A farewell to (sore) arms

Dappled green sun light
Sussuration, birdsong, rocks
- my heart calls this home

A sad day today, our last day of climbing before we head off into the wide blue yonder tomorrow morning. We've avoided putting up too many climbing shots in different posts, as it can get a bit boring, but we figured bugger that, we need to put up some more and show off at least once, so here are a bunch of photos of our climbing experiences over the last two months.

Enjoy, we certainly have...

My faithful chalkbag, still going strong after 10 years of service

 

Not much you can say about this one, really

 

This one's for Jason

The best system in the world - the climbs are numbered and colour-coded into different circuits

Gabby high-fiving the rock

Gabby on Le Cube

She gets this same look when I don't do the dishes

The look of a man who knows this is going to hurt

Told you

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We'll miss you, Font

Noisy-sur-École

Tiny pink roses
drape heavily over walls -
bright against old stone.


Noisy-sur-École is the village where we have been staying these last several weeks. Roughly 60km southeast of Paris, it is on the edge of the department of Seine et Marne in Ile de France. Milly-la-Foret, the closest small town (about 5km away), where we do our grocery shopping, is in the department of Essonne. As well as being on the edge of the Fontainebleau Forest, where we have been climbing, we are also in the heart of the Gâtinais Français, a region known especially for wheat, honey and peppermint.

This is actually in Le Vaudoué, the next village, where we have stayed in previous years.

 

The village itself is only about five streets and most of the streets lead to the fields that surround the village - wheat, canola (rape) and some vegie gardens. Our landlords have one of these vegie gardens, as well as chooks in the backyard here. They are forever bringing us fresh things to eat - eggs, spinach, lettuce, broadbeans, cherries, red currants, endive, peas, even some home made bread. 

All the houses in the village are built of stone, most have rooves of traditional flat clay tiles. Their walls and gates are built of the local sandstone as well, with flowering plants in front or climbing over to give a bit of colour. When we arrived, the roses were just coming into flower, some are still blooming. Then there were rainbows of iris and lily, now it's hollyhocks. All looking a bit bedraggled at the moment after a week of rain and wind.

Past the fields is the forest, acres and acres of it. Pine trees, chestnuts, oaks and birches make up the majority of the woods, but there are plenty of other species of trees and shrubs in there as well. It is permissible to gather chestnuts, mushrooms and daffodils 'in moderate amounts'. Unfortunately we arrived too late in spring for daffodils and we haven't had much luck with mushrooms. Scattered through the forest are sandy walking tracks, horse trails and mountain biking tracks as well as thousands upon thousands of boulders, great for climbing or scrambling up. We have seen red squirrels, deer, and plenty of birds including woodpeckers - which actually look really scary close up (sorry, couldn't get a good photo).

We've loved it here, but it's getting close to time we took off again. This time next week we'll be on the road again, heading for the Loire river then parts eastern all the way to Istanbul. 

Well, that's the current plan...


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words by Gabby, pics by Neil & Gabby

Fromage to eternity - an homage to fromage

I'll have some Brie please
or Camembert at a pinch -
life's hard decisions


One of our intentions on arriving in France was to try as many different varieties of the more than 500 types of cheese made in this food-crazy country. Unfortunately so far, the French cheese count has not progressed past 23. That's 23 different types of cheese we've eaten, not just 23 cheeses we've eaten - though it might be close to how many kilo of cheese we have consumed in the last three months.

Part of the problem is that we keep finding cheeses that we want to eat again and again. Like Camembert. We weren't big fans of Camembert before this trip, preferring Brie. But spending a few weeks in Normandy, the home of Camembert, changed all that.

Here are some of our favourites so far...

Camembert - possibly France's most well known cheese, of course it had to be our first - given that we started off in Normandy. This was what we had for lunch our first day in France and we were hooked by the wonderful creaminess. Ripened to the perfect temperature by a warm spring morning's pannier ride. Absolutely delicious with Pink Lady apples.

Petit Breton - we didn't get as far west as Brittany but figured that that didn't prevent us sampling their cheese. This was a mellow yellow cheese, not soft, not hard, with a nice smooth texture. Probably the best thing we did this particular freezing spring day was to buy this cheese.

Le Brebiou - we quite like the particular edgy flavour of sheep and goats milk cheeses. This was a soft sheeps cheese with a bit of a rind. It went very well with some pigeon heart tomatoes.

