Les Platanes - Killer Trees

A picture taken during a recent walk. A very typical French scene, some would say a symbol of France – the long roads lined with platanes, or plane trees. But possibly not for much longer. War has been declared on the trees. This is because apparently they have the power to attack motorists, causing untold death and destruction.

An hour before taking this photograph I was sitting at a café overlooking the tiny market in Chalabre. Reading the local paper while eating my breakfast and preparing for the walk. Front page news was that almost a thousand plane trees are being removed, at the rate of 20 a day, on the admittedly dangerous, or at least accident-ridden, road from Carcassonne to Castelnaudary, the home of the Foreign Legion and Cassoulet.

Several other areas nearer to us, such as Limoux, also have planned tree-removal programmes. This is because, according to the newspaper, trees are involved in 7 out of 10 vehicle accidents.

This has been going on for some time, all over France, and many fear that it will ultimately result in the disappearance of this distinctive feature of the French countryside.

The trees were allegedly planted by Napoleon Bonaparte, or rather at his instigation, to provide shade for his troops as they marched merrily along to invade and subdue all the other countries of Europe. This is very likely a myth as the trees are known to have been prevalent before Napoleon was even a twinkle. Not to mention that, brilliant general though he undoubtedly was, it would have taken extraordinary foresight and planning to have ensured that the trees were up, mature and casting shade in time for his soldiers to benefit. Did he really plan his campaigns 30 or 40 years in advance?

I can confirm that there is a great benefit to the walker from the platanes, especially in the hot months. When I am driving along the same roads, I do not feel threatened by the trees. How can anybody in his right mind think that if a car hits a tree, the tree is to blame?

Of course there are campaigning groups trying to prevent this wholesale destruction of innocent trees. Bodies with names like “Arbres et Routes” and “Amis du Terre” (Friends of the Earth) have had some success in gaining the abandonment of some planned tree removals. Of course these groups claim that the answer should be in changing driver behaviour rather than destroying trees.

But there are other opposing groups, such as one called the Anti-Plane Tree Commando, who one night in recent years sawed down 66 trees on a minor road not too far away from here. The same group, believed to be composed of motorcyclists armed with chain saws, were already believed to be responsible for summarily executing 96 plane trees on another stretch of the same road.

So who will win this battle - the tree huggers or the tree thugs?

Well, one thing is for sure - the trees will not be among the winners. And with muddle-headed city hall - the bureaucracy - involved, the odds are definitely on the side of the thugs. In fact, I don't know why they are bothering, when the mairies are doing the job for them. And those b***ers never lose.

No, I don't know how long it will take, but it looks like the end of the road for the trees.

Walking The First Stage - Backwards ...

... and 593 days early.

Yesterday Gay and I walked what is almost certainly the first stage of VBW. But we walked it in the reverse direction, from Mirepoix to Puivert, 29 or 30 kilometres.

We have been wanting to do this for a while, but the difficulty was getting to Mirepoix so that we could set off walking. Of course we could go by car, and often do, but this would leave the car sitting 30 kms from home. The other long walks I have done have been when we have happened to be somewhere, such as Limoux, on other business, then Gay has driven home while I walked.

Public transport, I hear you say. To summarise the public transport available in Puivert. There is a bus service, which goes from Puivert to Quillan (16kms) every Tuesday morning, one way, and there is another bus which triumphantly returns from Quillan to Puivert on Friday afternoon. That's it - I can think of no reason why anybody should want to spend all that time in Quillan, but those are the arrangements.

Monday is market day in Mirepoix. We know of one couple who go to that market sometimes and we had been thinking of trying to catch a ride with them, but have not got round to it. But just lately a notice at the Mairie caught our eye. An enterprising taxi company from Chalabre has set up a taxi-bus service to take people to various markets on the appropriate days - and to bring them back the same day. We homed in on this and telephoned to reserve a seat to Mirepoix yesterday. The taxi will leave Chalabre (8 or 9 kms) at 9, so should be with you about half past, we were told. The taxi would come to the door.

The taxi arrived at 8.50, which is fine for us, but we know people who would not even be out of bed at that time for a scheduled 9.30 departure. We were pleased because it meant we could probably set off early for our 5-hour walk.

Off we set at breakneck speed down the road to Chalabre, which is very sinuous. It was all very alarming. From Chalabre, instead of taking the road to Mirepoix, we headed towards Limoux. Fortunately there was some slow traffic in front of us, which moderated our minibus and made life more comfortable. It also enabled us to observe some extremely alarming overtaking by other vehicles. Even our driver, clearly not averse to a bit of Lewis Hamiltonery, was zutting and throwing his hands in the air.

We turned off the Limoux road and had some exciting times down a single lane track to pick up an elderly woman and her son, then back down some more roads new to us, stopping once more for another woman, arriving in Mirepoix at about 10. Apart from the fact that we were itching to get some breakfast and start the long walk, it was all quite interesting.

I was amazed by the cost of all this. For the two of us, one way to Mirepoix, including the entertainment and tour of the countryside, the cost was 5 Euros. Considering the number of passengers, we can not believe that this service is profitable or that it will be available for long unless more use is made of it.

We went to the splendid boulangerie and bought our breakfast - a pain aux raisins for me and a croissant for Gay - took these to our favourite cafe (there are many in Mirepoix) on the square, had a quick look round the market, then, with a full fuel load, took off.

From Mirepoix to Chalabre the route was off-road, an old railway track. The total number of people we saw on the 21 kms of this track was 6 - 3 lone cyclists, a couple on a tandem, and a woman walking her dogs.

It was quite a warm day, the walk was uneventful, we stopped in the beautiful village of Camon to eat our sandwiches, again in Chalabre for a drink, and arrived home tired but happy, after 5 hours walking