Did you know that our car was 4WD? Well it's not, but with the help of those new pneu hivre (winter tyres), the trusty Peugeot 207 is taking us every where we want to go. Including deep snow driving!! See the above photo. Today we took a drive, essentially to the other side of our mountain range - ie. a parallel valley to the north of us. The ski resorts of Samoens and Morillion which are linked to our ski area, Les Carroz are here. And at the head of the valley is a charming little town called Sixt-fer a Cheval. It is surrounded on all sides by the steep granite faces of the French Alps main spine. Everything in the village is shut down for winter, but it in summer it is the portal for a beautiful national park, and we imagine it must just hum with people! We drove through the village and right to the wall of the mountain cirque to the Cascade de Rouget - a spectacular little waterfall which is, in winter, all but frozen. If you want to see what it looks like in summer - take a look at
http://www.sixtferacheval.com/anglais/spot/cascade.php. As we first mentioned, the road up to the Cascade was thick with snow, but despite Graeme's misgivings, the 207 clawed its way up the road without any problems!! What a little beauty!!
Next we headed into the Cirque du Fer à Cheval National Park. As the name says this is an incredible steep sided valley end. There were very few people about and so we headed off for about an hour's walk through the forest. The snow was deep and the going was hard, although we are getting very used to "post-holing" through the snow. After our recent cold spell, the temperature has been steadily rising and all around us small ice and snow avalanches were being triggered. We would hear a sharp "Crack" and then a deep rumble as the ice and snow tumbled off the cliff sides.
Home for domestic duties! Tragically, even thought the apartment is tiny it does not clean itself! But we had a good night out to look forward to. Liz & Rick had invited us to dinner with 10 other English speakers. We are really not ready to inflict ourselves on the French just yet!!
What a night! Liz cooked up a storm (Wild Boar no less !) and Rick is quite the "sommelier" His knowledge of French wines is excellent. Attending were 2 other English couples who also were running chalets nearby. We spent quite a bit of our time talking to Ray & Carolyn. They own two chalets, one of which they run as self catered and the other as a full hosted experience. Carolyn is Scottish with a delightfully cheery personality. We were of course, instantly reminded of Moira and her family. Her husband Ray, was a surprise. Quite and almost librarian in demeanour, he had a quick and dry wit. And most surprisingly of all he was into heavy metal rock music!! Sue & Gavin, closer in age to us, also run chalets, but they have just leased them rather than actually buying the freehold. Sue is learning French with Liz. A great fun couple. Next were a lesbian couple, Helen and Sarah. Helen is a builder and does a lot of renovation in the local area. They had brought along Cameron - a young fellow from Brisbane who is a professional rugby player. But he is currently working for Helen while he renegotiates his contract with a French team. He was quite a charater!! Being quite a bit younger than all of us, I'm not sure what he made of it all!!
But the night was a great success. Rick showed us his party trick - being able to climb around his chair without touching the ground. No mean feat!! So we thought we might share a "southern hemisphere trick" of our own. See the second photo with Liz, Sue and Sara trying to wrap their twisted arms over their heads!! Before we knew it was 1am and we didn't leave until 1:30am!! Fortunately, home is three doors up the hill!!
So much for our planned "crack o' dawn" start tomorrow for the first day of skiing for the season at Grand Montets - Chamonix!!
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