Mt Aigoual and Mt Lozere

After visiting the Cirque de Navacelles, we headed north towards Mt Aigoual, the highest point in the Gard department (on border with Lozere dept) at 1565m, up in the southern Massif Central. I took some photos with my phone as we were driving along.

Up on the top of Mt Aigoual it was noticeably cooler, not a bad thing after the day's heat! There is a meteorological observatory up here which was built in 1894. The museum wasn't open on this day, but we didn't have a lot of time to spare anyway, as it was already nearly 6pm when we got here.

I think this view is looking south towards the Med.

The hillside was covered in thyme - lovely to see it again as it is flowering from March on the garrigue by the coast! There were lots of Small Tortoiseshells and the occasional Painted Lady, as in this photo (two S. Tortoiseshells and a P. Lady in the middle).

View looking the other way - I think this was north, ish.

I often take photos of info boards to read later, and despite the museum being closed, there was plenty of info on the four boards. Here's a map showing where we are and also our destination the next day, Mt Lozere. It also shows where Millau is and the different Grands Causses where we were before, with info underneath in English. You'll have to click to view the map larger, of course!

It says that the Clouded Apollo is found here, though we didn't see one. How you would know though if a mostly white butterfly flew by, I don't know. I need to see the markings.

A final photo from the day on our way to our campsite at Florac.

The next day we headed to the Mt Lozere area, also in the Cevennes National Park. I think this is the high peak, but I wasn't going to walk all the way up there to see if there was an info board.... 😁

It was all change from the mostly chalklands we had been in before. Here the soil was acidic and covered in bilberries (native blueberries with purple flesh). I remember picking them with my brother when we were teenagers on a holiday in the Haute Loire department, and bringing pounds of them home with us. I stewed it all up and we made delicious ice lollies from the juice.

Below is a lovely little mountain spring with moss covered rocks. 

After Mt Lozere we were headed in the direction of the Ardeche, down on much flatter lands beside the Ardeche river. Again it was a very hot day, so the walk I had originally planned we ditched, preferring to head to the campsite and chill out.

Above and below are where we stopped for lunch.

A bit of luck to see a Heath Fritillary (Melitaea athalia) again! I think I have seen one in recent years, so it wasn't a lifer, but even so, there are not many fritillaries that I have seen more than once or twice!

This lovely moth landed on the windscreen as we were driving along and stayed there about five minutes. I was very lucky with the ID, as by chance I saw one posted somewhere else so I know it is a Speckled Yellow (Pseudopanthera macularia)!

I don't have any more photos, but when we arrived at the campsite beside the river, it was absolutely boiling hot and the campsite was so much fuller than the others we had stayed at. Apparently many Germans come here and return year after year. Our campsite was close to the town of Vallon Pont d'Arc, a very touristy area close to the Ardeche gorges and the famous rock bridge, the Pont d'Arc. That's all to come in the next post!