A day out in Spain and a local walk

Let's have a pause in the holiday photos and go to Spain for a change! After our return from holiday, we headed to Roses in Spain with Malcolm before he left. The last time we had been there was with him, on Xmas Eve 2019! We had been itching to go back, and also to go to a Spanish supermarket to get some things we can't get here in France.

The weather was lovely, not too hot so just perfect. We headed for a restaurant near the beach for tapas, of course!

Keith and I opted for seafood and Padron chillies and my brother who is allergic to anything that comes out of the sea, apart from fish, chose whatever else they had.

This was an amazing sandcastle!

We've seen some lovely sand sculptures on the Mediterranean beaches, but this castle was really cute. There were candles in all the windows so it must look beautiful in the dark.

We then went to a supermarket where we found Padron chillies, which are not hot by the way but are really delicious, huge peaches and sherry which you can't buy in France (yes really!!); other things which are cheaper are olive oil and shower gel. What we couldn't find there which was surprising are salted preserved anchovy fillets. We have on occasion found them in our local supermarkets here in France but they are not something that is regularly found, only anchovies that are cooked whole, like sardines. One wonders then, how one is supposed to make a Salade Niçoise without the anchovies? 😞 After that we headed up into Cap de Creus where luckily on the way up into the hills there was a place to pull over to look at the view. This is looking back at Roses and to the south.

We drove all the way to the lighthouse at the end as we wanted to make the most of being in the car. You can't do the last leg of the journey in a motorhome - the road gets narrower and they are banned beyond Cadaques anyway.

It must be idyllic being on a boat being able to stop in all these beautiful coves!

Looking up at the lighthouse - there is a cafe here too around the other side, and a restaurant to the right up the hill. From here it's about 2 3/4 hours to get home via the motorway, so we came back that way, as we have already done the more scenic but much slower Corniche route with Malcolm.

One day after Malcolm had left but before the very hot weather arrived, we went for a walk on the route called the Tramway, which goes around the village along the old railway route. At the beginning of the 20th century trains ran from Fanjeaux to our local town of Bram and beyond carrying people and agricultural produce all the way to the Montagne Noire, and in turn, bringing other kinds of produce back here. Fanjeaux station was situated below the old town, about halfway down the hill, and the route winds all around the village taking a less steep gradient this way.

This photo was taken before the sunflowers (field on right) started blooming, although they did flower quite early this year. Because it has been so dry in recent months the plants were a bit stunted and some fields have big gaps with no plants, but they all flowered eventually and looked fabulous as usual!

Scabious was still flowering at this time and at one point I noticed a bee hanging below a flower - now I know what that means. 😀 A crab spider! Poor bee had met its maker but the spider was happy.

Going back to sunflowers, we often see rogue sunflowers growing in other fields, most often in fallow fields, but sometimes, like below, in a field of crops. It always makes me smile.

Here they are closer up. There's something strange in this image though. One of the sunflowers is pointing in the opposite direction to all the others! Now sunflowers nearly always point in the direction of the sun, which is why they are called Tournesol in French, which means 'turn [towards the] sun'. I'm very happy this one decided to point in the direction of the camera. 💕

This is the same field but I wanted to show you something - where a road or farm track has been cut through the chalky rock you can see how white it is here. The rockface is where we find Mediterranean/garrigue plants growing in amongst the more northern flora which grows elsewhere here. On the chalk tracks and banks we have thyme, curry plants, sedums, sometimes rosemary and sometimes lavender, plus other plants which I don't know as yet.

I still have about three more holiday posts to go - maybe next trip I'll stick to one or two overview posts instead! 😂

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!

Cirque de Navacelles and butterflies galore!

This day finally dawned nice and warm and sunny, just what you want on holiday! We headed south to this gorge that I was really looking forward to seeing. It was every bit as spectacular (and more) in real life as it was in the pics I had seen. There are quite a number of belvederes (scenic viewpoints) on both sides of the gorge, so we stopped at this first one overlooking the little village of Navacelles, which is on the border of the Gard and Herault departments.

  Part of an info board explaining about meanders with a bit in English.

Looking to the right up the gorge and part of the road that we took to get to the other side!

Blue Spot Hairstreak (Satyrium spini). This was a lifer for me and I saw it on both sides of the gorge. In the first photo I took the image with my dslr and a 'normal' lens, so was able to crop in a lot, but you can actually see the blue spot better in this image than the ones below, which I took with my SX50 which I used on the south side of the gorge.

Driving up the other side of the gorge I took some photos with my phone. You can see where we stopped on the north side at the long flat building in the middle of the flat bit on top of the gorge, though you will probably have to view this large to see properly!

The road was absolutely fine in a 7m motorhome, though we didn't venture into the little village itself. I thought that might have been chancing it as I had read that it wasn't recommended to go down there in a moho. I hadn't realised that the road continued up the other side though, so I thought it might mean just that last part to the village. Yes it is steep, but no worse than anything else we have done in a moho up in the mountains of Spain and France. On the way there were clouds of butterflies flitting about, especially noticeable were what looked like the Black Satyr butterflies which were en masse on some particular pink flowered plants along the way. However, sadly there is nowhere to stop in a vehicle on either side of the gorge. For once, I felt envious of the many cyclists we saw because they could stop wherever they liked! 😀

We pulled into a parking area near one of the belvederes to have some lunch, but I was straight out with my camera as there were butterflies about! The first species I noticed were quite a number of Black Veined Whites (Aporia crataegi), not a butterfly I have seen very often. They were very flitty so hard to get a decent shot.

This next one puzzled me at first, but I think it's a Marbled White (Melanargia galathea) that is newly eclosed, as the underwings are still wrinkled, and it has the black and white markings on the edges of the wings like a Marbled White. I think its colouring is just darkening up as it matures - you can just about see some slightly darker markings appearing. 

On the left is a Small Heath (Coenonympha pamphilus), and the right is a Spanish Gatekeeper (Pyronia bathseba).

A Small Skipper (Thymelicus sylvestris). I can see the red underneath the tip of the antennae, differentiating it from the Essex Skipper, whose antennae are all black on the tips.

Surprisingly, these butterflies were active in the shade here on this Knapweed (I didn't mind being in the shade of a shrub at all!). Here we have the Spanish Gatekeeper and two Marbled Whites.

Then I noticed this Fritillary, which upon a bit of IDing, I think is a Heath Fritillary (Melitaea athalia), and it's sharing the flower with one of the Burnet Moths. I'm not sure which one, as there are so many different red and black ones! 

Marbled White, Heath Fritillary and Burnet Moth.

I made this collage to show the underwings and top side of the Heath Fritillary.

This is also from the family of Zygaenidae which are the Burnet and Forester moths - it's a Green Forester Moth (Adscita statices), the first time I've seen one.

Spotted Fritillary (Melitaea didyma).

We finally spotted a Black Satyr (Satyrus actaea)* up on the top of the gorge, but it went underneath a shrub in heavy shade. I had to seriously overexpose this image to get the markings on the underwings, resulting in a rather noisy shot, which wasn't very sharp anyway. But it was a lifer for me, so it's here as a record shot. 😀

* It is possible this might be a Great Sooty Satyr, as I am no expert.

This wasn't even the end of the day, as we travelled further which I will document in my next post, as this one is quite long enough. But if you like butterflies, you won't mind that! 😀💕