As so often on this trip, a walk in two parts. A fabulous morning walk in the mountain range between Le Muy and Roquebrune-sur-Argens and a mixed afternoon, mainly on roads towards Frejus. For the first time I saw wild boar and I arrived to see the carnival in Puget-sur-Argens.
There were a number of people out running, cycling and walking dogs as I left the hotel. A pleasant path turned into roads for the 4kms into Le Muy. It was market day as I passed through town. There were many Muslims dressed up to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of fasting in Ramadan.
I continued past the autoroute, and started to climb towards the three crosses at the top of the small mountain range between Le Muy and Roquebrune-sur-Argens. It was a fairly steep climb on a narrow path. I was a little worried due to the continued sound of shots as I walked through the forest. At one point, 10m in front of me, 5 or 6 wild boar crossed my path, it seemed to be a mother and her children, given the difference in size between the first boar and those following. I was now even more spooked about the shooting, given that I have on several walks encountered hunters hunting for wild boar. I continued, nervously, along the path, and eventually saw that there was a shooting range close by, and the sound was being amplified and echoed in the mountains.
It is Sunday morning and on the paths towards Roquebrune-Sur-Argens, passing the three crosses (I only caught two of them, if you look closely on the photo below), were busy with other walkers. The paths were wet, many of them turned into small lakes, so it wasn’t ideal walking conditions. As I reached the bottom near Roquebrune-sur-Argens, a couple stopped me and asked about the state of the paths. He looked down at my shoes and saw that they were a bit muddy, and decided they weren’t going to walk towards the three crosses. They missed a pleasant walk.
I again crossed the Argens river and met my wife. There was a big second-hand market just after the river, and we stopped to get a a lemon drink, before I continued.
After a morning on small paths, it was now more or less all roads, crisscrossing the A8 autoroute. At one point I was walking close to the A8 on a dirt road with a long line of cars passing, all with young people in them. I thought it was a bit odd for a Sunday afternoon, I could hear music in the distance, so assumed it was a festival of some sort. The stream of cars continued, until I reached a large ranch, with a massive American flag. There were a lot of cars coming and going. It turned out to be a wedding fair. The dirt track was fairly narrow and there wasn’t room for two cars to pass each other, To make it worse there was a stream running next to the road so there was a drop. At one point a driver had pulled into the side to let a car pass, and the back wheel had left the road. Luckily the driver managed to get the car moving again, but I have no idea if anything was damaged.
I continued along roads to Puget-sur-Argens just as they were celebrating their carnival. My wife had planned to drive through the town, but all roads were blocked due to the carnival, and together with an accident on the autoroute, there was chaos on all the surrounding roads.
After Puget, I was back on a path for a few kilometers, passing a horse riding club, where several riders were out training horses – several of them riding around the training ground, sitting on one horse, and holding onto five or six others.
A quiet back road led me into Frejus, passing the Roman amphitheater, and taking a drink before checking into our hotel in the centre of town. Before an excellent dinner at an Italian restaurant, we washed clothes and took a walk around the town, we had never previously visited.
All in all a great days walking in beautiful weather.