Day 11: To Bareges and the Néovielle Lakes

We had breakfast back at the hotel which is rather conveniently located next to the square where the bus stops. There are only two buses a day into Gavarnie (via Gedre), one in the morning and one in the evening. Our morning bus to Luz left Gavarnie at about 9.30 and reached Gedre about 9.50. Rather annoyingly this bus service is not run by the SNCF and you can't buy a complete, through ticket to anywhere else. Still, the bus is always on time and — as ever in the Pyrenees — new and comfortable.

Lutz was reached quite quickly and I popped into the SNCF office to buy a couple of tickets to Bareges, quite expecting to have to wait 'till after lunch for the bus, but a bus for Bareges came in and we jumped on, the only customers. Barages is on the GR10 and we could have walked it but we had already decided that the transfer day would be a rest day, though in the circumstances we hardly needed a rest after the previous couple of days.

Barages, which is higher than Lutz, is a small town that primarily exists as a ski resort. Effectively it is one of those mountain villages that is built along the length of one street, a few old buildings in the centre and a few rather tatty, sixties holiday apartment blocks at the end. We emerged from the bus into what was now becoming a very hot day. Nothing much stirred and few places looked really inviting enough to sit and have a coffee in. We found a news shop run by a very entertaining guy and managed to buy not only the French newspapers but to Kate's delight — a copy of the Guardian. We sat in a small square cum garden to read the newspapers, me, to catch up on the progress of the Tour de France and to see if Aston Villa had made any summer signings yet, Kate, to try and catch up with more worthy, world, events.

Eventually we set about planning the walks for the next couple of days. We would be walking a two day circuit devised by Kev Reynolds which seemed to take a high route for day one before curving back on the second day through the national park of Néovielle. I noticed that all of Kev's walks started not from Bareges itself but from a car park at the Pont de la Gaubie some miles to the East. It is not unusual for Kev's walks to start at such car parks although often they are reached by a small shuttle bus, I looked around for a 'navette stop' and was rather surprised when I found one. I could already see that there were not hoards of walkers passing through Bareges. We could, of course, take the GR10 up to the Pont but the day seemed long enough as it was. I popped into the Office du Tourisme. Nope, there was no bus up to the Pont and it would take a couple of hours to walk up there. It seemed that booking a taxi would be the best bet.

We had better luck at the campsite which sits just below the town on the route from Luz. This was yet another peasant campsite, but this one was looked after by a lively, eccentric guy who seemed to be a real man of the mountains; on his left wrist sat a huge Suunto watch. After pitching I went back for a chat. He gave me the number of a reliable taxi and then proceeded to chat to me about our proposed route and our holiday so far. From a small phone box I called the taxi driver. Yes he would be happy to pick us up next morning at 8.00. No better make that 8.15, no nearer 8.25. I felt I had to be quite firm to make sure we didn't finally agree to meet at 10.00!

We spent the rest of the day gently exploring Bareges; another village and another lunchtime. The restaurant, had a rather lovely plat du jour (the first time we'd found one of this trip). I was beginning to feel that this trip was really about reviewing restaurants!

In the evening we took a stroll around town and alongside the river. High on a hill we watched a fire gather strength amongst the high pines. It looked as if it was a domestic fire but as we watched it got uncomfortably strong. Plumes of smoke headed up into the sky. We waiting around for the sound of sirens but non came. There was to be no dramatic ending to the day.