Ok as promised here is the blog of our recent trip to the Ardeche.
The holiday to france came about when during the summer we was planning our hols. This would my first holiday abroad since about 1994. So there was a lot riding on how it would turn out. Anyway we looked around and found a deal where we could camp in the Ardeche gorge and for the first week have an adventure holiday followed by a nice relaxing week camping. The cost of this trip was going to be about £350 each for the first week and £60 between us for the second week.
As the summer passed and the rains fell we eventually decided that enough was enough we wanted some sun. So instead of France we booked to go to Turkey for two weeks for a bit of luxury. I looked around and found a couple of off road trips and a river canoe trip that looked interesting. So with a couple of weeks to go we booked a posh hotel and flights……started buying new clothes for the trip and packed away all of our camping kit from the garage so we could put the car in it. With a week to go the cases came out and started to be loaded up etc etc you all know how it goes.
Thursday morning, three days to go and I am getting giddy now.
Now any of you who have been keeping up with current affairs will know what happened next……….. we finished work on the Thursday night, go to bed all excited, just to wake up on the Friday morning to find out that XL air had gone bankrupt ……… typical. Lin was due in work so I spent all day attempting to organise alternative flights and travelling arrangements. As you can expect with no success. The best we could find was flights to Turkey for 7 nights for double the price we had originally paid. As we had been told we would get our money back for the flights (this would probably take about 3 months) we kept trying all day. We finally gave up at 2 am Saturday morning and went to bed dismayed. We got up on Saturday morning and tried again. After trying every option to get to Turkey we sat down and had a brew and weighed up our options…….two weeks hols in the rain.
Now any of you who have met my better half will know what a driven, determined woman she is so after a brew we started looking at alternatives. Then we remembered the trip to france……… a quick dig through our emails and we found the telephone number for the campsite in the Ardeche. A couple of phone calls later, some time on the web and we had booked the ferry and the campite. That meant that I had to frantically dig out all of the camping kit and organise it for the trip ready for the next day. By about 10 pm sat night we had all of the kit sorted and ready in the garage with all of our clothes packed into dry bags and barrels. A few beers later and an early night ready for the big day.
We got up Sunday and while Lin ran around and sorted out a few final bits of kit I loaded the car and we got ready for the off. The ferry was due to sail at 2.15 am and we had to be there for 1.45. We decided to set off nice and early to have a relaxing drive down…….. and landed in Dover about 5 hours later, a few hours early. Not to worry we booked in and they let us on an earlier ferry ….whoohoo finally a result !
Another result was a dream of a crossing dead calm. 1 hour 30 mins later we pulled into Calais and then the wacky races started off the ferry and down the road. This was my first time driving abroad and it was pitch black on the roads……scary. Lin rested while I did the first stint in france. I managed a good few hours before I had to pull over in one of the many stopping points along the route. As I had a stretch lin jumped into the driving seat for the next part…….. Up to now it had been easy dual carrigeway / motorway driving. Shortly after Lin got in the car Tom Tom took us into central Pairs…..why oh why did we follow it blindly. It was 6 am France time and the roads got stupidly busy all of a sudden. Some crazy driving later and we pulled out of Paris. Much to our relief. All that was left to do was keep driving. We took it in turns, a couple of hours each as we drove down through the centre of France.
Finally we pulled into our destination, Vallon pont d’arc. Now it was just 7 k more to the campsite. Along the road to the site was a sight that made it all worth while…..this
Buoyed by this stunning view we arrived at the campsite, Camping de gorges. We was told just to find a spot and see the owner later. A couple of short hours later and we was set up. This was the view from in front of out tent. Not bad ehh???? Lol
Yes that is the Ardeche river.
After a short kip we went for a walk down and explored the river. At the bottom of the steps when we looked down river we saw this,
and shortly up river from our camp this,
It just made the drive worth it. Trust me the piccys do not do the area justice. As the sun went down the gorge looked like it was on fire. The rock walls that during the day had been off white just lit up. Stunning is the only word for it.
