French paddling and tea-drinking, cake-eating in N.Wales
Four of us utilised Small Robin’s free ferry tickets to France. We were hoping to catch Hawaii-Sur-Rhone in Lyon, but being the Witch of the Weather I figured our chances were probably fairly slim. I was right – the lowest levels of the year produced an uncatchable wave (or so we were told – we never actually made it there!). So what could we do with 4 people, 4 boats and 4 days in the Lyon area of France? Drink wine and sit in cafes was my preferred choice, but the other 3 had other ideas, and daily paddling was on their agenda. A quick search on the good old internet, before we left, gave us a few initial plans. We found out about a slalom course called Isle de la Serre, not far from Lyon at Sault Brenaz. There had been a freestyle competition there the week before we arrived so we figured there must be some feature worth paddling on for a few hours. This course also had a campsite – sorted, for the first night at least.
Barnaby Bear is caught stealing my baguette.
The Isle de la Serre site is a pumped course with pleasantly tepid water, it would be a really good warm up on the way to an Alps trip as, unlike most of our summer-running artificial courses, the flow is fairly fast and it has real rocks! There are a few features down the course, a shallow wave after a lead-in ramp was good for spins and the odd blunt, and there are a couple of other small shallow holes/waves. The main play feature is at the top, it is good for all moves, although it is frustratingly shallow – there was a sweet spot in there somewhere where you didn’t hit the rock when going for loops, unfortunately it was quite hard to find. After a whole morning of hitting bottom we decided our boats needed a rest so we stuck to cartwheel-type manoeuvres in the afternoon! The locals came down early evening though and showed us where the sweet spot was by pulling off some huge aerial loops. All in all it was a fun feature, good enough for us to spend another day there.
I go for a clean cartwheel.
Small Robin lines up for a back loop.
After our second evening of local red wine and good food, we decided it would be a waste to have driven 7 hours through France to spend our time on one pumped slalom course. Time to find a real river. Middle of August, no water, where can we get a river? Only one option: dam-released. So, we headed to Bourg St Maurice, a couple of hours drive from Sault Brenaz. Unfortunately it was the w/e, meaning the water from the dam wasn't releasing all day, and when it did it was a lower flow than during the week. But, we still got a good paddle in. We met up with a group of 3 French boaters to run shuttle. The grade III/IVish slalom section was good fun, although I did the whole thing chase-boating! The following river was enjoyable; ripply sections interspersed with the odd rapid. Not highly adrenalin-pumping, but a nice river trip all the same. A little too long in playboats though – our legs were numb by the end of the river! We found a fairly good playwave partway down but we had our own mobile queue of 7 people and with another 2 boaters there and an eddy full of sperms (aka hydrospeeds) it was slightly too crowded so after a couple of blunts each we moved on down.
We decided we wouldn’t stay for another day as it was further from our destination of Calais, where we had to be the next day. One option would have been to check out another slalom course at St Pierre De Beouf, but we heard rumours (which have since been denied) that the features there were even more shallow than at Sault Brenaz. So we headed back to Isle de la Serre where we were able to get a few hours of paddling in first thing before making our way back to Calais. I had the first hour to myself, as the others were still in bed which provided a good opportunity to practice some back loops without having to queue each time, luckily this time I mainly avoided the rock.
Typically, a week or so after our return, Lyon came up to perfect levels…. But, it was an enjoyable trip and I’m glad we did manage to get some boating done, even if it wasn’t big-wave surfing, although I’m sure we could have fitted in some more sitting in cafés.
N.Wales for tea and cake!
Just a day to relax before Cam and I journeyed up to N.Wales to stay with Lynsey Evans (GB team member and mad outdoors-type) and Bledd (Welsh man). Lynsey had a few days off work and had a whole host of outdoors activities planned for us. We took our mountain bikes and climbing kit, but we left our boats behind – we didn’t think we would have time to boat as well as bike & climb. This was to Lynseys disappointment however, as she had been planning to fit us in for a 7.00am playboating raid on the local tidal race at Swillies and/or Stanley embankment (that girl has far too much energy)!
We spent 6 full-on days either biking or climbing. Lynsey and Bledd showed us their local trails and I felt considerably unfit as they, and Cam, scooted up the hills a long way ahead of me. This has confirmed my decision to go and get a lighter bike of my own (instead of borrowing Cam’s all the time) and to get out and do some more biking.
After a couple of days of biking, Lynsey took us on our first taste of outdoor climbing. There are so many different places and rock-types to do single pitch climbs in N.Wales that we were spoilt for choice. Mainly we were top-roping as it was so easy to set up. Our first day was at Holyhead mountain, followed by a day in the slate quarries, and finally a day somewhere else (some Welsh place, I can’t remember the name of it – but was seemingly popular as there were hundreds of kids there).
Cam and I both got steadily more confident with using and our placing our feet, although I’m sure we were still climbing like paddlers (pulling with our arms too much). We were amazed how tiny hand-holds were actually quite easy to pull up on and our feet occasionally stuck to the rock enabling us to just push against the rock face. So, we started on a v.diff and worked our way up 2 grades each climb finishing on an E1 6a. On our last climb, the most difficult, which seemed to have no hand-holds at all, we were certainly relying on the top rope as a 5th balance point and our feet scrabbled beneath us trying to find some kind of hold to push up on, I’m sure Lynsey hauled us up most of the way on the rope. Next time we’ll hopefully try some lead climbing – but perhaps we’ll start with something a little easier!
A long way to the top!
Cam looks for a good handhold.
