Sunday, October 20, 2024
End: Vulcania Roundabout
Kilometers: 16.2
Total: 16.2
I won’t take the time to recount our travel from Rambouillet to Volvic in detail. We met up with Eric, Isa, Timothy, Andrew, and Coleen on the way to Paris to catch our train to Riom. We traveled together, and caught a bus to Volvic, where we enjoyed some pizza together. We finally walked to the Parc de la Source where the GR441 starts and set up our tents in the dark.
Sunday morning, we woke up but took our time to get packed up. Our friends enjoyed some hot breakfast while the children played even more after having already played the night before.
It was fun to be hiking with another family for once, and we enjoyed each others company while we hiked along underneath a pair of hot air balloons.
We got started and we were hiking in the woods, slowly climbing up and out of Volvic. The trail was a nice jaunt in the forest, and I was pleased to see that the mud I had anticipated was covered by a solid covering of leaves.
There were still some muddy portions, and we occasionally found ourselves slipping on wet leaves, but we made it up the steep climb to the first of many “Puys”, which are the craters of ancient volcanos.
During this first day, we took some breaks in order to rest and let the kids play. Their favorite game appears to be breaking dead limbs and sticks, and making little wooden teepees.
We took a long break for lunch, and then we continued on. We were climbing up and going back down again all day, until we finally made it to the Puy de Jumes, where we tooka bother break and then stayed up high for awhile.
We had a great view of the surrounding area from the Puy de Chopine, where we could even see the famous Puy de Dôme.
Running very low on water, we decided to climb down and see if we couldn’t get some from the Fontaine des Pères. I had seen this water source on the map, it was noted in the guidebook, and when we saw a trail sign denoting the distance to this water source, I felt optimistic that we could refill there.
Sadly, it was not to be. Eric and I left our families behind to go refill our water, but upon arrival discovered that it was stagnant.
We quickly left there and went out to the main road, where we hoped to get water from Vulcania, a theme park. On the way. We got lucky as we passed a restaurant which was closing up. We got there just in time to ask for water, and the manager kindly let us in to fill our bottles in the bathroom.
We returned successful in our mission and decided to set up our tents in the woods next to the roundabout at Vulcania. I wasn’t thrilled about the busy location, but we were tired and it was getting dark.
A dense fog set into the surrounding fields as we cooked and the kids played together. I got out some glow-in-the-dark bracelets for the kids, and they enjoyed them before we got into our tents for the night.
