Friday 4 August 2017
| Distance (km) | 26 kms | |||
| Distance (time) | 6 hrs | |||
| Climb / Descent | 400m / 370m | |||
| Hard / Soft surface | 40% / 60% | |||
| Landscape |
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| Weather |
 28° 3 Bft
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Today we will close the chapter of the Vosges and start the new chapter of the Jura and we are really looking forward. One one hand because in 2016 we didn't have a very good walking year and on the other hand because we're a bit fed up climbing over the rocky paths of the Vosges. We start close to the camping so with a bus and another bus we're at the point where we ended yesterday in less than half an hour. According to tradition we immediately start to climb. Fortunately it is still cool in the morning and so we quietly climb to another fortress: Fort des Basses Perches. After the fortress we descend to Danjoutin, one of the southern suburbs of Belfort. We have to walk along a main road for a couple of hundred meters before climbing to another fortress: Fort de Bosmont. On our way up we hear a lot of screaming out of the forest after which a whole group of teenagers dressed alike come running down. It looks to military to be scouting but the kids are too young to be conscripts. Strange. We leave the forest again and the forest track turns into a gravel road before becoming a tarmac road. And so we enter the village of Meroux. Here starts a long section along tarmac roads (mostly with sidewalks) until the TGV train station of Belfort-Montbeliard. We have the sun on our heads and it is pretty warm while the hard tarmac under our feet doesn't make it an enjoyable walk. The advantage of the railways station is that they have comfortable chairs and even a store to buy something nice for lunch. So...this will be our lunch break. When leaving the station building the GPS is playing difficult, that is the base map has somehow disappeared. It takes some effort to get it back to werk before we can move on. And when we move on I notice I have a slightly painful and stiff left knee. Strange, but maybe it's the result of our break in the station. We walk along the N1019, but at some distance over a gravel track and actually this is not so bad. Passing through a small tunnel underneath the main road we reach Bourogne, considerably faster than anticipated. We pass through the village and end up walking along the Bourbeuse river following a forest track almost completely in the shadow. This is a very pleasant part to walk until we reach the point where the river joins the Rhone-Rhine canal. Here our beautiful forest track becomes a tar sealed cycle path and our feet start protesting again. We have bad visions of the cycle path along the Rhine-Marne canal to Gondrexange two years ago where we were more or less cooked by the sun. But here it isn't that bad, though it is quite warm. At a picknick spot with shadow we have a sit to have something to drink and we get company of a German cyclist on his way from Brest in Brittany to home close to Munich. We have a chat before we move on again. At the bridge over the canal we cross the canal and enter Fesches-le-Châum;tel. At the church we have a little break, this is officially the end point of the Vosges and here the Jura starts. It's a bit strange that we still have to continue walking today because at the previous occasions that we reached the end of a GR5 section it was either the last day of the season or at least the end of a walking day. But not today, so after taking some photos we move on for the last 7 kms to Dasle. This last part is pretty straight forward through the forest. We pass some industrial building in the forest followed by a short part on tarmac until the D463 main road. After this we enter the forest again. It's dead straight until a sharp turn to the right after which the path gets narrower with considerably more tree roots. Here I start noticing that my left knee is somewhat painful. Every step I take off my left foot I feel a sting on the outside of my knee cap. It isn't very painful, but it is not normal either. At the next sharp turn (to the left) we arrive at a gravel track and enthusiastically we start walking. But after 100m we realise that we haven't seen any GR sign lately so we must be wrong. Hence, we have to go back. And indeed, where we turned left there is a narrow track immediately left again that we should have taken. We consider having a break because of the heat but since there is only 1 bus per hour in Dasle we better move on. And so we walk rather fast to still make it to the 17:15 bus. The last bit to Dasle is descending and my knee is really not amused, the stinging is seriously painful. But we do make it and with only 5 minutes left we're at the bus stop. The fun is that this bus is no longer under Belfort, but under Montbeliard. Another bus company and fortunately with this one it is possible to buy tickets from the driver. That is, if the driver has any tickets and she doesn't. So we have free transport again, this time to Audincourt where we have to transfer to the bus to Montbeliard. In this bus we can buy a ticket with the driver. After that, it's the train to Belfort and 2 more busses to the camping... |
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