went up our final mountain to begin, which opened up suddenly to fields of lavender and sunflowers. Ah. Yes. Flat ground. Finally. Well, my friends. Let me tell you that the roads were endless and the sun unforgiving. We finally found shade for lunch, saw a brown squirrel bounce about the pine needles, had a nap and set off again. Upon reaching Riez, we high fived, cracked a couple of cold ones and surveyed the new topography of our bare feet, blisters piling on top of each other and red raw skin screaming for some TLC. So I sang a couple of lines from No Scrubs and we celebrated with wine, beer, burgers and some full on dog spotting.
Haute Provence. Haute = high. Not as in “further north” but more to the tune of “mountains, loads and loads of mountains.” I’m sure our translation skills will be improved next time we choose a trek to conquer. Until then, we’ll be elsewhere enjoying food. Lots of it.
