Outdoor Adventures with Ancient Brit
Pyrenees GR11 2003 - Day 39: September 17th
Wednesday 17th September
I was going to finish at Banyuls-sur-Mer in France, rather than at Capo de Creus in
Spain. There is no transport from the remote Capo de Creus and it would be an
inconvenient place to finish. Both the GR10 and the HRP finish at Banyuls. The morning
was spent mainly on pista and roads with occasional stretches of path, passing through a
mixture of brush, cork forest and rather poor agricultural land. By 12am it was 31ºC in
the shade and water was in short supply. Fortunately I found a small spring that was just
trickling. Later I met a young Belgian couple, struggling in the heat, and down to their
last ½ litre of water. They had just started a traverse of the GR11 from the
Mediterranean to the Atlantic. The next section should have been on pista taking me over
the Col de Banyuls, but it had recently been upgraded to a road. I followed this road over
the col and then down through vineyards for the long descent to Banyuls.
When I got back to my van I found that it had been broken into and ransacked. It
had been secured by the Gendarmerie and I spent the rest of the afternoon with them on
rather pointless form filling. This was an unfortunate way to end the summer.
I was going to finish at Banyuls-sur-Mer in France, rather than at Capo de Creus in
Spain. There is no transport from the remote Capo de Creus and it would be an
inconvenient place to finish. Both the GR10 and the HRP finish at Banyuls. The morning
was spent mainly on pista and roads with occasional stretches of path, passing through a
mixture of brush, cork forest and rather poor agricultural land. By 12am it was 31ºC in
the shade and water was in short supply. Fortunately I found a small spring that was just
trickling. Later I met a young Belgian couple, struggling in the heat, and down to their
last ½ litre of water. They had just started a traverse of the GR11 from the
Mediterranean to the Atlantic. The next section should have been on pista taking me over
the Col de Banyuls, but it had recently been upgraded to a road. I followed this road over
the col and then down through vineyards for the long descent to Banyuls.
When I got back to my van I found that it had been broken into and ransacked. It
had been secured by the Gendarmerie and I spent the rest of the afternoon with them on
rather pointless form filling. This was an unfortunate way to end the summer.
Approaching Col
de Banyuls
de Banyuls
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Thursday 18th/Friday 19th September
I made a rapid return to England, as I couldn’t manage to stop one of my credit cards that had been stolen. It
was in fact used a number of times to pay tolls on one of the motorway bridges in the Barcelona area.
I made a rapid return to England, as I couldn’t manage to stop one of my credit cards that had been stolen. It
was in fact used a number of times to pay tolls on one of the motorway bridges in the Barcelona area.