Biathlon training day – aiming for a morning cycle and an afternoon walk/climb. Madness, you say, but we Just Don’t Care. It’s nice weather and we are going to use it.
On the way up, we passed a reservoir for hydro generation. They had designed this most efficiently by finding an area where the valley had a very narrow pinch point, thus minimising concrete required.
Interesting Solar Time Observation:
The face of this dam had been marked out to operate as a sundial ( quadrant solaire , a very handy tourist phrase we should all memorise ), commemorating the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s observations.
There was an explanation of how local solar time offset from GMT varies through the year, and it showed that even here , in the far east of France , it never gets an hour ahead of GMT ( varies from about 20 mins ahead to 48 mins ahead ). A reminder that they only adopted CET to be different from UK ( – and as for SPAIN 😲..) .
Vive la difference temporale.
Then we cycled on up the hill to the east of the reservoir.
A superb view from lunch stop at the top – and actually the climb was not half as bad as we were expecting. The French roads are pretty good at maintaining a reasonable gradient ( less than 10% anyway) even up the steepest hills, by dint of creative zigzagging. The way down was fab – no pedalling required. Passed another hydro reservoir….or was it ?
Interesting Atmospheric Observation : At a speed of round 20mph, cycling down the hill on a still day, we both noticed an odd phenomenon : you pass regularly through areas of cooler, then hotter, air that differ by quite a few degrees – not related to coming into/ out of the shade. I guess this is the thermal activity that happens on the hillsides on sunny days, with columns of rising / falling air. Have felt something similar when swimming in the sea, but never before on land.
BDO – broken brake update :
Back at Basecamp, we also had chance to get the local mechanic to check out the van’s hub brakes. He jacked it up onsite, span the wheel, had a listen, and pronounced it “Pas mèchant” – (~ nowt to worry about). I think it’s still possible the brake shoes are worn, but two separate opinions now say it was temporary over-heating during a prolonged hairpin descent, so we’ll just have to hope everything works fine when we set off again next week. In other positive BDO news, Lianne has now found a permanent workaround for the Unlocked Door mystery, so we are Secure again. Huzzah!
Afternoon excursion
After a restorative nap, time to tackle the iconic rock outcrop which towers over Castellane. I believe that , back in the middle ages, several PR agencies were hired to come up with a zingy name – result ? Le Roc. Classic.
Wow, you are thinking – 200m of vertical cliff face, impressive stuff…but to be honest we took the pilgrim path up the left hand side, and made it in 45 mins. Intrepid explorers or wot ?
From the top, we got an impressive view down over Castellane , a neat and understated little town only a mile from our campsite
Apart from the iconic Jesus/ cross image facing over the town, there’s another less-noted statue further back, which was decapitated by a lightning strike in the 1970’s ( Ed: insert industrial action joke here later). A commentary on the transience of human impact ?
talking of heads why was Jesus cross?
Hmmm – mm – madonna, now you come to ask….