Our walk took place
in July 1999. We are now in
April, 2007.
But the countryside in the Auvergne does not
change very much. The essence of this web
site is to show what fun we had and how the
Auvergne is such a good place to have that
fun!
This never let us down as far
as the route was concerned. However things
like hotels and restaurants are in a constant
state of flux, so treat information about
these with caution. Throughout this web site I
try to give web sites with current
information.
The Plan
The
easiest means of describing our plans is to
look at the map on the right. (This is what we
intended to do. What we actually did
will be shown on the next page.)
We will be staying at a variety of types of
accommodation such as cheap hotels, youth
hostels and gites d'etape. We don't know what
they will be like but that is the adventure of
travel! And we will report on them here when
we get back.
Alan Castle suggests how far we should walk
each day and that has been our guide in our
planning. The only major change from his
suggestion is to miss out the overnight stop
at Super-Besse. The stage from Le Mont Dore to
Egliseneuve will be a long one - 17.3 miles -
but we intend to have had a day off in Le Mont
Dore before that so we should be fighting fit.
(And we could cheat by taking the chairlift to
the Puy de Sancy - but we wouldn't do that
would we?)
Once in the Auvergne our transport will be
our feet, but to get there and back again we
will be travelling by rail. We travel from
Bristol to Waterloo by Wales and West Rail and
then by Eurostar to Paris where we will stay
overnight. then French Railways will take us
to Clermont-Ferrand. We will stay there and
the next day take a local train to Volvic to
start the walk. Alternatively we will go to
Volvic as soon as we get to Clermont-Ferrand
and spend the night there.
The Situation
Navigate:
Faced with the prospect of
"looking after" my son for four weeks in
July and August 1999 we decided that we
will go walking in the Auvergne. Alasdair is
a twelve year old just finishing his first
year at
Bristol Grammar School. I'm Graeme,
a 51 year old, retired gold mine geologist,
retired North Sea drilling engineer and full
time husband and father. We live in Bristol,
England, where my wife Christine is a General
Practitioner (family doctor). We had
arranged a family holiday to Greece, early
in the school holidays but troubles with
Chris's partners meant that we had to
postpone going until mid August. The thought
of entertaining Alasdair for 4 weeks
inspired me to think of some active
alternative.
We had often thought of a
hiking holiday but I wanted something a
little more exotic than a tour of English
Youth Hostels. I had visions of walking in
the rain and dining on sausages and beans.
Its probably not like that any more but the
prospect did not entice. So the idea of
somewhere foreign arose. We didn't want to
spend more money than necessary and we would
like to avoid the rain so somewhere in the
southern half of France began to seem the
best choice. Being a Eurotunnel shareholder
and keen on trains made a cross-Channel
journey seem attractive. I'm chairman of
WEGA
the West of England group of the
Geologists' Association and a keen
amateur geologist so something with a good
geological interest would be nice.
Because of Alasdair's age I didn't want
to get too far from civilisation - if we
decide to abandon, for whatever reason, we
want to be able to get out quickly and
easily - so that ruled out the Alps. We did
think of the Vercors but that looked too
Alpine. Perhaps later when we are more
experienced!
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The Place
In the end we
decided to walk from Volvic to St Flour in the
Auvergne mainly along the Grande Randonnée
4 - the GR4. This is largely due to
finding Alan Castle's "Walks in Volcano
Country" in
Stanfords. (see on left)
I have always been fascinated by the very
recent volcanoes of the Massif Central and
this seems like a heaven sent opportunity to
see them at first hand. And to have damned
good walk at the same time. If we complete the
walk we will get to the top of the Puy de Dome
(1,464m), one of the top ten sights of France,
the Puy de Sancy (1,885m), the highest point
of the Massif Central, the peaks of the Cantal
(Puy Mary (1,787m), Puy de Peyre Arse
(1,806m), Puy Griou (1,694m) and Plomb du
Cantal (1,855m). And we will have walked about
120 miles in about 10 days on the road. For
some schoolboy reason my son (and I also) find
the name Peyre Arse funny; it actually means
burnt rock. - Peyre from pierre meaning rock,
arse from the same root as arson. Anyway,
getting to the top of Puy de Peyre Arse became
a GOAL!
