Big Black Holes and Antique Grafitti

1/ Looking out through the cave entrance to L'Arve vallee below

We should have gone skiing, we admit it! There was even a little dusting of fresh snow at the top of Flaine this morning and sunny skies. We can't quite believe that we are dragging our feet!

But we did manage to get ourselves motivated and off the couch after lunch and go exploring in our area. Today we visited a cave network in the cliffs just below Araches, the climbing areas near our village and then over to the historical village of Samoens for a late coffee.

Every time we drove up the winding mountain road to Araches, we had noticed, what appeared to be some large caves in the side of the cliff. Today, we decided to take a look. The track to the foot of the cliff was well defined and the climb/scramble up to the entry of the cave was well defined. I mean this is France after all! There were handrails and helpful ropes everywhere.

2/ Andy at the entrance to the "serious cave".

The caves turned out to be massive. Meeting a nice french lady and her son, we learned that at the rear of the cave was an entrance to a well defined underground passageway. It is appears to be open to the public even though there were serious warning signs everywhere. It takes 2 hours to scramble through the cave network to "pop out" somewhere further up the road. Obviously it was fairly straight forward, as aside from a small head torch, the lady and her son were not carrying any other specialist gear. Typically, my "part wombat husband" was excited to explore these caves further. Not me! I will give most things a try - bungy-jumping, sky diving, ice-climbing, but crawling around in a big black hole is definitely my limit. I was content to just make myself dizzy with vertigo while looking over the edge of the cave entrance to the valley floor about 400m below us.

3/ Awesome - Antique Grafitti

Sorry, as an antipodean, decipherable grafitti from 1783 is pretty exciting. I mean that boat-load of petty thieves that I claim as my forebears, hadn't even landed in Sydney Cove at that time. I know that Europeans don't even bat an eyelid - they've been graffitti'ing for centuries. But think about it. 226 years ago, Joseph was standing up here in the cave looking out over the valley just like me. Was he a tourist? Or was he sheltering here against the weather or enemies? Or perhaps he was here to watch a hot-air balloon flight? Apparantly 1783 is the year that the Montgolfiere brothers first publicly demonstrated use of the hot-air balloon.

After successfully managing to dissuade Graeme from any ideas about crawling further into the hole, we climbed back down and strolled back to the car along the forest trail. The earth is well and truly coming back to life after being asleep under its winter blanket of snow. Shining bright green in the sunshine, the vegetation is so different from the dark green shades of NZ and the grey green and brown palette of Australia's forests.

Back in Araches, but still pining for Mario!

1/ A delicious curry with David and Georgina in Les Carroz.
Forget the date - something wrong with their camera!!

Somehow, we actually managed to make it back to Araches after our long day of ski touring in Italy, shower, shave and change into clean clothes in time to join Lucy Sellick's sister (Georgina) and husband, David, for a casual curry dinner. G&D have rented an apartment in Les Carroz, just up the hill from us. Sans les enfants, they have enjoyed a tremendous week of good snow and glorious sunshine.

We must have been running on over-drive! Limbs aching and noses glowing from 3 days of snow & sunshine, we wolfed down Dave's delicious curry. G&D must have wondered "who" or rather "what creatures" they had invited to dinner!

As the night wore on, there was some vague plan hatched over the second bottle of wine about catching up for a ski with G&D around mid-morning in Les Carroz. At the time we must have felt invincible to make this suggestion. I certainly must have forgotten all about the grinding ache in my knees, blisters on my feet and a general light-headedness from too much the sun. Of course, that's what did it...too much sun!

Needless to say that by daybreak next morning, our grand plans of the night before had evaporated, leaving only the aforementioned sore knees, feet and heads! Not only that, but my feet were so badly blistered I couldn't put on normal shoes, let alone ski boots! We feel a little badly that we didn't get more of an opportunity to ski with G & D. We hope they will forgive us!!

So our day was spent with the usual domestics and a very early night. But all through the day we reminisced about our trip to the Mario Bezzi Refuge. Here's some more reflections on the trip!

2/ How cool! Mario Bezzi has his own monogrammed crockery!!
The funniest thing is that, Mario, does, actually look a bit like a marmot!

Christophe our Guide

Christophe is an excellent guide. He pushes us just enough to make us feel that we have achieved something without taking us beyond our limits. He is very safety conscious and explains why he is making a particular decision at a particular time. He is keen to share information with us but even more admirably he readily seeks out information from others he respects. His interaction with the Mario Bezzi, an old man of the mountains, was delightful.

