Day 9:The Cirque du Troumouse
We were hit by a tremendous Pyrenean storm in the night. I lay in my sleeping bag listening to the storm — miles away at first, slowly creeping towards us. Lightening and thunder seemed to echo backwards and forwards for hours until the storm finally reached Héas. Before the rain came the winds which whipped under the tent and threw it around from side to side. Every now and then the wind suddenly subsided before the vacuum of the storm was broken by another shaking and thudding of the sinylon. When they finally came, the rains lashed down throughout the night.
It was morning before the rain had stopped. We hadn't slept a wink. I heard our trekker take down his tent and for once felt happy that I didn't have to set off at such an early hour. We both fell asleep and awoke much later than normal. When we emerged from the tent to prepare breakfast the sun was already high and the temperature rising fast. There was no early morning in the shade this morning.
Héas - Auberge on the right
Our plan was to walk to the Cirque de Troumouse and to camp wild somewhere underneath its dramatic walls, but Madame told us that she expected another electrical storm that night. The last place I wanted to be was high and exposed ground in another of these storms. We decided to walk to the Cirque and have a good explore before finally deciding what to so. If we weren't happy we'd simply return to Héas.
By the time we were walking the sun was truly high and hot and it was quite clear; we'd been foolish in sleeping in. We were both very tired and not really wanting to walk. We decided to forgo the higher route to Troumouse and stick to the main tourist route. But without a real objective for the day we both found ourselves struggling in the heat. After a couple of hours we sat down to decide whether we really wanted to walk on or not. At this point we realised that low cloud was dropping very quickly and soon visibility was cut to only a few metres. We couldn't even see the Cirque. Neither of us really fancied walking all day in mist. We'd experienced these conditions in this area before and knew that the mist could last a long time.
There's a Cirque in there somewhere!
We climbed back down to the road to take a beer at the Refuge/bar/campsite near the toll booth for the road that winds its way up to almost the base of the cirque. This looked a pretty nice and comfortable place to stay, perhaps another descent alternative to La Chaumiere, certainly one with a greater range of facilities. But we decided to trot back to the Auberge La Munia and camp there for the evening — all in the cause of properly exploring every option for our readers!
The camping field at La Munia is pretty pleasant. There was only one other tent in the field. The small toilet and shower block were a little old, but clean and fully functional. By the time the tent had been pitched and tea brewed the mist was being supplemented by constant, fine, rain. We retreated into the tent to try and catch up with some of our missed sleep.
When we emerged again the mist was thicker than ever. A church service was just ending and a chain of happy, smartly dressed folks (locals from Gavarnie and Gedre I guess) laughed and chatted outside or else settled down in the bar for a drink or two. Our other entertainment came from the Auberge's hens, a small flock I suppose you could call then, about fifteen birds strong. I'm always fascinated with chickens that run free. Back at home we share four chickens with our neighbour; they have a pretty happy life and a reasonable amount of two gardens to roam around. But here — with a massive space to play with — the birds were having a great time, briskly wondering from one side of the large field to the other. At one point there was really heavy bout of squawking. I looked up to see one of the chickens carrying either a huge worm or a small snake in its beak. It ran away from its companions at an impressively high speed. You could almost hear it chanting that this fine prize "is mine all mine".
As afternoon merged into evening the weather remained truly miserable. We consulted our maps and guidebooks. Perhaps, it was now a good time to think about taking the time to move on round to the lakes of the Néovielle Parc.
The lovely church at Héas
There seemed little else to do but to eat at the Auberge again. I think both of us were secretly relieved to have another day free of couscous even through we'd really noticed the effect of the pound's decline against the euro. We threw caution to the wind and ordered the menu gourmand. Rather predictably this menu was a full on tribute to the duck and all its constituent parts. We had a lovely salad started with lots of bits of duck around it. I'm not sure what they were but they were delightful. The main course was a perfectly judged duck breast in a sweet, beetroot sauce that worked really well. It was wonderful stuff although it was somewhat of a relief to realise that even here the chef had been unable to find a way of turning duck fat into a desert!
Over the meal we settled on our route for the next couple of days. We'd stroll down to Gedre before taking the bus to Bareges and spending a couple of days walking around the Lakes.