Day 10 - coffee & canoes

Having finished my arrival beer, put my tent up & had a refreshing swim in the Ardeche, I very quickly discovered that my chosen campsite was in no mood for entertaining food. And so I went off in search for dinner.

I then discovered that nowhere else was in the mood for serving food either. Apparently lazy Lundi had also been a bank holiday and therefore - obviously - lazy Lundi carried over to miserable Mardi. 

Coming out of my campsite by complete chance I bumped into Greg, my Welsh friend who I’d met on the climb out of Villefort. He too was struggling to find somewhere to eat so we continued our search together. Finally we stumbled across a bar which was open; they weren’t serving food but they were serving beer so we stopped for a re-think.

We ended up walking 20 minutes back to Greg’s hotel and tried our luck for food there. They were full but found us a seat. The good was fantastic: tapas made almost entirely from produce of their land. We enjoyed a great evening, each reminiscing and comparing notes from the journey so far. 

Great way to spend the evening of my birthday; I’d had a fab day!

I enjoyed a relaxing start to the day and managed to negotiate some breakfast at the campsite. I had planned to try a canoe trip down the Ardeche however the likelihood of being able to negotiate that as well was looking slim. Eventually I saw a large Dutch party forming around the canoe hire area; I wondered over and looked confident enough that I was booked onto this trip. That seemed to work; I signed my life away and parted with 27Euros then climbed onto a minibus with a trailer of canoes on the back. 

After a while I began to wander how far we were going, the journey seemed to go on and on, and I knew no Dutch to enquire with my fellow passengers. Fortunately I knew roughly where we were since I recognised the roads from my ride yesterday.

Finally we stopped and offloaded. We were on the 13km trip apparently - that suited me fine. I enjoyed a fun 2 hours following the river and riding the rapids. The river level was low & I and others bottomed out on a few occasions but it was a great trip. 

Landing back at the campsite, I optimistically tried to get some lunch however wasn’t successful (they only serve food at weekends apparently so I’d have a long wait). 

I ordered a beer anyway and listened whilst the campsite owner explained the reasons for the low river levels. Essentially the Ardeche gets its water from snow melt or big winter storms, but only when the wind blows from the south, since the clouds moving from the south will dump water in the Ardeche valley; otherwise most of the rain or snow falls on the other side and ends up in the Rhône.

It’s a big problem; clearly the canoeing and tourism is a huge industry for the region - if the levels consistently fall too low for the rapids to be navigated, the implications could be dire.

I took a stroll back to Pont d’Arc and found a lovely Auberge. I took a table in the shade of some trees and enjoyed a plat de jour of chicken casserole followed by apple tart.

I then spent the afternoon snoozing and reading on the beach before meandering back to my tent and packing up ready to hit the road again in the morning. 

Day 11 could be a shock to the system after a days rest: 145km and almost 1500m of climbing. Oh, and 40mph winds are forecast through the valley. Eek.