He has a wicked sense of humour and the patience of a saint. Apart from having to nurse me up some of the more exposed parts of the mountain, he was also forced to listen to my tortured attempts at the French language. I figured, since we were going to be spending 3 days in close quarters, I had a perfect French tutor on hand.

However, Christophe quickly developed two very effective techniques to encourage silence from me. First, if my attempt at french conversation was getting too long, he would subtly increase the pace of skinning, slowly pulling further and further away from me. To keep up, I would have to markedly increase my leg speed, by which time I was huffing and puffing so much there was no chance of any further witty repartee.

His second technique was a lot less subtle. As I struggled to find the correct words or pronounciation he would initially feign interest and then suddenly drop his head making loud snoring noises. Hint taken!!

3/ A Christophe speciality: Crushed Crisps for lunch?

Another Christophe classic, was his choice of touring food. He had endless supply of pototo crips and would offer them to us at every opportunity. Take it from us, pototo crisps are not ideal ski touring food!! OK, I will concede that they're light, but if the packet doesn't burst from the reduced air pressure, the contents resemble oatmeal by the time they have been shoved repeatedly into a pack.

And the very last observation about our fearless leader, Christophe, is his habit of donating head torches to Refuges throughout the alps. At the Colle di Giasson, he was rummaging through his pack to discover that yet again he had left his head torch at Refuge Mario Bezzi. I am not completely sure about the exact translation, but I did understand that over the years, he has left 36 head torches at various refuges and mountain bivvies around the alps. He used to be sponsored by Petzl which covered the first 20 or so, but obviously (given the level of swear words) the "freebie days" are long gone!!

But all jokes and observations aside, we would seriously rate Christophe as a guide. He has a "nose for the snow" and we've thoroughly enjoyed our touring with him on this trip and also our first trip closer to home. We have been lucky to have found him as our guide.

4/ Our handsome guide - Christophe!!

Village Mysteries & the Boulangerie Breakthrough

The sign at the top of the street!

For some time there has been heated debate in our household about the correct spelling and pronounciation of our street name. Even Liz, who has lived here for years pronounces it differently from Antoinette our Yoga Sadist (oops, I meant to say Instructress!!). We thought this very strange and then we found the cause of the problem. The street signs at the top and bottom of our Route Frev(r)uard are spelled differently. Both signs are rusty and well worn. They've been there a while!? Aaah you just gotta love those Frenchies!!

First Village Mystery solved!!

And..at the bottom

The Second Village Mystery

Well this one is a bit tricky. And there's no photos to accompany this part of the blog today. It begins with a confession of "my unkind and unjust" thoughts towards my local Boulangerie, or more specifically the attractive young lady behind the counter.

My misplaced judgement began in December, I think. Given my annoying propensity for rising early, I am inevitably the one who walks down to the village to buy the bread for the day. While we've been trying many different kinds of bread, we particularly like "un boule". It's especially good for making sandwiches with a nice crunchy crust.

On this particular morning, there was only one boule displayed in the window. Using my best french with a nice smile, "bonjour" and plenty of "svp", I asked for the lonely boule! The very attractive lady suddenly leapt to whisk the offending pain (bread) from view. She shook her head and said I couldn't have it because it was "reserve". "Ok, fair enough!" I thought and chose a different bread.

But when the same thing happened the next morning and on and off for the next couple of weeks, I started to get a bit of a complex? One morning there were 2 boules in residence, but one was a little more burnt around the edges than the other. So when the cute little lady reached to give me the burnt one, I risked saying: "Non madam, ce la, svp " pointing to the less burnt boule. And the answer..... "Je desole, mai reserve". That did it! I was thoroughly put out! For the last month I have been surly and sneery with my boulangeraise. Graeme kept telling me that she was always totally delightful when he went for the bread in the morning! (On the 3 ocassions he has made a trip in the morning!)

But today, Graeme and I visited the Boulangerie together around midday, after our french lessons with Liz. I looked like a proper student with French books tucked under my arm. It was not busy and we managed to strike up a little bit of conversation with her. It appears that that magic phrase "Je vien de la Nouvelle Zelande" has worked again! The transformation in her demeanour was nothing short of amazing. We also noticed that there were at least 6 boules in the window, so we have guessed that maybe I am too early in the morning for the fresh ones?! Graeme reckons that she doesn't want to sell me a boule if it isn't fresh. This sounds like a much nicer and fairer assumption. I am looking forward to my next visit with the pretty lady! An exchange of names is next on the list!!