264- A hike in a new city !

Yesterday, In the nick of time for #52weekgratitude's topic of week 32, a friend invited me to hike in a city I'd never visited before. Or rather, in a forest, located at the northernmost part of said city - Châtel Guyon. 

It was a beautiful, warm day to go on such a hike, with a total of 400 meters slope, as this region is rather mountainous. It wasn't overly hot, and we had both carried long sleeves in our backpacks, recommended for all mountain-hikes. 


We enjoyed each other's company, good talks and an overall easy pace - even though it climbed a bit more than we had anticipated. 

The air was fresh, the people we met were rather friendly, and we saw a couple of "older than dirt" elderly who were picking and collecting rocks, steadily going downhill as we were returning to the car after nearly 2 hours of hike (we did take our time to drink water and eat a bit, and, very lucky and nice to discover enough benches to sit upon in these woods. )

As it was my first hike in a year, I didn't want to over-exert my body, so I hadn't taken my heavy tripod, but had taken my digital camera and a macro-attachement lens, as macro is my fav photography - coming closer to my subjects, consisting of plants, small leaves, and insects. 

Thus, during this particular hike, I took shots of grasshoppers - there were tons of them, but I didn't have time to photograph too many, so here I show you a rather freshly molten one, and another, more adult (I assume) and which was a huge challenge because I could barely find him on my screen in the bright day, and it was quite well camouflaged.

We ran into very few butterflies, one of which got a bit scared at first and closed his wings, but after a short minute, decided the situation was safe enough to re-open them. Thus, I managed to take these shots quite close, although when the wings were shut, I manifestly shook a bit as the result isn't totally clear. I retained this file, because it had a certain charm despite this imperfection. 

Here are two montages of these butterflies 

We learned that these woods have many animals, carved in wood, but the few paths we took brought us only to these few. 

On the way back home, my friend let me photograph this odd fountain in Châtel itself....

... and further on the road, I enjoyed the light and clouds, and shot this from the moving car. (and it's barely edited at all!). 

I took a few other photos, but you see the best of them in this entry.

Digital photography, hikes and spending time with friends are some of my self-care practices - which I enjoy whenever I can do them, and hope to resume soon, before summer ends and autumn brings with it rain and colder temperatures. 

I hope these have sparked a bit of interest, as it's a different kind of blog entry, and shall meet you soon for more.