It’s
that time of the year again, when the valley is transformed for about two weeks
as the usually ugly almond trees blossom and becomes things of beauty. We wanted to try a different route this
year, but felt we needed to do a recce due to the recent heavy rain.
I
also wanted to record the route with my satnav, and Jan recorded it in her
notebook so that I could make sense of it all when we got home. Our planned route was a figure of eight walk
Parcent-Murla-Parcent-Alcalali-Parcent.
All
went well until we reached the river at Murla.
It is normally dry, but not today.
The ford was fast flowing, but we thought we could jump over it. I managed ok, but Jan landed with one foot in
deep water, and had to complete the recce in one dry and one soaking boot. We then found that there was an even wider
flow on the far side of the river. So
we had to build a ford with rocks to get back to the Parcent side.
When
we got to Alcalali we found an even more formidable river where there should
have been a ford. We tried to find an
alternative route, but eventually had to turn back the way we had come.
We
had expected to recce a 14km route and finish in about four hours. Because of the swollen rivers we had to find
alternative routes and that added to the distance and the time it took. In fact we completed 20km and it took six
hours. But that included a 3km detour
into Jalon for coffee and cake! The
actual walk will still be about 14km and take about four hours, but the actual
route will depend on the condition of the rivers on the day.