Livarot - quite a distinctive and pungent cheese, not really for a hot day. The rind is almost gritty in texture and the cheese has a fairly strong flavour. However, it went well with the walnuts and dried apricots we were carrying in our bar bags as trail mix.

Pont l'Éveque - not as creamy as Camembert, with a slightly stronger flavour. We enjoyed it as part of a decadent picnic feast on a rest day in Pont l'Éveque. Where better to enjoy a cheese than it's home town ?

Chevre - a nice crumbly log of dry Chevre, with a soft rind holding the whole thing together. Sitting in the shade of a tree by a pond on a warm spring day, serenaded by a chorus of frogs happy with the morning's shower of rain. With a bit of hoummous and a few pigeon heart tomatoes for juiciness.

Le Délice de Bourgogne - a lovely rich and creamy soft rind cheese that doesn't ooze quite so much as Camembert on a warm day. We ate the whole cheese for lunch spread onto slabs of fresh sourdough baguette. Nothing else needed. Though the tartelette aux pommes afterward was a nice touch.

Le Crottin - great little goats cheeses, not as dry as the Chevre logs. Still with the distinctive goats milk flavour but softer and with a soft wrinkled rind. The hardest part is overcoming the temptation to pop one in your mouth whole - but they are just that bit too big. Sliced, they do crumble a bit but quartered is the perfect mouthful. You won't stop at one...

Lou Perac - la Brique de Brebis from the Midi-Pyrenées is a medium soft sheeps cheese with a soft rind. It has a mild and delicate flavour.

Corsica - sheeps milk cheese.When we lived in Dublin, our favourite shop was Sheridan's the cheesemongers. And our favourite cheese from Sheridan's (and naturally one of the more expensive) was a Corsican cheese called Brin d'Amour - a sheeps cheese of medium firmness that had been rolled in herbs of the maquis. We haven't seen anything quite like it here. Yet. This cheese has a similar flavour (funnily enough, also being a sheeps milk cheese from Corsica) but doesn't have quite the same dense texture or the herb crust. It's still very tasty though.

Pie d'Angloys - very soft, very creamy and rich. Another cheese from the Burgundy region. Very yummy. Like Camembert, it pairs nicely with some crisp, sweet Pink Lady apple slices.

Tome Noir - from the Pyrenées. Slightly soft but still firm textured with a delicate flavour. We were just tasting it and suddenly the piece was nearly gone...

Bon appétit


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words and pics by Neil and Gabby

At last !

Days and days of rain,
finally it's mushroom time -
or are they toad stools ?

It has been a frustrating week for us. Our second last week here, hoping to get as much climbing as possible done, and it has rained and rained. And rained. Every time the rain stops long enough to even think it might be possible to go out, it rains again. On the week-end we had wild showers but the last couple of days have been gentle pitter pattering falls interspersed with misty not-quite-rain.

There's no denying it was needed after such a hot dry spring.

We did some work on our blog - added a couple of new pages for anyone interested in our gear for this trip. We re-read our books. We skyped some people. Then finally the sun and the mushrooms came out !

Fairy ring champignons, to be exact. We found a couple in our own backyard, then plenty more further afield.

Just outside our door !

Not having found Fairy ring champignons before we followed the proper precautions in identifying them - checked that it was the correct season, checked the size, shape and colour of the stem, the cap and the gills, then took a spore print. We were quite sure of what they were but better safe than sorry!

Everything matched perfectly, so we went and picked some more.

Just a few to start with - now we know where they are.

They're not very large, just as well we know where there's more...

And the final test - the taste test. Well, not just a taste test. Since we haven't eaten this type of mushroom before it's best to try a few to start with, just in case your body doesn't like them. These mushrooms need to be cooked before eating, otherwise they can be poisonous.

Yum.

 

So Neil fried up a few, very simply in butter with salt and pepper and we had a few morsels each on some fresh baguette. With a slightly nutty flavour and nice firm texture, we are looking forward to plenty more for dinner tomorrow night.

Neil's already planning rabbit with some of the (very fresh) red currant jelly that Sylvie gave us on Sunday (bottled that morning) to go with his. I think I'd be happy with just a huge plate of mushrooms !

And hopefully we'll get to climb tomorrow...

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words by Gabby, pictures by Neil and Gabby