Stage 3 complete – head north !

So tomorrow (24 Sept) we are leaving the Ardeche after 8 days of fine weather – rain is on the way all over France , and we’ve decided to take a look at the Loire chateaux area, as it offers more bad weather options.

Our last couple of days here have been spent on a bike ride between 2 valleys , and a short local hike

Overall impressions of Colombier-les-vieux ( our base for the last week)

We were very taken by the fact that this small village of 600 people can still support : a Mairie, a bakery, a tabac/bar ( which seems to be the social hub ) and a butchers. Never seen that at home. ( And they pack everything in paper bags ). Very good provision for touring visitors with good WCs and plenty of spots to park up for the night, with mains power and drinking water provided for free ! ( Not really useful for our caravan, but fine for camper vans. ) Then the bio diversity in the surroundings was very healthy – we spotted buzzards, kites, kestrels, signs of wild boar foraging, lots of butterflies , pair of woodpeckers, and a kingfisher. The woods were a good mix of conifers and many deciduous trees, esp sweet chestnuts ( tried some, not quite ripe ).

There seem to be a lot of houses high up the hills in isolated hermit spots, and a fair bit of subsistence farming / market gardening. Apart from vines, cherry and other fruit trees are the dominant forms of agriculture. There’s plenty of tracks through the hills for walking – and you can download GPX files from local guides to walks which I discovered can be imported into the free version of Outdoor Active so you have a mapped GPS track to follow.

On the negative side – many drivers go at crazy speeds along tiny windy roads, and tend to sit 3″ behind your bumper. Dedicated long distance cycle routes are good, but on normal roads there’s little space/ support for the cyclist. Fresh milk is bizarrely hard to find – UHT rules here. 🤮. And there is almost zero provision for vegetarians, let alone vegans – luckily we are self reliant for cooking.