After a torrent of rain last night complete with lightning that we totally failed to catch on film (or rather, memory card) it was a warm 5ºC and sunny this morning so we headed off for a walk. We live on the side of “the Montagnette,” a little mountain, and decided to explore the far side of it, only 5-10 minutes drive away.

As you can see, we had a bit of a climb at the beginning but we got some spectacular views out towards Tarascon. A little chill at the top but as we descended to other side it became quite warm in the sunny lee of the rock. There we found a wide track to follow which led us along a ridge of high, rocky hills. We were overtaken by a couple of joggers with a quick “bonjour” they were gone as fast as they appeared.

The vegetation all over the top of the Montagnette is all a sort of scrubby oak-like plant with little acorns and lots of wild thyme and flowering rosemary. The thyme was unusually aromatic, probably because of the rain and smelt wonderful. One of our recipes for a leg of lamb called for a bed of wild thyme. We simply went outside, stuffed out pockets with thyme and our leg of lamb sat proudly on it.

We followed the path down through the trees and wandered along rough, unmade roads which led to a couple of houses buried in the woods. Finally after we had been out for a couple of hours we found ourselves back at the car.

Categories: Hiking
2 Comments »