Day 5: Cheylard L'Eveque to La Bastide Puylaurent (18 kms, 240 m altitude gain, 380 m descent)
Route: Cheylard L'Eveque, Luc, Laveyrune, La Bastide Puylaurent.
We decide on our first major short cut. We totally have had it with this hiking and these donkeys. My toe nail is coming off. We hike a good 5 kilometers when Jacob decides we went the wrong way. After a slight heart-attack, it is decided we didn’t go the wrong way anyway, and continue. We pick up on the original GR 70 right after that, and walk into a forest with a little lake. As we get ready to swim, we've tied our donkeys to a tree, the familiy with donkey who left the Gites a good hour before us, staggers onto the little lake in the forest in which we swim. They are quite surprised. “Alors, dites- moi, comment ca ce faites?”
The track has feeding troughs, pines, ferns and sections were logging roads with huge cut logs on the side. Across the Allier River that marks the border between the Lozere and Ardeche.
Downhill from Rogleton through a marshy, narrow area, across a stream, into the forest, across the first stile of this trip and then a mini-swinging bridge all the way to La Bastide Puy Laurent. In the village of Luc we run into opa and oma once again..
We're almost at the end. 8 more km to go . The last time we cross the Allier, the last time we have to watch for the white-red road sign (indication for a GR). Bastide Puy Laurent was just a hamlet in the 18th century with a few inns where mule passengers and pilgrims stayed. The first church wasn't built until 1741. A Pharmacie across the street ordered huge "Second Skin" plasters for Steve from Langogne to be picked up. I could use a few of those. And it was over a century earlier, on 26 September 1878, that Stevenson himself arrived at La Bastide-Puylaurent with his small donkey Modestine.
The hike continues via Le Bleymard, Pont de Montvert, Florac, Cassagnas, St Germain de Calberte to St Jean du Gard.
Guesthouses on the Stevenson Route (http://www.gr70-stevenson.com/en/trail.htm)
Another hiker http://www.wandelpaden.com/Rubriek7b.html
And another hiker http://www.gr70-stevenson.com/en/crane.htm
Map of the trail http://www.gr-infos.com/gr70.htm
Background information http://www.expatway-magazine.com/article.php?lang=en&rubr_id=2&arti_id=708
