Maggie: January hike nr Salinelles then back to Jane's

 Photo credits:  Maggie
 
What a shame that more people do not take advantage of the wonderful opportunity to discover the Languedoc region, especially on a beautiful day like Friday, 17 January, when Jane (and Sammy) led us on the walk around Salinelles, along the infamous Vidourle.

 

We had dressed for cold weather, but ended up having to take off our jackets.  Although I was expecting to have to slog through the mud, since it seemed to have been raining for days, the trail was only muddy in a few spots.  The colors were magnificent, particularly for a winter day.  The bright green of some of the fields (might they be winter wheat?) reminded me of the rice paddies in Bali.

Mariannick, Jane + Sammy, Sue Rey, Terri

 We saw the Moulin de Pattes .......

and what looked like an old stationhouse.  There was no sign of rails, but the road is called chemin de la gare, which confirmed our theory.  We saw a 'mazet piégé' which threatened 'danger de mort' but did not fall into the trap.  Mariannick told us that the saw-tooth above the arches on one of the double St. Julien chapels is rare, and can also be found at St. Sylvestre des Brousses, where we hiked in May 2012.  We found an orange citrus-like fruit that we were unable to identify, even by taste.

  
There is a chateau with a pigeonnier and a noria (water wheel) in the village of Salinelles, and another noria down below at the lavoir.

The same little nombrils de Venus (navelwort, pennywort, penny-pies) can be seen around some of the windows as that found in Murles during our hike there in December 2011.

Following the hike, we followed Jane, by car, to her absolutely beautifully renovated home in the hamlet of Bancel, for tea and 'biscuits,' which included her home-made flapjacks (the British kind, which have nothing to do with what Americans call pancakes).  I could not resist taking a photo of her staircase; the stone is magnificent.  Thank you to Jane for showing us her part of France, her home, and her culinary skills.

I hope to see far more people on the February hike, which is planned for the coline de Clapiers, if it has reopened to hikers by then.  Friday evening after the Salinelles hike I saw a news report on the television, saying that dead pigeons were found all through the park, believed to be the result of people trying to poison the wild boars.  I had never seen a wild boar in this area before, but Saturday night, on our way home from Montpellier, two wild boars ran in front of our car across the road leading down from the zoo to the Agropolis roundabout.  Even if the boars are a bother to the locals, I feel terrible about the pigeons. 

     -m