Aptos Los Lagos Benasque

Un petit TP de deux jours dans les Pyrénées dans le cadre du cours de Fonctionnement des écosystèmes. Bon...les écosystèmes du sud de la France étaient un petit peu décevant, mais les paysages étaient vraiment beaux.

La plus haute altitude à laquelle on s'est rendu : 2200 m

... Silicon Valley of Scotland; the Niagra Falls of Kansas, etc.) We arrived in time to claim the best bunk beds in the place (lucky) before enjoying a simple hearty meal and a noisy, but surprisingly comfortable night's sleep.

                     

... turned out he spoke perfect English, but wanted to help me learn more French, talk about in at the deep end! I escaped to bed early knowing I'd have a pretty full on next day only to be woken an hour later by the most rude, giggly 40 something french women, 8 of them. Light on, rustling in bags, singing, chatting, no consideration, I was furious! But good things come to those who wait, what they didn't know was my alarm was set for 5:45am ...

... any dog or cat. So cute!

Pottock.. probably spelt incorrectly, but they're small wild horses found in the Payes Basque region

Regular wild horses.... today I came across around 10 on the mountain side. They were surprising f'riendly. I placed my walking sticks on the floor and one young scamp picked it up (biting into the rubber handle) and gave it back to me!

Dogs... well rat like dogs, the french really do seem to like small pooches

Dragonflies ...

... the window as we got higher to our starting point. We hiked for a few hours seeing the biggest cows Ive ever seen and beautiful streams and rocks that I liked to jump and climb on (thanks Merrells). There were streams we jumped over, and I played Frisbee with my Frisbee loving amigo. We ate lunch, a tomatoe, cheese and ham sandwich and then turned and started the hike back. On the way back I drank some of the water that was offered along the path ...

... paid the ticket when you exited the interstate. On our way to the city Oo the views were beautiful. As we got closer to the mountains we drove through cute mountain towns, saw snow capped peaks, and could hear mountain run off streams passing near the road. When we arrived in Oo we started the hour climb to Lac d'Oo (lake of Oo). One of Brian's co-workers recommended this hike because of the waterfall at the end ...

... oops kmph on the return trip to the valley below. Sensational stuff. We then lined up with the many ,many thousands of fans, for our first view of Cadel Evans and the Tour de France. See our video on Youtube http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=-B-4fhjwc DY what a day. We toasted the day with with a great meal at a local Restaurant, practising our school boy french.

On our way back from Carcassonne, we stopped in Figueres, France to visit the Salvador Dali museum. Dali was a surrealist so a lot of his works are strange and off the wall. Kevin didn't really get it but I thought it was very intersting thanks to my art history class. Take a look for yourself and decide what you think.

... its worth travelling to Spain just to visit. Located in Arties, we found the place just through the normal method of stopping and seeing what was available (most) and cheap (not much). We started looking at 5pm, and were feeling only mild desperation at 7pm when we hit Pensio Montarto. Credit is also due to a neighbouring hotel that I had stumbled into (a lazy eur115 per night) who when I asked for something cheaper directed me to this place where ...

... a reservoir. 'Carl', he said instantly, 'that's a brilliant idea'. 'Yeah, a sustained assault- I'm not done with this bloody mountain yet'. So simply, we had once again changed our objective. The snowstorm the night before and now rain had effectively cost us a day. Now we felt that the chance even for one summit, Aneto or Araguells (a 3030m ancillary peak) would be mission enough. We rested and emptied out my day sack, leaving the large sacks and all of our gear in the cabin ...