Yes, France has its own volcanoes, albeit extinct, and we just got back from a two-night camping trip to the Auvergne to visit some of them.  On the first day we met our friends at the volcano theme park for the area, Vulcania.  Now the kids liked this!  They didn’t even mind queuing for the simulated volcano exploration rides.  But I couldn’t help thinking how much nicer it would be if nine tenths of the people were at school when we went.  And both Mike and I have seen so many real volcanoes that the reconstructions of geysers and bubbling mud pools didn’t quite cut it for us.  Still, I can see the point, for the majority people, and it was quite nicely done.

We really had fun on the next day, hiking up the Puy de Dome, then down and across to a crater called Puy de Parigou, then down to the car park.  Then we just drove back to get the other car.  The kids walked 12.5 kilometres and weren’t even tired!

Here are our happy hikers.  I did not choose my daughter’s hiking outfit!  In fact, when I saw it, I packed some trousers in my backpack just in case they were called for:

 Where we are going (above).  We are heading for the crater of the Puy de Parigou where the path leads, then down the other side to the car park.  And where we came from (below).  It’s very beautiful countryside and very easy to walk, except the Puy de Dome (the one we came from), which is quite steep:

 At 4 o’clock in the morning after this long hike we were awakened by high winds, lightning that appeared uncomfortably close to our tents and showers of rain.  We didn’t mind too much, we were heading home anyway.  We breakfasted under a rainproof parasol at the campsite cafe, and took our tents down during a brief dry moment.  Then we drove for three hours in a torrential downpour, hung our tent up to dry from the beams in the living room, and now we are quite ready to collapse into bed.

Today, we hiked up to Lac Achard in the high mountains (nearly 2000m).  We were not quite above tree level, but definitely in open land.

 A change of scene is always nice.  We saw many things that are new to us:

• A kestrel hovering then diving on its prey and catching it.
• A snout weevil with a trunk like an elephant
• Numerous wild flowers of the high mountains, including the yellow gentian that grows as tall as Antonia, and the rare-ish martagon lily
• Tadpoles, some of which were just growing their back legs, and all of which required little rush houses, built by Antonia!
• A rare-ish orchid.  With an ant on top of it.  Another ant tried to climb up and they had a long battle, at the end of which the invader fell off. The winner then tried to climb down the orchid, but couldn’t seem to manage as all the parts pointed upwards.

We had a hot summer’s day and the pleasure of heading for a nice cool cave.  I like this one because it has a very low key presentation for visitors (apart from the sound and light show of a local legend), and also because of the lovely flint nodules studding all the walls.  The really amazing thing about flint is that like limestone, it’s a rock composed from a living origin.  The nodules form in burrows or other holes left by living things in the limestone as it was forming.  The silica in the flint comes perhaps mostly from micro-organisms.  Too cool.

I love real caving, as long as I’m with a guide who knows what they’re doing, but I have to wait a couple of years before I can take my daughter.  Mike does not love caving. When he was young, he went caving with a couple of buddies who thought guides were for wimps and unexpectedly spent a night lost in the darkness!  Then when they got out, they got told off by the rescue services for being dumb.  I guess it put him off for life.

It’s not often we see a fox in broad daylight, though there are lots around.  This one was tempted by fallen cherries.  The jays sit up in the cherry tree stuffing their beaks and dropping half of what they pick on the ground.  We don’t mind because we have two cherry trees, and the one that ripens earliest doesn’t produce very nice fruit.  We protect the other one by hanging CDs in it, which sort of works, maybe.

Hey, I managed to take a picture I liked!

Nature photography was kind of my hobby last year, but right now I’m searching for solutions to make it work.  Antonia moves a heck of a lot faster than she did.  A lot of our activities might endanger the camera, and just moving with it around my neck is a bit uncomfortable.  Tripods and lens changes have always been an issue, but now so are focusing and adjusting for lighting conditions.

The time has come for those of us who’ve outgrown our hay fever to lurk in the tall grasses of the meadows and mind other creatures business.

Time to break out the macro adapter for the camera…

We drove for one hour to another part of our small range of mountains.  It takes a long time to cover short distances here.  Then we hiked 8 kilometres with an adult friend.  It was a tough hike for Antonia, but she kept up a good pace, despite the fact that the hay fever season is starting and she was kept awake by her blocked nose most of last night.  We were compensated by finding three beautiful ammonite fossils, much larger than any fossils we find in our own area.

The nature scientist is back in action!  Admitedly she is claiming she never saw orange moss spores before… errr, like, this week!

Our afternoon started with “I’m going back to bed”, and ended with “I’m so glad I came out this afternoon.”  Sometimes, a little shove out of the door is a very good idea.

We are back to nearly normal with enough energy to get outside!

This is a bee orchid – the flower imitates a female bee with a view to attracting male bees who will get a dose of pollen before they fly away disappointed.  They are supposed to be common around the Mediterranean, but this particular individual is the only one we know of in our area.  Apparently they can also self-pollinate, which is probably lucky for it!

And here is some kind of insect, presumably a larva, hanging out underwater in a birch bud scale.  Their disguise is convincing enough that we wouldn’t have spotted them at a casual glance.  We were sitting still while Antonia ate her snack, and it was their movement that gave them away.  We learned that they graze on the brownish algae that coat the bottom of favourite stream.