Le Saut de Vezoles from the col de Cabaretou

Le Saut de Vezoles from the col de Cabaretou. 7.5km. 2H (if you don't stop to pick wild blueberries and raspberries!).Easy. circular route.Take the D907 St Pons to La salvetat road. Park at the picnic area for the Col de Cabaretou.

Here you will find a forest track, GR7. Take the track east along the Cabaretou forest track. The first part of the track is lovely beech woods with honey coloured grasses below and lots of beautiful wild flowers edging the track. Follow this track past a forest lodge and ignore a right hand path at the col des Biaous. The  sentier de legende, yellow marked trail heads downhill here but don't follow it, keep straight on the main path, GR7.

This track has some lovely views to the south and the Jaur valley below. You will see yellow markers here too. Soon you will come to the fontaine des cabanes, a good place for dogs to find a drink. When you pass another picnic area with stone picnic tables in the forest you know that soon you will find the right turn to the viewpoint. Now leave the forest track and take the little path to your right with both red/white and yellow markers.

The path leads over pretty heather slopes that eventually reach the lake above (Vezoles, yesterday's walk). The viewpoint is a short distance along this path and here you will find the most spectacular views imaginable. From here you can see down to the coast and the Pyrenees, The Somail, Espinouse and Caroux mountains and along the beautiful Orb/Jaur valleys.

You will hear the sound of the cascades beautiful you see them as they tumble from the Lac de Vezoles down to reach the valley below. Magnificent! Now retrace your steps to the confusing marker post that has yellow markers in both directions upon it. Go left but then immediately right if you want to do the circular route or retrace you steps along the GR7 if you prefer. After the right turn you will see two smaller forest tracks, take the one to your left. This is a lovely route, I think I prefered it to the first part.

Only this track we found wild blueberries and blackberries, so we stopped to pick an abundance of the first and look forward to the blackberries ripening more over the coming weeks. There was one fallen tree across this route but it was easy to go around. Soon you come to the reseau vert and more GR markers at a junction. Go right and then left under a barrier.

This path has lovely views to the north across the Somail forest, there are lots of beautiful wild flowers here and an abundance of wild raspberries. We picked these too and enjoyed a plentiful supply of muffins for our coming walks. The track now descends a little and you will see a grassy track to your left. Take this, a little uphill to some rocks and then it contours the hill until it reaches a track to your right.

Take this, it will descend and bear left until it reaches the main track. Turn right onto the main track and then right again into the picnic area. Enjoy it a super walk for a hot sunny day. It was a cool 17c with us when it was 30c in the valley below.

Blueberry Muffins and Raspberry muffins with cinnamon.

So many wonderful wild berries along my walk today;  Le Saut de Vezoles from the col de Cabaretou. When I got back I made blueberry muffins and raspberry and cinnamon muffins too! If you get up there to pick some, this is the simple recipe; 300g self-raising flour and 1 teaspoon baking powder   mixed together. Add 50g unsalted butter and rub together. Stir in 80g caster sugar and 150g fresh blueberries.

Then in a jug mix 225mls milk, 2 eggs and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract beaten together. Combine all ingredients and spoon into prepared muffin cup or cases. Bake 200c for 20 minutes and leave to cool for 10 minutes before removing from tin. Lovely hot or cold. The raspberry ones where the same but instead of vanilla use cinnamon. Lovely were well worth the walk even without the beautiful views.