Ardeche and Doux Gorges
Plants sprout from steep rock face
Ardeche steam train
Moored near Tournon, we decided to take the easy outing on the Monday holiday and travel by a vintage steam train up to the top of the hills. 
Stunning scenery – water rushing below us, greenery clinging to and sprouting from impossibly steep, impervious looking rocks, and the rock formations themselves, begging to be photographed. Several of our group caught bits of grit and smoke in their eyes, hair and any other body parts that happened to be in the way of our engines by-products.
The journey brought back memories of my trips to Kalgoorlie when I was four or five. My uncle was someone important (I never thought to ask what his role was) on a gold mine near Kalgoorlie. I travelled there with my grandparents and my mother, so it must have been during the war years, when dad was away in England. The flying cinders and the smell of the coal fired steam captured it all for me.