A pig of a start from a woodland bower. Nellie, still nervous, did nothing to help. The path was treacherous and finally became impossible – flights of vertical steps bordered by iron railings. We had to turn round and find an alternative, which after much GPS consultation, Paul finally did, though with a large number of additional kilometres. On our way a couple of park rangers stopped to talk and admire Nellie – they also mentioned that camping in the Park was forbidden and horses had to stay on the broad paths – whoops!
Finally, after a number of painful descents and ascents, we came down into Mouans Sartoux where we stopped for lunch. As is often the case, Nellie was the centre the attention and one man, Pascal, took particular interest in her because he had driven a pair of Merens horses himself – he said that he was a great fan of the breed. When we asked the restaurant owner if he knew of a hotel nearby, with a piece of grass where we could possibly install Nellie, Pascal invited us back to his house which was just a few kilometres away – in brief – we stayed in his caravan, Nellie took over the garden, we later had a barbecue with his wife, Françoise, and we can expect a visit from them soon - good friends.
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