The next couple of days were spent relaxing and chilling out on the bank of the river watching all of the rental boats paddle down river. Now these sit on top boats were rented out to anybody who turned up so we saw some scary sights paddling past. As the river is full of fish we decided to have a go. Actually we fished on several days…….and caught nothing lol.
After a couple of days relaxing we spent the afternoon in Vallon pont darc. This little village is based on toursim but not in a bad way.
This car made us chuckle as it drove around all day clanking and banging its way around town. I think it was a diesel and was to be found parked all over town usually bumped up against something lol
Anyway onto the part that you have all been waiting for …… The river.
We looked around at a few of the rental places and picked the only one that had a real open canoe, an old town. We paid a premium for this canoe as you could rent a sit on top for 29 euros each. We paid 35 euros each for the old town. This included BA’s, paddles, the canoe and the shuttle back from the finish. We decided that as we wanted to paddle under the arc and spend longer on the water than a couple of hours we opted for the full 32 k paddle that they recommend as a 2 day paddle and opted to do it in 1 day.
After the put in there was a couple of small rapids to warm you up
before hitting the 3 arrow rapid sportifs. This was a rock garden with a couple of ways through. We obviously chose the hard way….. it looked the best from above the rapid. Lol
Then onto the arc
A few short easy rapids later and the river opened out
Now one of the advantages to camping along the river was that if you forget anything like suncream( as we did ) You can stop off and collect it. This picky was taken from the front of out tent.
Shortly after this picky we hit the hardest / most technical rapid along the river and span around entering the rapid backwards……spotting an eddy we side-slipped into it…….it turned out not to be and just flat water. As the river pushed us into some tree strainers we both leaned the same way at the same time and capsized the canoe. Flowing down river through the rapid in the safe swimmer position . I lost yet another hat. We managed to pull the canoe and ourselves into an eddy and get out onto the bank mid rapid. After a difficult bail out, we planned how to get back in and avoid the next 3 big rocks and the fastest part of the rapid. Hhhhhmmmmm not really sure about this maybe the river is more technical than we can manage…….. a bit late to find this out halfway down the gorge. So it was time to man up and get on with it. Back into the canoe and passed through the rest of the rapid with ease…….lol what was we worried about lol.
I will shut up for a while now and let the river do the talking.
Had to sneak one in lol
At one of the our stop off’s I took this…..now consider that this was a 16/17 foot canoe and only half the rock face got into the picky
After a good few hours on the river the gorge ended and the river got a lot wider and deeper.
We paddled to the get out point into the wind and waited for the car shuttle feeling very happy and sated at completing the river.
A few days later we met up with another couple of brits who had an inflatable.
Hi Andrew and Rachael .
They kindly lent us their canoe during the second week and we had another paddle.
The top rapids before the arc.
The rest of the holiday was spent doing other things like horse riding…..scary as I had never been on a horse before. Lin has ridden and owned horses before so was right at home. We did an hour long trek into the mountains thru rivers and woodland. Really good fun after I calmed down and started to get on with my horse Jac.
We also went to see some stunning caves. The best being the Aven d’orgnac which is at it deepest ( on the tourist guided trip) 122 meters below ground.
This cave system had a good museum outside with living history classes for school kids and a tipi……I was missing my tipi.
Now so all is not about how good my holiday was I did some kit testing. Before I went on hols I treated myself to an Alpkit gourdon. The 20 l version and I wanted to see how good it was. So off into the river I went.
Look closely and you can see my head mid river. With the bag fully under the water. I swam across the river and emptied the kit out re-filled it and swam back.
The gourdon performed perfectly everything was dry and I could swim with it on my back even when it was full of kit. I cannot recommend it enough.
I know that this blog is very pic heavy but here are a few more I wanted to share.
On the way home we figured that all in all we had had a great time. I think the smiles say it all
To sum up the trip we drove over 2500 miles, paddled 40 + km and turned a disaster into a great holiday……cant wait to return.
Sorry for the blog being so long and pic heavy, If you have made it this far I hope it has been worth it.
Cheers Greg
