Day 14

I can't even begin to explain how crazy the last few days have been. We've been so busy I haven't even had time to update this!

Though we were intending to head towards Biarritz last time I was writing, we actually ended up in a surf town north of Biarritz called Soorts-Hossegor. There is a large surf community in Hossegor so we spent our day there at the beach melting in the heat, and watching the surfers whilst wishing we had brought our boards with us. 

After spending our day in Hossegor getting sunburnt and longing for the overpriced ice cream, we began our journey to the Pyrenees National Park. We headed for a town called Soulom but as we arrived in the dark, we were unaware of how beautiful the landscape was until we awoke. 

For our day in Soulom we decided to go on a bit of an adventure. We found a trail and decided to bike up it to a bridge up the mountain. ( well, Tom biked and I pushed my bike up... All 4km of it...) On our way to the bridge we saw that we could access the glacier river if we climbed down a ravine, so being the adventurous and looking back probabaly stupid people we are, we decided to climb down the (loose) rock face to the river bed. The river was amazingly clear, and so fresh you could drink it. Being a glacier river though, it was bloody freezing. 

After a busy day exploring Soulom we decided to hit the road again and headed towards the next area of the Pyrenees National Park that we intended to visit. We ended up stopping half way as it was getting late and I didn't fancy having to make dinner at 11pm after driving all the way, so we stopped in a town called Montréjeau. 

The view that greeted us when we woke up in Montréjeau was pretty incredible.  Although they wear me out to climb, I think I'm falling in love with the mountains. Everything is so peaceful and beautiful up here! 

Finally, yesterday morning, we made it to the second area of the National Park we were planning to stay in - Aulus les Bains.   We were not really expecting much from Aulus, I found it online on an aire website just as somewhere to stop, but after exploring the town yesterday, we found something amazing. The valley of Aulus les Bains and it's surrounding area have lots of very popular hiking trails, and one of them is conveniently situated right up the road from the aire. It took us 1hour and 25 minutes to climb a supposedly 3 hour route up the mountain to "Cascade l'Ars". 

Though the route was difficult to walk at times due to the lack of appropriate footwear I had on, the view from the top was so rewarding.  

The waterfall itself was also incredible. There were 3 tiers to it and you could easily walk across it due to the large rocks. 

Today we climbed the same route but stopped lower down and jumped into a natural pool created by the glacier river running down from the waterfall. It was beyond cold but so refreshing and fun. 

Our stay in the mountains has been amazing. I've pushed myself to walk up big mountains, mountain bike down and  swim in freezing cold rivers, and it's been so much fun. So far the route has allowed us to see so much of France and so many different aspects of it, and I can't wait to come back here after Andorra and Barcelona in the next few days.