Today felt rather uneventful, other than my lunch location at Alp Bovine(1987m). I started my day rather late than usual, waking up at about 7.30am. Didn’t have a good night sleep I think bc it rained the whole night. Cold. So cold. The heatpacks from decathlon worked great though, so glad to have packed them. Had breakfast at 8.15 and chatted with a bunch of others doing the Haute route, deciding if they should switch to the TMB. Left camp at 9 and began descending for about an hour into as cute little village Champex d’en Bas and then Plan de I’au. Soon the switchbacks up to Bovine began and I ran into the chirpy Americans- Chris and Stacy again. They are actually doing the TMB to celebrate their 5th wedding anniversary. What a nice idea 🙂

I then had my lunch at the Bovine dortoir. Amazing view. Lunch was ham and bread again, but this time with curry flavoured chips. Yum. Shared some with Bristol girl Laura and she loves them too!

As I started descendng mid-way, it started snowing and I also then bumped into the Beijing tour group again, with Emmanuel their guide. They are always so chirpy and wanting to take pictures with me, so cute lol. And it’s always nice to be a translator between them and Emmanuel bc he doesn’t speak any Mandarin, nor them, any English.

At about 4.30pm we arrived at Col De la Forclaz(together with the rain, of course) and I headed down further to look for camping Le Peuty. But I couldn’t actually locate a proper space despite the signs, so I started searching for sheltered accomodation instead but there seemed to be none. Was using my phone next to a pine tree when I saw two people walking over from Trient. The Danish girls! So funny to meet at such a random spot. So they said there were a couple of hotels in Trient which seemed to be available. They were planning to camp tonight so I went ahead to La Grande Ourse for a private room tonight. Then I saw the Brazilian girl Camila after stepping out of the shower. What amazing coincidence bc I thought we will not meet again after Elisabetta. Haha, so great.

Dinner tonight was pretty good(but best so far is still Bonatti). Had vegetable soup(I think carrot or pumpkin) , beef lasagne and milk pudding with raspberry coulis. Drank so much water that my stomach was so bloated.

My feet and left thigh still hurts especially when it gets cold. I have 2 more stages to go. I hope to finish all of this by foot!

Photos of the day (with caption):

Lunch at Alp Bovine. The view was so gorgeous.

Curry chips, ham and leftover bread for lunch.

Check out my other articles on the Tour du Mont Blanc: