For a Catholic Country, Easter Sunday was pretty uneventful here in Bonnieux. The church bells rang more often than usual however that was about it. There was more interest in the annual Pottery Fair. Its a 2 day fair and people flooded into town all morning. I didn't trust myself as I would have looked for a very fragile coffee cup and saucer and spent the next three weeks trying not to break it in transit. I didn't go however Ches did.

After a lunch of cheeses, tomato, various meets and sausages and a glass of Seigneurie de Mille, we decided on afternoon doing the Aigue Brun Loop, which is very close to home.

The danger in letting an Aussie like Tom loose in the Luberon is that he wants to take every goat track over mountains and down gorges. The shortest route is selected every time. We asked him to help us get to Buoux and after he tried two different goat tracks I said I'd rather take the Loumarin road and link up with the road in the bottom of the gorge. We compromised and it was both fortunate and unfortunate that we did.

It was fortunate because the paved road he selected along the top of the mountain took us past many estates being renovated and the lavender fields. The estates are being bought up by the likes of JC Van Damme and the lavender fields at this time of the year just a silvery grey but quite scenic and we could imagine what they would be like in summer. Not for the first time today, we also imagined what the traffic would be like in summer and are glad to be doing the trip now.

It was unfortunate only in that the road down into the gorge was barely wide enough for one car and for any oncoming traffic one of us had to find enough space to squeeze off the road and let the other pass. We descended deeper and deeper into the gorge. and thankfully the signs to Fort Buoux were frequent.

Buoux seemed so small I don't know that we missed anything by not stopping. There didn't seem to be any carpark or anywhere to stop anyway. It's in the bottom of the gorge, so where to find flat land anyway. Through the village, I attempted to enter the first carpark along the river. This is the river which was packed solid with the cars of people either trout fishing, sitting in sun-chairs or climbing the cliffs. The gradient was around 50degrees and I had to back out. That was fun.

By this time Ches remembered that the guide books had advised that you should bypass the first couple of carparks and look for the one on the right that was near the entrance to Fort Buoux. No mention of all the cars parked along the side of the road that reduced the width to about 9/10ths of the width of a car. We found one of only two or three spots left and put all our bits and pieces into the boot as advised by everyone and any guidebook you care to name.

As we began up the track, we could see dozens of people climbing the sheer cliffs across the other side of the gorge and 300 or so metres further up the track we passed under the largest "baume" in the Luberon (a natural cave beneath overhanging cliffs). Human habitation here and in other caves in the surrounding cliffs date back to prehistoric times, It is absolutely massive.

Another couple of hundred metres or so on we came to the roman terraces. From what we have read, these were possibly to use as fields for growing food as there isn't any sign of any land anywhere else that would have provided them.

At this point, I saw people coming down a track that lead deeper into the gorge. We had left all our guide books etc in the car, so just set off up the track. We did seem to remember that the guuidebooks had said that it was a short and fairly steep ascent. We walked on for around 20 minutes or so climbing up into the scrub till we reached the foot of the staircase carved into the side of the cliff. Ches recollected some mention of "hidden staircase". I reached it first and despite the fact that is was at a gradient of around 50degrees, climbed to the first level (maybe 30 steps), on turning around, I saw that the next flight of 60 or more steps were carved into the side of the cliff at a gradient of 60 degrees or steeper, almost vertical. Sheer cliff above on the right hand side and a sheer cliff drop on the left hand side.

Anyone who knows me really well knows that I am absolutely terrified of heights. I mean terrified. I grew up around the cliffs at Watsons Bay and saw enough shattered bodies brought up from the base of The Gap to embed a fear that is beyond reason.

I videoed Ches climbing the first flight and then up the staircase and declared that I would never see the Fort as there was no way I could climb the staircase. Five minutes of applying reason and I set out up the staircase. On hands and knees, pressed to the right hand side cliff face my head turned in to the corner of each step and avoiding ever looking at the sheer drop to my left, I slowly climbed to the top. Ches walked up behind me.

If nothing else, I had achieved something I never could have expected. Of course I still had the descent to worry about however we were high enough to get access for my phone so I figured we could always call for a helicopter rescue.. At the top, we were still 20m below the absolute top. Confronted by tangled scrub and faint white arrows and "X's", we couldn't see a way to go on. We resigned ourselves to never actually seeing the fort.

The Winn's had written that they found the summit so spiritual, they often stayed for hours just to soak up the atmosphere. I figured it was to get over the climb.

We headed back down; me on my bum going one step at a time with eyes averted from the cliff and focused on the next step. At the bottom I declared my jeans ready to throw away because the backside was worn through and stained!!!!!!

We walked back down the track and on approaching the small farmhouse near the terraces saw kids tripping and skipping down a track that lead off to the left.

Aha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This was the path that was steep but short up to the fort. By this stage Ches's hips were in agony. We pressed on however and climbed to the summit and the fort in around 10 minutes. Unfortunately Ches was too far gone to walk on along the ridge to the main buildings and the graves cut into the rocks (similar to the Abbey near Arles). Instead we sat and took in the atmosphere of the buildings around the entrance to the fort. This is where there is the main lookout tower that allowed the Romans to keep watch over the main road that lead form Italy into Gaul.

I'll let the photos do the talking.

Ches was becoming concerned that with all the rock climbers etc in the gorge that their would be congestion on the road trying to get out, so we set off back to the car.

Rather than climb bsck up the road we had come down, we just followed the road down the gorge till we came to the turnoff that we used when returning from Loumarin. Back home, we hopped into the white wine and demolished our easter eggs.

Around 8.00 I started to cook dinner. I melted the lardons of smoked pancetta in a frying pan, added the halved brussel sprouts and then dressed them with honey and balsamic vinegar. We boiled the chats and then sliced and fried them. Pan fried the sliced round courgette and finally grilled the lamb cutlets. How good is French lamb?