Backblip: 23rd September, Time For a Walk

We left Falaise after a lovely three night stay and turned Vincent's nose towards the Suisse Normande. There is a visitor centre at La Roche d'Oetre where motorhomes are welcome to park up for up to 48 hours. We anticipated that it would give Nell some opportunity for walking and we were not wrong in that.

The weather was very hot and sunny with strong sun. Walking was hard work. The route that we took, the 6.4 Km one, was documented as having around 100 metres ascent. Clearly the French work differently to we Brits. There was a great deal of up and downing and the walk was not as sedate as the 100m ascent suggested. 

In fact the walk begins by heading almost vertically downwards by 100 metres or more. I state this with confidence as the rock face at La Roche d'Oetre is said to be a 118m precipice and we went from the top down to the river. The rough steps were very deep and the path zig-zagged down at a rate. It was hard on my old joints and I needed help to negotiate many of the steeper steps.

Then we walked along the river, sweet relief, but this section was shorter than expected before we went uphill again.... and then soon downward once more. The return leg took us up again, to a point higher than the starting point. 

Lesson learned. The walk ascents are measured as total difference between low and high point and are... conservative estimates. Not the cumulative ascent figures that we are used to when planning walks in the UK.. 

Nell had fun though.