A breakfast at the campsite bar set me up for my walk, which started with a trip down the road to Brunissard, a village with little to distract me. After the next cluster of buildings the path left the road and rose up the valley side among the grass and flowers. I passed farm buildings with rusting corrugated iron roofs and a few other hikers. Entering some woodland, a fellow hiker was picking wild strawberries, and gave me a few of these small fruits. After a lengthy upward path through forest to a car park and lake the path made a rapid descent, crossing a rubbly track several times on the way down to the village of Chateau Queyras.
The main feature of Chateau Queyras was the castle on a hill in the valley. Although first fortified in the 13th century it was brought up to date by the famous Vauban in 1692. I lacked the time to visit the castle, I still had almost 6 hours of walking ahead of me according to a sign. However I did stop at a buvette near the stalls advertising rafting and via ferrata. After my waffle (gaufre) with blueberry jam (myrtille confit) I watched as children, kitted up with helmets, harness and lanyards, left with their parents for the via ferrata.
The stony track steeply strode uphill out of Queyras joining the narrow valley of a small river as it gained height through conifer forest. Eventually it levelled out a little in a region of alternating meadows and trees. I admired the many butterflies, orange and brown, dark brown and white, white with back tracery. I was not sure whether the small orange and brown insects were classed as butterflies, but they looked pretty enough to be. There were grassed over pits where my guidebook said gypsum was mined, and an eroded, white ravine that the path edged around the top of. After Alpine, flower filled meadows the path finally reached Col Fromage. The name amused me, although there was no sign of any cheese. I did not stay long there, unlike two bare chested men sitting among a group of trees. The yellow signs were misleading. One stated that Ceillac, my destination, was over three hours away, far longer than an earlier sign. I realised that the GR5 sign, with its more direct route to Ceillac was missing, and spotting a red and white waymark, started down the track it indicated.
The way down was steep, but the path was cut into the mountainside, sweeping left and right with many turns so the gradient was not so great, and my knees appreciated that, even if it added a kilometre or so to our journey. Reaching Ceillac I found the town full of visiting people. Although I was keen to get to my campsite, a little out of town, in the hot weather I could not resist an ice cream from one of the stalls.
Settled into the Municipal Campsite, a fellow camper said hello and pointed out that we had met at the Refuge de Chésery, 3 weeks earlier. He was also walking the GR5. I walked back into Ceillac for a meal of fish for a change and ordered a Glaci'Ale beer. As I sat in the restaurant thunder was rumbling and the skies were black. Heavy rain followed and the customers were moved under cover. Thunder had rumbled around the mountain peaks earlier in the day, but without any rain. Afternoon storms are often forecast, but on my trip so far, have rarely actually happened. As I lay here in my tent the rain, thunder and lightning continue.
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