The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
‘Like putting an octopus into a jumper’
Fitting a harness on an energetic husky is just one novel experience among many for Adrian Phillips and his family on an all-action summer holiday in the French Pyrenees
‘Has something eaten its face?” We’re walking through a valley at Piau-Engaly in southwest France, and Matty has found the scattered bones of a sheep. “Ah yes, probably vultures,” says Eric, our guide. “Or,” he adds, with a pause for dramatic effect, “a bear!” Despite my wife Monika’s gentle attempts at dissuasion, Matty collects the skull and the jawbone – “They are nature!” – and busies himself rinsing them in the stream that babbles alongside.
“We can build the sheep back together,” says Kitty, grabbing a few ribs and hurrying to help her brother.
The ski resort nearby is the highest in the French Pyrenees, but there is no snow now. We’ve come in late summer to give our six-year-old twins a taste of the pastoral life. It’s hot. The dawn clouds have long since retreated, abandoning the landscape to the beating of the mid-morning sun. Ridges glare white on the mountains either side, and the valley grass is parched blond.
“This is the driest summer we have known,” Eric tells me. “It is a big problem for the shepherds because there is not enough good grass for their sheep.”
Bones washed and pocketed, we continue along the valley bed, past a herd of cows with clunking bells. Eric crouches at a plant with a purple flower. “Locals make heart medicine from this,” he observes, “but it has to be prepared just right or it’s poisonous. They say it’s a favourite with wives who want to get rid of their husbands! Ah, and this,” he says, moving across to an upright plant with leaves like arrowheads. “It’s called mountain spinach. We eat it in a special soup. It makes me a strong man!” The wiry Eric can’t weigh more than nine stone wet through; I look round to share a smile with my wife, but she is lingering at the purple flower, apparently absorbed in thought about something or other.
Just then, we hear a soft whistle from a clutch of boulders. Our eyes take a moment to find it, but there, camouflaged grey against a flat rock 20yds away, is a beaver-like animal lazing in the sunshine. “A marmot,” Eric says. “Their warning calls can be heard a kilometre away.” The marmot will go into hibernation in a month’s time, and is fat from summer feasting. It grows uneasy as we watch, springing from the rock and scurrying into a hole underneath. The kids poke their heads inside but the marmot is nowhere to be seen. “They have lots of holes, all linked with tunnels, so they can dive down one and pop out of another further up the slope”.
Over the coming days we take other wildlife walks. We follow a forest trail soft with pine needles to a hidden h A river runs through it: the village of Arreau, near the Piau-Engaly valley, below waterfall, where the twins find frogs in pools in the weathered rocks (and, more thrilling still, an enormous drowned slug). We trek to summer pastures above the village of Jézeau, eager eyes peeled for signs of Goiat – a brown bear which has recently moved into the region – and share lunch with a shepherd outside his solitary stone hut. We visit caves stencilled with the handprints of prehistoric people, watch a sweaty, short-tempered farmer milk his goats, buy homemade ice-cream and a heavy wheel of sheep’s cheese from the Thursday market in the medieval village of Arreau, and eat chocolate after chocolate at a family-run chocolate factory. It’s a plunge into local life that would be impossible from inside the frozen globe of a resort at winter time.
The last hurrah of our Pyrenean trip is another woodland walk, but this one is served with a twist. We have come to Base Nordique Sherpa, a husky training centre near Peyragude, which offers outdoor activities for tourists. Dozens of wooden kennels stand among the pine trees like an elfin village, and dogs doze in the shade at their entrances or stand watching our approach with ears pricked in anticipation. There are mainly two breeds kept here, we are told by Elodie, who will be leading today’s walk. “The Siberian huskies are smaller, quicker and cunning like foxes. The Greenland huskies are not so clever, but they are soldiers – they work hard and do as they are told.”
We pair off. Kitty and Monika choose an alert Siberian husky called Pilli with black smudges around her eyes. She lifts a paw and places it in Kitty’s hand. “She likes you!” says Elodie. “Pilli is shy – she only walks with people she trusts.” For us, Matty selects a polar bear of a dog called Happy. “Hmmm, she is a big one, so you must be sporty,” warns Elodie, “but she has the character of her name.” Happy has remained sprawled on the ground, fast asleep and snoring gently. “She should be called Lazy,” says Matty.
Teams of dogs can pull families in wheeled carts, and in winter they use the more traditional husky sleds, but we will be walking today, each adult and child linked to their chosen dog with ropes attached to belts around their waists. Our first task is to get Happy into her harness, which is like putting an octopus into a jumper. As soon as her head is through one loop, her leg has escaped another, and once that leg is in place another has broken free. All the while she takes great pleasure in trying to lick my cheeks. Of course, Monika and Kitty have harnessed Pilli without a hitch, and they watch on in amusement.
Eventually Happy’s harness is on and Elodie gives the group its final instructions. Keep the rope tight, she tells us.
Remember that the dogs pull hard, she warns. Lean back to take the strain, adults, or your kids might go flying. Are we all ready? Yes? Then away we go.
And away we certainly do go. While until now Happy has been the very embodiment of lethargy, Elodie’s command seems to light her touch paper. She’s up in a flash, haunches straining, paws scrabbling for purchase. My feet skid on the dry track as she pulls me forward. “Happy, stop!” I plead in vain, trying and failing to regain some composure. Matty is forced into a swift trot beside me. “Remember,” Elodie calls back helpfully, “you control the speed, not the dog!”
For a short while, the walk alternates between mad dashes after the others in front and excursions into the bracken at the side of the track in pursuit of some scent or other. But gradually I learn how to target Happy’s energy and I can focus instead on the surroundings – the fragrance of the pines, a trio of deer through the branches, a woodpecker’s call. When the gradient steepens, Happy helps to pull us up the slope like a hairy tractor. Matty continues to trot alongside, taking his responsibilities very seriously. “Happy, non!” he says sternly when Happy is tempted to take a diversion. “Happy, devant!” he shouts when he wants her to continue onward.
After 90 minutes we return to base, and Happy dunks herself in the stream before rising to soak me with spray as she shakes dry. For Matty and Kitty, this is of course the perfect end to the walk.
“Pilli’s the best dog I’ve ever met,” Kitty sighs as she bids a sad goodbye. “Will we ever come back?” she asks.
“Probably not,” I reply truthfully, “because there are lots of other places in the world to see.”
“Maybe I’ll bring my kids here, when you’re in heaven,” says Matty. And maybe he will.
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