After our stay at Île Grande we’re at another campsite just a stones throw from the beach, Camping Saint Michel Erquy. Unfortunately being close to the coast is not so great when the sea mist decides to roll in and drape its foggy blanket over everything. I’m hoping to walk another bit of the GR34 today, to Cap d’Erquy along the coast of Northern Brittany with its dramatic coastline of sea cliffs, heather clad headlands and sandy beaches and mist was not in the plan. But whilst walking in sunshine with expansive views is desirable, walking in a bit of mist is small beer compared to the extreme heat, wild fires, floods and drought that Europe has been experiencing this summer. Mother nature is telling us something, unfortunately we don’t seem to be listening.
A few hours later the mist has thinned but is still hanging around so I decide that fortune favours the brave and set off anyway. Leaving Mish busily crafting I make my way down to the beach nearest the campsite, Plage Saint Michel.
A unique feature here is the small chapel of Chapelle Saint Michel which sits on a rock outcrop about a kilometre offshore and is cut off from the mainland at high tide. Built in 1880 on the foundations of an earlier 13th century chapel it has recently undergone renovations after falling into disrepair.
Further along the beach, innumerable large granite boulders form a bank between the dunes and the sand. Worn smooth by waves over millennia they are characteristically pink, the colour of much of the rock, predominantly granite, that forms the coastline of Northern Brittany.
I head through the dunes, past signs warning of vipers and over a small wooden walkway leading to Plage sauvage de Lanruen. Halfway along, the trail climbs up a rocky bluff and I pass some climbers enjoying the vertical cliff faces.
A road is followed for a short while through the small estate of Lanruen. By the proliferation of signs on the road I guess the residents are fed up with GR34 walkers stumbling through their back gardens and trampling their roses in search of the trail. I’m intrigued by the curved tiling on the roofs of some of the houses, solidly built to withstand Atlantic storms.
Beyond the village the path heads through ferns and sparse pines before climbing up onto the headland where the walking changes from beach and dunes to a delightful moorland trail working its way through a carpet of yellow gorse, violet heathers and stumpy pines with the rhythmic sound of the waves far below.
And whilst the views are foreshortened, the swirling mist does lend a more intimate feel to the walking with visibility just enough to see the waves rolling onto the craggy shoreline below.
Another downhill leads to another beach, this time Plage du Portuais, a golden curve of sand which has some rather forlorn looking sun worshipers looking in vain for a sun to worship.
At the end of the beach there is a long and steep wooden staircase that has to be climbed to get back up to the headland. I mean to count the steps but lose count halfway up.
More enjoyable and reasonably flat heathland walking takes me to a promontory at Pointe De la Mare aux Rêts which has views down colourful heather clad slopes to a brooding coastline of dark, irregular, spray dampened rocks with white capped waves rolling in. Today the sea is fairly benign but Brittany can be a dangerous coastline and many a ship large and small has run aground here, the Amoco Cadiz being a memorable one in the seventies.
Just as I’m getting used to walking above the waves, you’ve guessed it, there is another wooden staircase to descend down to the final beach, Plage de Lourtuais, longer than Plage du Portuais but with similar groups of holidaymakers making the most of a sunless day.
The climb out of this beach isn’t as taxing and soon I’m on the final stretch of headland which takes me to my destination, the dramatic sea cliffs of Cap d’Erquy.
Despite the swirling fog around the Cap and views appearing and disappearing into the grey it’s still an impressive site. Jagged ridges of pink granite jut out into the ocean and the sense of exposure near to the edge of the vertical cliff faces adds to the experience.
Cap d’Erquy isn’t a place for quiet contemplation, the car park is only a hundred metres or so away from the cliffs and even on this less than ideal day there are dozens of people who have not worked as hard as me to get here exploring the nooks and crannies of the coastline.
Even so, I manage to find a reasonably quiet spot out on one of the edges and settle myself down, not too close to the edge and reflect on what was a surprisingly satisfying walk along another section of the Sentier des Douaniers.
It wasn’t the walk I envisaged but in the end the mist didn’t detract from it and if anything added an ethereal quality that would not have been present otherwise. And it provided some brief respite from the melting heat and baking sun of what is becoming the new normal for all of us.
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Brittany is one of my favourite areas of France with it’s uniqueness and those coastlines are stunning even in the mist. You certainly made the most of exploring all it’s nooks and crannies. Enjoyable read, Jim.