Caro to Refugi Font Ferrera – Beautality

We had a dormitory to ourselves last night, and Maria Jose had stoked up the log burners before we hit the sack, which kept us warm throughout the night. We are usually the only customers, which suits us as I snore and Gary roars.

For breakfast she cooked us a great dose of scrambled eggs on toast. Lovely it wa! She warned us that it had been rainy in the night, in fairness Gary heard it, and that there would be lots of mushroom and fungi hunters on the trail. There are many types of edible fungi which burst out overnight in October in the rain. And she wasn’t wrong!

Today was to be a spectacularly difficult, and in parts, fairly dangerous, trek cum climb. Our walks don’t require technical climbing equipment, and in any event we’re not trained and qualified to use it. But on occasions a bit of climbing rope would be a welcome addition.

We bade farewell and strode off down the local road, which was quite busy with a car every five minutes. Then the GR7 turned a sharp left up a steep and high mountainside, with a few pairs of fungi hunters roaming around the lower levels.

It was a decent slog in the shade of the mountains, and putting our heads over the parapet we were rewarded with a magnificent view of the Ebro delta.

The path wove around the cliff face for mile after mile. This is looking back at a section where we had to climb down a crack in the rock.

It was exhausting work and the temperature climbed steadily. It’s a good job that we are real men. Well, oldish but in a George Clooney type of way. Well ok then, Danny Bloody De Vito.

The views just kept on getting better, and we sweated a lot, getting wetter and wetter.

After three hours of cliff clambering the path steadied and developed into a track, with a group of folk collecting mushrooms. What a haul!

When me and Maggie had our house in France and before the kids were born we went in search of walnuts and mushrooms in the countryside. We found loads of walnuts and, as it was a damp October, we found loads of fungi. Our dear elderly neighbour Marthe reviewed our haul and threw most of it away as inedible or poisonous. However she was very impressed with a large number of the type that I’ve arrowed below. Nez du Chat in French, the Cat’s Nose. And very tasty they were too cooked in butter and olive oil with garlic and parsley. Very happy memories. I love her more than I can explain, thirty five years later. Marthe, not Maggie.

The track rose higher into the mountains and we found a spring where we could sit, rest and take the local waters. Oh, oh the water, get it myself from a mountain stream. Thanks Van. Beautifully refreshing.

After another two hours of climbing we were over the top.

Then it was head down on difficult ground aiming for the Refugi Font Ferrera. This one was in the forest, six miles from the nearest proper road and we hadn’t heard from them. Our concern was that we had no signals up here and couldn’t phone them to see if they were there. And if we could phone them we wouldn’t understand what they were saying because no-one speaks English and everything’s broken. Thanks Tom. Absolute epic.

The sun was starting to sink.

Our pace quickened but Gary had discomfort in his left knee. He rode it out as we were getting a bit anxious about spending the night in our sleeping bags in the open.

Gaz was looking for a signal but we struggled.

Ten hours after we set off we spotted the Refugi, without any lights on. There was a link chain gate locked but a car inside. As we got closer we saw that there was a fire going and as we pushed the door it opened.

Quite a relief. The beds were basic bunks but there were three other walkers there and the manager with his young son.

Dinner was fantastic. Soup, carbonara pasta and bread. Local red wine and a warm fire. In the middle of a forest miles from the nearest road. Heaven.

Night night.