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Journal: |
I stayed up til nearly midnight sorting out various electronic
things, but still rose about 6:30 and packed before going down to
the dining room soon after 7am in the hope that breakfast was
earlier than anticipated (usually 8am on a Sunday). There was
already a group eating and I helped my self to cereal and several
fresh rolls before checking out and hitting the road soon after 8am.
As usual in the early stages of a trip, I'm still sorting out the
best way to pack and a routine, and know I can be more efficient.
The early climbing was warm and steep, but offered great views of
La Turbie, Monaco and the Med. I was proud to reach my first Col an
hour later, and know it will be the first of many. The Via
Alpina route is quite complicated for the first day as it wends its
way along small country lanes, footpaths and roads. There were
many intersections and I took care to stay on track. The route
was mostly climbing, but I benefited from some lovely shaded
woodland trails and saw many expensive-looking villas tucked away in
the hills. In the warm sunshine it was about as Mediterranean
as you can get. My route took me close to the hilltop village
of Peillon and I later regretted not detouring to explore.
However, Peille, my lunch stop was also built into a hilltop with
narrow winding and steep streets, ancient buildings and small
squares. I bought some lunch at the bakery on the main square
and watched the passing parade. There were several restaurants
and Sunday diners gradually filled them up.
After a wander around the alleys of town, I began climbing
steadily in the heat for about three hours and began to wish I had
brought more than a litre of water with me. I was feeling
tired and turned my radio on and found an English Riviera radio
station. You could tell their target demographic by the 60s
and 70s music and ads from foreign exchange companies and luxury
yacht outfitters.
However, as I arrived at Col du Farguet (1083m) at about 4pm, a
few spots of rain quickly turned into a freezing downpour, heavy fog
and thunder and lightning, and I began to worry more about
hypothermia as I donned extra layers than dehydration. Shortly
afterwards in the heavy fog and rain and amidst a maze of trails
created by 4WD vehicles, I missed a vital turn. For the next
hour I was uneasy about my route, but saw enough signs to persuade
me I was on the right track. It's a long story, but I missed
some opportunities to get back on the right track and ended up
walking off the side of my map. For this whole trip, in order to cut
down on weight and not rely on post offices to deliver new maps, I
highlighted my route on about 50 topo maps and then cut them into A4
"strip maps" and scanned them so that they are also stored on my
iPhone (where they can be enlarged for greater detail), and on
Dropbox so I can reclaim them from the web if I lose them for any
reason. I am carrying about 1kg of A4 maps. Anyway, the
problem with a strip map is that if you go too far wrong, then you
are off the edge and unable to relate to any place names, etc., and
this is what happened. Finally, with the help of the maps app
on my iPhone, I worked out where I was, and I was far off course.
Curses. By now it was 6pm and I toyed with the idea of
descending to a village I could see in the wrong direction in the
hope it was large enough to have food and accommodation.
Eventually, i decided that I could survive without food and sleep
rough in my emergency bivvy sack and decided to retrace my steps
until it got dark. All the time there were thunderstorms about
and occasional squalls, keeping everything damp. I could hear
the occasional cuckoo, commenting on my mental state.
Around 8:30pm I was back on my map and on a track I knew went to
Sospel, the town I should have been at for the night. I waited
for the rain to stop and then quickly got into my bivvy sack and
slept reasonably well, despite it getting quite cold and a lot of
condensation inside the sack. I didn't feel that hungry or
thirsty, though I knew I should be exhausted but had been operating
on adrenalin for the last few hours.
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