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Thursday, Oct 25th, 2007
I can't quite believe it myself: the penultimate day. Tonight we have our last dinner on the hike, and spend our last night sleeping in strange beds. Tomorrow evening at this time we'll be home.
Wow.
Fittingly, it was a long hike. We left Merindol and crossed the Durance, bypassing Mallemort on our way to Alleins, mostly along roads. There we temporarily lost Russell, Sally, and Dave, who had fallen behind far enough to not see the rest of us turning onto another road. But cellphones saved the day and we were soon reunited. This was only the second time on the entire trip that something like this happened... and Dave was involved both times. Hmmmmm.
From there we climbed for a while then discovered a discrepancy between our map and reality, which led to us standing in front of a locked gate with a sign on it saying, in French, "No Trespassing". What made it more interesting was that the sign was on the other side of the fence and facing the way we wanted to go. We managed to outflank the fencing on either side of the gate and continued, now legally, along the path to come out exactly where we wanted to be, and more efficiently than had we taken the planned route. :-)
After a picnic lunch next to a ruined 12th Century chapel we walked through woods and between vineyards for a long time until a descent to cross the Marseilles / Paris axis (Autobahn, railway, canal). Then through a flatter land of orchards to Lamanon where we stopped for hot chocolate in a seedy cafe.
And still we weren't done.
From Lamanon we climbed up through Neolithic dwellings carved out of soft sandstone, then via an ancient wain road along the top of a low ridge that was the beginning of the Alpilles -- the last barrier to be crossed on the H2H.
But the crossing was to be left until tomorrow, and we descended in light rain (after a cloudy day) into the village of Eyguieres for one last night.
One day more.
