Miraculously, we awoke to an unsullied blue sky! Florac was still in shadow nestled in its narrow valley but the hills and ridges to the west were bathed in sunshine. So, the five day drenching was over and we no longer felt the need to find taxi, airport and flight. At heart, we are completer/finishers; we wanted to get to St-Jean-du-Gard!
After breakfast, which provided an impressive array of comestibles, we started out with a spring in our step, initially retracing our sodden footsteps from the previous evening. In Florac, which looked gay and welcoming in the sunshine, we visited bank, pharmacy and boulangerie before starting our day’s adventure in earnest. Heading south, we crossed an old stone bridge over the Tarnon river.
And from here, our day’s route would be predominantly south-eastwards following the line of the river Mimente and its narrow valley. (On the map you can see that the Mimente flows into the Tarnon, which in turn flows into the Tarn just north of Florac). And from the map the path looks as if it’s adjacent to the river. But for most of the morning, we were walking through woodland a good 150 metres above the Mimente. The weather was sunny with little breeze, but of course the area had been well watered for several days! Our path curled into shallow gorges to cross streams in spate. We used our poles to gauge the depth of water and to steady ourselves. This might have slowed our progress, but we were in no rush; we were enjoying the sun.
As lunchtime approached, we descended into the bottom of the valley, crossing the quiet N106 road and the bridge over the Mimente to arrive at the village of St. Julien d’Arpoan. On a bench facing the river, we munched our sandwiches before continuing south-east but this time in the base of the valley following an old railway line.
I felt admiration for the engineers who had created this railway line; it had a geometric rigour about it. Our feet followed an unremittingly steady upward gradient from St. Julien up to Cassagnas. And although their task must have been very arduous – besides sorting out the gradient, they must have blasted and carved out cuttings from the rock, reinforced embankments above the river, dug tunnels, built bridges – I suspect that they sensed that they were creating what would be a railway journey of rare beauty.
Our place of repose would have been adjacent to the old railway line, right on our GR 70, and very close to the Mimente. Indeed some call the building “L’Ancienne Gare” but it also referred to as “Espace Stevenson”. The old railway station will have served Cassagnas though the village itself is a kilometre or two further up the valley. And I suspect that the present building bears little resemblance to the old station – it bears the hallmarks of twentieth century pragmatism.
In any case, it proved to be comfortable. We were welcomed by the maîtresse, wife of the establishment’s chef, and she forcefully insisted that we should communicate in English. She presented us with keys to a four-berth room of which we were the only occupants. It was cold but the electric ceramic heater proved to be very efficient.
The rustic dining room was commodious and as instructed, we gathered there at 7p.m. Notre maîtresse explained in her two tongues that the meal would be a buffet and we were urged to eat our fill; there was plenty to go around! And it was wonderful: entrées of salad and a variety of homemade quiches; a main of what we would call bangers and mash; a variety of desserts, the centre piece of which was their speciality of sweet chestnut cake.
At 7.30, a group of walkers entered the room to occupy the large central table – there must have been twenty of them! They received the same matronly information but only in French. They seemed to be a self-sufficient bunch, little disposed to acknowledging those of us who sat around the periphery of the room. We didn’t much care; we held a pivotal 30 minute advantage in the buffet, and we were determined to make it count!
It had been a dry, sunny day – ideal for admiring the flora:
