We left London one hot morning, to catch a 9 hour cheap bus to Paris, which wasn't too bad a journey. We had a hotel booked in Paris, which strangely was just as cheap as a hostel, and none of the hostels had a vacancy. I started to get sick on our first night in Paris with a sore throat, neck and headaches. It got worse the next two days we were there and included pretty heavy fever which was s***… Still managed to enjoy numerous pastries and treats… It culminated on the day we left when we were catching the metro to a big train station with our packs and gear, my vision went bright and very blurry and I thought I was going to faint/vomit! We left Paris late in the evening via a night train that brought us to Gap in the south-western foothills of the alps, which was a s***ty night journey but we made it! We caught a taxi up here to the campsite in Ceuse and the cab driver was nice enough to take us past the supermarket and camping store before bringing us up.I spent the first few days of camping trying to beat the viral thing, and went to a doctor to play charades in exchange for antibiotics.

Finally though, I was feeling better and it was time to climb!!! Ceuse is one of the most known sport climbing areas world-wide. It is relatively hardcore by European standards apparently, maybe because of the steep 45-minute hike to the top or the quite basic camping.Because of this I'm guessing it's not as busy as it could be. Once at the top, there are stunning big blue-and-grey streaked limestone cliffs with long and technical climbing. An 80-metre rope here is pretty standard as most routes go easily past the 30-metre mark. The view is very good over the baby Alps as well! It hasn't felt hard here at all, except maybe the hitchhiking to get groceries on our rest days. Now we have enough groceries to last well over a week, including vegies, cheese and ridiculously cheap red wine. Our cheese intake has been massive, mainly because the farm at the campsite sells an unreal Camembert for just over a Euro. There is also a goat farm nearby that makes their own cheese and bread organically. Pastries have been dropping like flies in our presence on rest days also; there is a particularly good patisserie we found in town that had a line out the door one day. Luckily we have the big walk up the hill to do climbing and keep us fit…

We have been here for two weeks now, with two weeks more to go. It has been really nice to just stop and camp here for this long. I doubt we will move quickly through the climbing areas in Europe, as a month feels like the minimum you would spend in these big areas. Spain looks like it is next on the hit list, a place named Rodellar first up.Rodellar is a huge climbing area with well-equipped campsites, bars and restaurants for the climbers.It does sound like luxury compared to here. It will also be warmer! We have similar temps up here to Sydney winter, and as I sit here tonight it is less than 10 degrees =( I have every piece of warm clothing on including double pants. We have port and spicy chorizo pasta to help keep us warm though, it probably just means an early night before climbing tomorrow =)