I am working on the computer which is balanced on a rubbish bin outside the toiletblock by our tent. My mobile phone is also plugged in recharging and lying on the edge of the drain!
Before I left Cornwall last year I read a book called Waterlog by the late Roger Deakin and I find it has stuck with me – memories of some of his wild outdoor water adventures have become permanent images in my imagination and they help me when I am hesitating to take the plunge. If he could fling himself into an icy lake in Cumbria then surely I can do the same in the Pyranees? Over the past year I have swum of course many times in the sea but also in mountain rivers, lakes, woodland pools and, for sometime in the future, there is the tantalising dream of a dip in a totally wild unspoilt natural hot water mineral pool.
This favourite pool is deep and mysterious and isolated – you walk a long way up river to get there and are rewarded with a magical setting. I am sure Les Dones D’Aigua live here. That strange shape is my reflection in the water – it was totally clear.
A deceptively gentle looking river – it was impossible to swim upstream against the current. Had to wear my bathing costume here so it lacked that ‘je ne sais quoi’ of wildness.
Duna’s first long swim – like me she prefers calm waters.
These last pictures are of another hidden pool in the mountains of Montseny. Almost too cold even for me – but I did it!
And the dream of an open air natural hot spring? I heard of one close to the Bains of St Thomas in Catalunya Nord but we were leaving that day so it waits for next time….