Hail Storm

Many summer afternoons threaten to overdevelop in in St Andre. It seldom results in a storm, but - especially when flying a paraglider - it can make you a bit nervous. I've almost always managed to be home safely before any storms started, but today was a bit of an exception. Fortunately I was hiking, not flying!

I had a long, hot hike along the Cretes des Serres to the Pic de Chamatte and back. For the last hour or so, I'd been looking at clouds. One in particular had grown threateningly and then - surprisingly - dissipated, making me feel safer. But, about twenty minutes from home, the thunder and lightning started. It was very loud and very near, but not quite over St Andre. 

I still thought I'd get home dry, but within 5 minutes grape-sized hail was falling - and it hurt! I put all my layers on, but there wasn't anywhere I could really shelter, so I rushed home. Initially, the hail melted quickly, but, as the temperature plummeted, it started laying on the ground. By the time I got home, there were rivers of water and hail running through the streets of St Andre, overwhelming some of the drains. The hail would accumulate in some gutters or on roof tops but then fall in a huge lump. 

Fortunately no-one got hurt - though there was damage to lots of flowers and some cars. A new windsock was completely destroyed. Definitely a good time to be on the ground, ideally indoors! A few pics.

Coastal Hikes in the Borders

Clouds reflecting in the sea at St Abbs head

My wife and I had a short trip back to Scotland. At the end of the stay we had a couple of days' hiking down near the Borders on the east coast. One was at St Abbs, some cliffs in Scotland near the fishing village of Eyemouth. The other was to Lindisfarne (or the Holy Isle) in England; it's an island at high tide but you can drive to it at low tide. The northern light is very different to the light in southern France and a lovely contrast.

Lindisfarne

 

Blayeul and Daffodils

Today I hiked Blayeul, a mountain near Digne, and it was a long day.The mountain is nicer to fly than it is to hike - a long, flat looking ridge actually has quite a lot of 'bumps' on it when you are hiking. The weather was poor (rain showers, turning to snow showers at the top) and it felt more like a hike in Scotland. But the recompense was seeing some daffodils growing in the wild near the summit - the first I've seen them in the south of France.

 

Wildflowers

The alpine meadows are full of wildflowers at this time of year. I can't identify very many of them, but here are a couple of pics I took today on a hike near the Col de Vachiere. This time of year is lovely for hiking - not too hot, no flies and no sheep (so no patous (guard dogs)).

Bumpy First Ride

Landing approach at Saint Auban

Today was my first sailplane lesson and it was the first (of many, I'm sure) example of the differences between learning paragliding and gliding. 

In paragliding, your first flights are generally solo and in very benign conditions. Your launch might be a bit dicey, but once you are in the air, it is calm. In gliding you start flying tandem and today conditions were pretty epic. Within 5 minutes of take-off, Claude (my instructor) had us wound up very tight in a 5 m/s thermal. Instantly I was flying in conditions I certainly didn't encounter in my first year's paragliding. 

It felt anything but calm and certainly very different from paragliding. A paraglider is 'flexible' and dampens turbulence; a sailplane is rigid and transmits all the bumps directly to the pilot. From that point on I was focusing on keeping my lunch in my stomach.

Higher up, things were a bit calmer and I did a few token maneuvers before Claude landed the machine. 

PS I also felt uncomfortable in my second flight, but since then haven't had any nausea in the air.

The Marche des Fleurs at Aix

We've  had a visitor (Evelyn, from Germany) for the last few days and we took her to see Aix en Provence today. It's such a pretty town, it would be a pity not to see it. We actually did an organized walking tour of the town and the guide explained a bunch of things we'd never noticed before. We also passed though the flower market and it was very colorful.

Mountain Bike on the Crete des Serres

One of the nice things about St Andre (and the southern alps in general) is that it's pretty quiet. You can go for a long hike or mountain bike ride and see no-one all day. Things are also less 'documented' than elsewhere - there are fewer books on hikes and fewer recorded mountain bike rides. This all adds to the sense of adventure and you sometimes have to 'discover' your own hikes or mountain bike rides.

Today was such a day. I found a decent route up the Crete des Serres on my mountain bike  - it was a bit of a slog but almost all of it could be done on the bike. The ride down was via the standard hike down from Serre Gros - much more fun on a mountain bike than hiking! Of course, lots of people will have done the ride before, and I hope everyone else has had the same sense of adventure I did!