Fesches-le-Châtel - Grottes de Réclère
Effective km: 27
Total km: 28
Elevation: up 600m, down 275m
Min altitude 350m, max altitude 700m
Active hours: 7h22m
Steps: 45406

I woke up from a bad dream at 5.30 and just wanted to get out of there. I was on the road by 6.50. Almost immediately the markings went off the map track, I followed them until a road I was supposed to cross but it was totally unclear where. So I just followed the road back t where my map said I should be, which wasn't ideal because it was busy with fast-running cars. And added an extra km or so.
It was mostly forest until Dasle, and it took me way longer then I felt it should because I felt slow and tired. In Dasle, I bought bread and croissant (cookies and nuts for breakfast is less than ideal), then went on to Vandoncourt, where I desperately looked for a restaurant or somewhere else I could use a toilet, but there was nothing. In the end, I had to go through the embarrassing task of asking someone if I could use their toilet. This someone turned out to be a very friendly person who offered me coffee, asked if I had enough water and food, and told me a hiker had camped in their garden before. Which makes me wonder how the hell that got arranged, because camping in someone's garden if there is no campsite would be awesome, but I have no idea how to manage it.
Upon leaving the village, there was a great deal of noise, dogs barking and howling, which would have been kind of scary if I hadn't known there was a kennel there. Up into a forest, and it was a forest I really liked. I also felt really close to the Swiss border, which I liked too.
I took a short break (again, I still felt tired), just outside the forest, then walked between fields to Abbéviillers, where there was a sign 'Suisse'. Ha! Getting really close now.
More roads through fields, then a downsloping path through forest which led to a stream, then followed the stream for a while. Just before climbing out of that valley again there was a restarant where I decided to have tea. And they had a running watermill!
I looked at the map and then I apparently felt such a need for real food that I ordered a salad. Then someone came up to me and told me that they lived only 3km away and if I needed their house for anything, I would be welcome. Which was an awesome offer, and if it hadn't been not yet 14.00, I would have considered it. I did manage to convey that in the end.
So on it was, and up to the border (some 120m higher). Then the path followed the border for a long time, pretty much running on top of it, marked by stones with a Swiss flag (the newer ones) or the coat of arms of Bern (the older ones) on the one side and an F on the other. A lot of up and down, sometimes crossing the markers on the Swiss side, sometimes on the French, all the time in the forest.
Until the point where I finally left the GR5, which continued south in France, to go do Damvant, in Switzerland. This path followed the border even longer, so that after about 2 hours on top of the border, I finally got to cross it. You'd think that after all those weeks in France, two more hours wouldn't matter, but they did. So, finally, around 16.30 I reached Switzerland. It's the fourth border I cross on my way to Rome, and the second to last one.
Damvant, the first village, turned out to have one tiny sotre that mostly sold chocolate and tobacco (borders) but also had ice cream and potato chips, both of which were necessary, as it was warm and sunny. I don't have any francs yet so for the moment I have to pay everything by debit card.
From there, I followed the signs to the Grottes de Réclère, which the campsite should be close to. It turns out the campsite is pretty much on top of the caves and part of the same thing that exploits them. They built a hotel/restaurant there.
They funny thing is, I'm again on the Swiss/French border, but a different one, to the south of the one I crossed. I'm on a campsite with French, German, and a lot of Swiss German around me. The last of which I can understand a tiny bit, but speak, no way.

I greatly overestimated how much fuel I would need. I thought I'd need two 230 gram canisters to reach Belfort, where I could get new fuel at Decathlon; but only now the first one is almost empty. Which is good, as this particular Decathlon didn't have these canisters, only their own brand. And my estimate included having to boil water for filtering, which so far I haven't done, and tea every evening and morning, which I haven't been able to do the times I was camping in the forest because I didn't have enough water. So maybe my estimate wasn't that far off originally.
I also for the first time actually looked at the length of my poles, having assumed that they were set correctly. Which they weren't. I put them on minimum size for the train journey and then totally forgot to readjust them. This explains why I kept walking with my hands on top of them. Fixed now, but pretty stupid.
I'm in no hurry tomorrow morning, as I want to visit the caves; I really like caves and if I'm this close, I'm not going to skip them.

Geschreven door Jewaontheroad