The Hiking Club

La Randonnee: 18 clicks around the beach. The views are nice but I'll be sore tomorrow

CARRO - We started the (in)famous hiking club today. Led by the irrepressible Isabel, it's a group that has been around for years and includes a lot of the parents from CIPEC and IBS (the two international schools where most of the ex pat kids go). Isabel charts a new course every week and leads the charge through the mountains, across the beaches, or wherever that week's death march is destined for. She grades the hikes on scale based on difficulty so it seems like you can bow out gracefully in advance if you aren't up for a torture climb up Saint Victoire, for example (she even warns about her tougher hikes: - "zee people with vertigo should probably not consider this walk").

Our inaugural hike (a 4 on the Isabel scale) was along the Mediterranean coast by the seaside town of Carro with a goal of having lunch on the beach at Sainte Croix. We arrived late to the start point due to my navigational error while riding shot gun with our friend Audrey, but Isabel was waiting patiently for us. I was half expecting to have to drop and give her 50, but she is a kind task master. Meanwhile, most of  the 50-odd hikers and numerous dogs (Isabel says the numbers will drop off once the hikes get tougher and the weather gets cooler), were already off and walking. We caught up to the group (by-passing the botanical garden, darn) and then proceeded to scale the smallish hills and traverse the relatively (by Med standards) sandy beaches around some very scenic inlets, which are called calanques in this part of the world - technically a calanque is an inlet surrounded by limestone cliffs or rocks, which are fairly common along the Cote D'Azur here. The walk was moderately challenging but we kept a decent pace through most of the 18 or so kilometers (one of the other parents had a GPS watch which told us we were at the 9KM mark when we stopped for lunch at the turnaround point). Our newly bought Decathlon hiking shoes and backpacks served us well, we blistered only slightly and, most importantly we had time for a drink at the cafe in Carro at the end of the day before heading off to school pick up.

Audrey & Toni look for navigational assistance. The dog only speaks French so he's no help

Isabel is a great leader and is in fantastic shape - we caught a glimpse of her six pack abs when she took a swim at the St Croix beach where we stopped for lunch - and she's a grandmother? We're looking forward to her leadership of the hiking club being as means to see other cool places in the region (and to catch up on the gossip), but I'll be checking the web site in advance to see when the vertigo-inducing walks are planned.

The hiking group on Day One. Let's see how many show up when we scale Saint Victoire in the snow