Things to remember:
- Last night's stopover is officially reduced back to the status of lunch stop. There was just too much nocturnal activity in the steeply-sided Rhône valley. All and any noises created were amplified by echo and resonance far more than any solitude-loving gringo might prefer. I heard music from passing cruise ships, emergency service sirens and more than a few boy-racer types ripping it up. It wasn't that it's not a right-enough place, just that it was far too noisy for my liking.
- I had a bit of a lie in today and got up at 7.00am. After a quick breakfast I went for a slow run: the heat was once again already building and it's fair to say I'm also pretty whacked by this stage in this trip.
- Soon after setting off I took on fuel at a (currently) reasonable-for-France price of €1.98/l.
- Thereafter I again made use of toll roads to cover more miles north. I was determined to get back to the awesomeness of the Morvan, the area I'd enthusiastically banged on about on the trip out.
- Which I made by late afternoon! This really is a lovely, lovely area. Even the hamlets are all very twee and nearly all cluster around a church of a particular vernacular (pic). After enjoying a steady bumble through the picturesque landscape awhile I spotted an opportunity for a potential overnighting spot in the form of one of the usually dreaded Route Barrée à 1km scenarios. I figured if I went past the barriers and then as far down the barrée-d road to the point at which it was actually closed, I might well find myself a quiet-enough spot with little prospect of passing traffic.
- And the coordinates betray the agreeable spot that resulted. There were a handful of cars through early evening but they seemed to be driven by people who optimistically thought the Barrée signs didn't actually meant Barrée. It really does though, there's a bridge over a river that's out.
- Anyway, apart from the optimistic few passing by ... twice each, it's essentially been an evening of solitude.
- From the spot I've seen many red-backed shrike, had a grizzly view of a female broad-bodied chaser consuming a house fly that was bigger than her own head, and even added still further to my notable trip-species list in the form of black stork and golden oriole, which I also heard singing its glorious fluty melody. Furthermore, I heard the stork making an apparently very rarely uttered mewing call (according to by bird ID app). I think I quite like black storks. They're shy birds that are rarely seen and don't engage so much in their white stork cousins' gregarious behaviour or ostentatious bill-clattering stuff etc. The one I saw tonight was also doing a really slow gliding flight with its legs very obviously left dangling. I've never seen that before. I'm guessing, but it wouldn't surprise me if there was some courtship at play.
