Albarracin

We have been here once before for the climbing, the village is lovely. The whole village is built into and around the massive boulders. When I say hillside I mean STEEP! People who live here full-time must be fit!

 

Santa Engracia

We pottered around in El Cogul for a couple of days, getting some climbing done and enjoying the warmer weather.  We had been discussing trying to squeeze in some sport routes , when the rain hit. We thought we could head to Tremp, visit a friend and get some sport climbing done over the weekend before returning to El Cogul. However, we took the rain with us!

Cookie and Cows Whirlwind Romance

 

Cookie meets a fellow mascot, Cow.

Targasonne, did someone say this was a ski resort?

The weather was beautiful the next day, finally some sunshine. The roads were incredibly windy and Ivan gave us a little fright as he threatened to over-heat on some of the inclines. We took this as a hint to stop for roadside lunch and take in the views. .

 

He made it to la Griole campsite situated about 1600m up, and Paul managed to sneak some climbing in before dark.

Carcasonne

The medieval walled city was spectacular, situated high up on a hill side it looked over a small and very plain town when compared to the city inside the walls. 

We wandered around the walls of the city investigating every spiral staircase  the rain held off, but the wind was picking up and by the time we had walked a lap of the walls we were getting blown through the little door ways and arches . Even had to hold onto my hat for a photo. We left the city via a draw bridge as the night lights were warming up the outer walls, it looked fantastic.

Font

Onwards to Font, full of excitement there has been much talk of squeezing in a climb. However, the weather has other plans, rain, rain and some more rain. On arrival we stayed in a little car park in Milly La Foret. We nervously tried to pull Ivan into a parking spot, negotiating a maze of trees; he hit his head and got stuck on some branches. Eventually we attracted the attention of a police officer; she caught us just in time we were completely wedged and about to scrape Ivan’s full length against a sneaky tree. With all three of us negotiating the trees we finally got him parked.

The Big Day

We are finaly ready for the off, we woke up really early and the time seemed to slip away, we only booked the ferry crossing after midnight on the 31^st, as we had no idea if we would be ready in time.

When I was packing the van one of the LED strip lights down the side of the van went out completely, GUTTED! And it felt like a lifetime before Paul and Eric had it fixed again. Once the lights were fixed the water pump would no longer work, seriously not our day!

Loved seeing all our friends and family before we left, good craic as always, however because of our hiccups and extended goodbyes, we almost missed the ferry in true Paul and Kay fashion. But we are now parked in Calais about to spend our first night in the van …