moving piem

Sunrise on Lake Huron

I hiked for three days in the Bruce Peninsula. The trail starts from Tobermory all the way to Niagara Falls, following the Niagara Escarpment for almost 900 km. I did only 60 of them, but enjoyed each and every of them.

Less than 10 km after leaving Tobermory, I met Raphaël, who is travelling around the Americas, hiking and hitch-hiking. He was walking in the other direction, so I went back a few kilometers and we pitched our tents next to each other. We spent a too short evening sharing our stories. I hope we will share the road again!

The Bruce Peninsula is bordered by Lake Huron, vast as a sea, covered by a beautiful forest, and home to quite a few black bears. I learned how to cook away from the tent, remove any smelly object in it, and hang all food in a tree at 3 meters above ground during the night. I didn't see any bear, but the last day on the trail, I could clearly hear a grumpy one, ten meters from the trail!

Snow and steam

Thursday afternoon, I hitch-hiked to Skógar, about 150 km South East from Reykjavik. Five friendly Icelandic drivers took me on the way, including a grand mother, a mother of two young kids, a farmer, and two 17 years old kids. Summer holiday is starting in Iceland, and a lot of them were driving to their summer house.

The weather was pretty bad on the first day, hiking from Skògar to Þórsmörk. It was a good test for my tent, since it was the first time I used it under the rain. It kept me dry until the next morning, and I had plenty of space to cook and pack my bag under it.

The next few days I was lucky as the weather was just perfect. The massive glaciers and the colourful, snowy and steamy mountains were amazingly beautiful. I met quite a lot of people on the trail — the warden in one of the huts told me there are 150 everyday, up to 200 — but since I was going in the other direction than most of them, it wasn't really a problem.

On Sunday evening, I reached Landmannalaugar, had a bath in the hot springs, and went a little further West to camp near a little river, in a lava bed. On Monday, I walked a few kilometers more and started hitch-hiking in the afternoon, back to Reykjavik, after about 100 km hiking.

Cairn in the sun

On June 15th, I watched the plane of Carlos taking off while enjoying a nice breakfast at the airport canteen. I had already bought most of my food for ten to twelve days in Nuuk. I found some mosquito repellent, coffee whitener at the nearby supermarket and started hiking towards Sisimiut, the village on the coast, 180 km to the West.

For the first four days, I met only reindeer, arctic hares, rock ptarmigan, and several kinds of smaller birds. I was alone in this immense and beautiful tundra.

I spent most of my nights in little huts. Many of them are maintained by the Greenlandic Tourism Association, but private huts are also left open for hikers and hunters. Often, the hut can fit 3 or four people and contains just a pair of mattresses and a kettle, but it feels great to find a shelter in the evening when the temperature is around 2 or 5°C. ... more

Approaching the ice sheet

Kangerlussuaq is more an airport than a village, and the main entry point to Greenland. Before taking his plane from Kangerlussuaq, Carlos joined me for a warm up hike, 25 km East all the way up to the ice sheet and back.

We left in the afternoon and walked late in the midnight sun, on the ridges of the hills, slowly approaching the ice cap. We spent the night next to the Russel Glacier, and went down to admire it the next morning.

It is hard to tell how little one can feel in front of such a massive amount of ice. Every ten minutes or so, the glacier grumbles as entires slices of the wall fall and the torrent running at its feet gets loaded with huge chunk of ice.

We went back via the sand track in a hot summer day, attacked by hordes of mosquitoes, and arrived exhausted at the airport, 25 hours and 50 km later.

Joining the GR34 near Mont Saint-Michel

Before joining Vagabond and her crew in Brest, I went in the North of Brittany for 5 days hiking, just to check if being alone for a few days was not too boring.

I walked about 140 km along the coast, from Mont Saint-Michel to Saint-Lunaire, passing by Cancale and Saint-Malo. The sky was blue and the air as hot as on a summer day, the trail was full of spring flowers, and the very high and low tides made the landscapes even more beautiful.