Monday 10 June 2013

Not quite the walk we were expecting

Posted by Rosie

Clécy
On Saturday Simon suggested we took the boys, our Taiwanese volunteer helper and the dogs for a walk Clécy.  Clécy is the "capital" of the tourist area of Suisse Normandy, just a short drive from here.  Famed for it's river and water sports, rocks and climbing, paragliding and beautiful countryside that seemed a great idea.  I imagined either a gentle stroll along the river, eating ice cream and watching the canoeists paddling by ... or perhaps we could drive up to the view point and walk along the top admiring Clécy and the surrounding countryside below us.

WRONG!!

Simon had however had thought the same as we so parked near the river and off we set, underneath the viaduct and along the riverbank. All was well for about 5 minutes until first Tom and then Ben suddenly dived into the undergrowth and declared this was the way we were going ... up a rock-strewn slippery slope to the bottom of the rock climbing area and then on UPWARDS along increasingly narrow paths between the rocks and trees.  Had I know we were doing a slightly more adventurous walk than I had imagined, I may have dressed in proper boots rather than the soft shoes I had on which, I quickly found out, had very little grip!  Sarah, our volunteer, had the same problem but we struggled on after the boys who were scampering about the rocks like young mountain goats.

The dogs were also obviously enjoying themselves and completely disappeared for ages, only to reappear rather wet. They had gone all the way back down to the river for a swim when we weren't looking.  I just hope they didn't pinch any food from the many groups of rock climbers who were taking the sheer route up to the top!!

Anyway, we bravely continued our upward journey, finally emerging at the top path where we could admire the view.  To be fair it was worth the scramble and the views were great.  Our journey home was slightly easier and took us over the old railway track on top of the viaduct where we were keen to show Sarah what we did to volunteers who didn't do enough weeding!!

A Damsel is Distress?

Then it was back down to the river where we ambled along, had an ice-cream and watched the canoes and pedalos.  Trouble is we think the the boys might just have seen the new dare-devil rope and clapper bridge walkway high up on the rocks above the river ....

2 comments :

  1. I eyed that viaduct when we last came! Now I know you can get up there - well done boys!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You can easily get onto the viaduct by wooden steps up one side - we just took the difficult route and then came down them!

    ReplyDelete

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