SATURDAY 28 OCTOBER - FRIDAY 11 NOVEMBER
 |
Looking across the ‘teeth’ of Montserrat in Catalonia
|
After just over a week in Spain it felt like our few nights
in Avignon on the way down were an age ago.
We stayed in a villa at a place called Corbera de Llobregat which is in
the hills to the east of Barcelona about an hour’s drive from the city
centre. Other than one obligatory trip
into the city we spent the time relaxing and walking in the hills. Catherine, our daughter who lives in
Barcelona, was able to take some time off work and joined us for a few days too. The weather, compared to that we left behind
at the boat, was generally sunny and warm and even I spent time in the
pool.
 |
| A church we stumbled across on a hill during another walk |
 |
| A view of Montserrat mountain during one of our hill walks |
There were plenty of butterflies on the wing and it was
good to see large numbers of clouded yellows.
These butterflies are usually abundant in France, but we’d see very few
this year and were quite concerned about the apparent drop off in numbers. We also saw some European species we hadn’t
managed to see this year including the stunning cleopatra. The cleaopatra is the same shape and colour
as the brimstone, one of the harbingers of spring in the UK, but has a deep
orange flush across its upper forewings making it very distinctive. Lang’s short-tailed blues, another non-UK
species, were also plentiful during our walks in the hills and we also saw a
couple of bath whites, a species that is an extremely rare migrant to the UK.
 |
| Lang’s short-tailed blue |
One day we visited the Montserrat mountain which was an hour’s
drive further inland from the villa. The
day we’d planned to make the trip dawned overcast and wet, the only day we
saw any rain whilst we’d been away, so we
delayed the trip to the following day and had some great views on our way up. The mountain had a most peculiar shape unlike
any of the other mountains around and at a little short of 1,300 metres was
almost as high as Ben Nevis. The shape
was reminiscent of a set of teeth hence the derivation of its name: serrated
mountain. We drove part way up and
parked at a monastery, a popular tourist attraction claiming over two million
visitors a year. A funicular railway took
us even further up, so we cheated a bit by starting our climb at around 600
metres although we took a circular walk avoiding the funicular on the descent.
 |
| On our way up |
Considering the number of tourists at the monastery level
the mountain walk was surprisingly quiet; we’d been expecting a procession as
we’ve found on the popular walks like Snowdon, Ben Nevis and Scafell Pike in
the UK.
 |
| Still happy at the 1,000-metre mark |
As can be seen in the next picture, the rock formation was a
conglomerate and looked very much like lumps of limestone and other types of rocks had
been mixed together in concrete.
|
| At the summit |
We left Spain on Sunday and drove to the hilltop town of Duras
in south-west France where we were staying for a few nights before returning to
the boat. With just a few hours of rain
on one morning since we started our little holiday-tour 11 days previously we
realised how fortunate we’ve been to have avoided the effects of storm Ciarán
which seems to have affected much of the UK and northern Europe. Mind you, the forecast for our stay in Duras was for cooler weather and rain so maybe our luck was running out.
We stayed in a bastide on the edge of Duras
with wonderful views across the Garonne valley. As well as some sightseeing walks we met up
with good boating friends Mike and Aileen who now live a few kilometres away
from Duras. They’d taken their
narrowboat to France three years before us so were able to provide a lot of practical
input when we started planning our adventure.
It was great to spend time with them and see the beautiful home they’ve
made in France. It was also the only day
we ended up having rain but we managed to have a dry window to have a good walk
with them.
 |
| Duras château dating from the 12th century |
 |
| Duras mairie
|
 |
| All that remains of the town’s fortifications – the porte
de l’Horloge |
 |
| Duras war memorial |
Wednesday was back to boat day and after ten hours on the
road, we arrived in Condé-sur-Marne to find Chalkhill Blue safe and sound
moored alongside Alistair and Sabine on their narrowboat Vector. My first job was to get the stove lit while
Karen took Buddy for a short walk. When
they returned, Buddy was soaked through; he’d been drinking water at his
favourite watering hole between the boat and the lock when,
uncharacteristically, he’d slipped and fallen completely in. Other than standing in shallow water to cool
down he really doesn’t like getting wet, let alone swim, but fortunately Karen
had him on his lead and she was able to drag him out.
After warming the boat up and sorting Buddy out we emptied
the car during which time I noticed that we’d driven 2,900km (1,800 miles)
during our two-week holiday. Once we’d
settled in, it felt good to be back on board and we were able to reflect on
what a fabulous time we’d had away. With
a week to go before returning to the UK for a few months it’s going to be a
busy few days doing all the chores that always need to be done before leaving
the boat for a while. On top of that we
really have to sort out what we’re going to do during 2024 in terms of
splitting our time between France and the UK.
As I mentioned above, we’re moored up with another
narrowboat, so it feels almost as if we’re on a canal in the UK, especially
with our stoves going:
 |
| Chalkhill Blue and Vector |
We toyed with the idea of having a little cruise for a few
days but the weather really wasn’t conducive for it so we stayed in Condé for
the rest of the week. It wasn’t all
chores as we socialised with our neighbours and still had cricket world cup
matches to listen to. One or two commercials
came past each day, but we saw no pleasure boats on the move.
 |
| A laden Dahna passing early on Friday morning |