By the end of all the climbing and biking activities we were quite thankful that we didn’t have our boats as well, as we would never have fitted in so many tea-drinking and cake-eating sessions, which occurred in the most traditionally British afternoon-manner! Thankfully the weather was dry for most of the week, all in all perfect. Thanks go to Lynsey and Bledd for allowing us to stay and showing us the finer parts of Wales, next time we’ll replace one of our toys with creek boats, as they have promised to introduce us to some of the awesome creekboating that occurs in that part of the country.
Barnaby Bear is caught stealing my baguette.
The Isle de la Serre site is a pumped course with pleasantly tepid water, it would be a really good warm up on the way to an Alps trip as, unlike most of our summer-running artificial courses, the flow is fairly fast and it has real rocks! There are a few features down the course, a shallow wave after a lead-in ramp was good for spins and the odd blunt, and there are a couple of other small shallow holes/waves. The main play feature is at the top, it is good for all moves, although it is frustratingly shallow – there was a sweet spot in there somewhere where you didn’t hit the rock when going for loops, unfortunately it was quite hard to find. After a whole morning of hitting bottom we decided our boats needed a rest so we stuck to cartwheel-type manoeuvres in the afternoon! The locals came down early evening though and showed us where the sweet spot was by pulling off some huge aerial loops. All in all it was a fun feature, good enough for us to spend another day there.
I go for a clean cartwheel. Small Robin lines up for a back loop.After our second evening of local red wine and good food, we decided it would be a waste to have driven 7 hours through France to spend our time on one pumped slalom course. Time to find a real river. Middle of August, no water, where can we get a river? Only one option: dam-released. So, we headed to Bourg St Maurice, a couple of hours drive from Sault Brenaz. Unfortunately it was the w/e, meaning the water from the dam wasn't releasing all day, and when it did it was a lower flow than during the week. But, we still got a good paddle in. We met up with a group of 3 French boaters to run shuttle. The grade III/IVish slalom section was good fun, although I did the whole thing chase-boating! The following river was enjoyable; ripply sections interspersed with the odd rapid. Not highly adrenalin-pumping, but a nice river trip all the same. A little too long in playboats though – our legs were numb by the end of the river! We found a fairly good playwave partway down but we had our own mobile queue of 7 people and with another 2 boaters there and an eddy full of sperms (aka hydrospeeds) it was slightly too crowded so after a couple of blunts each we moved on down.
We decided we wouldn’t stay for another day as it was further from our destination of Calais, where we had to be the next day. One option would have been to check out another slalom course at St Pierre De Beouf, but we heard rumours (which have since been denied) that the features there were even more shallow than at Sault Brenaz. So we headed back to Isle de la Serre where we were able to get a few hours of paddling in first thing before making our way back to Calais. I had the first hour to myself, as the others were still in bed which provided a good opportunity to practice some back loops without having to queue each time, luckily this time I mainly avoided the rock.
Typically, a week or so after our return, Lyon came up to perfect levels…. But, it was an enjoyable trip and I’m glad we did manage to get some boating done, even if it wasn’t big-wave surfing, although I’m sure we could have fitted in some more sitting in cafés.
N.Wales for tea and cake!
Just a day to relax before Cam and I journeyed up to N.Wales to stay with Lynsey Evans (GB team member and mad outdoors-type) and Bledd (Welsh man). Lynsey had a few days off work and had a whole host of outdoors activities planned for us. We took our mountain bikes and climbing kit, but we left our boats behind – we didn’t think we would have time to boat as well as bike & climb. This was to Lynseys disappointment however, as she had been planning to fit us in for a 7.00am playboating raid on the local tidal race at Swillies and/or Stanley embankment (that girl has far too much energy)!
We spent 6 full-on days either biking or climbing. Lynsey and Bledd showed us their local trails and I felt considerably unfit as they, and Cam, scooted up the hills a long way ahead of me. This has confirmed my decision to go and get a lighter bike of my own (instead of borrowing Cam’s all the time) and to get out and do some more biking.
After a couple of days of biking, Lynsey took us on our first taste of outdoor climbing. There are so many different places and rock-types to do single pitch climbs in N.Wales that we were spoilt for choice. Mainly we were top-roping as it was so easy to set up. Our first day was at Holyhead mountain, followed by a day in the slate quarries, and finally a day somewhere else (some Welsh place, I can’t remember the name of it – but was seemingly popular as there were hundreds of kids there).
Cam and I both got steadily more confident with using and our placing our feet, although I’m sure we were still climbing like paddlers (pulling with our arms too much). We were amazed how tiny hand-holds were actually quite easy to pull up on and our feet occasionally stuck to the rock enabling us to just push against the rock face. So, we started on a v.diff and worked our way up 2 grades each climb finishing on an E1 6a. On our last climb, the most difficult, which seemed to have no hand-holds at all, we were certainly relying on the top rope as a 5th balance point and our feet scrabbled beneath us trying to find some kind of hold to push up on, I’m sure Lynsey hauled us up most of the way on the rope. Next time we’ll hopefully try some lead climbing – but perhaps we’ll start with something a little easier!
A long way to the top!Cam looks for a good handhold.
By the end of all the climbing and biking activities we were quite thankful that we didn’t have our boats as well, as we would never have fitted in so many tea-drinking and cake-eating sessions, which occurred in the most traditionally British afternoon-manner! Thankfully the weather was dry for most of the week, all in all perfect. Thanks go to Lynsey and Bledd for allowing us to stay and showing us the finer parts of Wales, next time we’ll replace one of our toys with creek boats, as they have promised to introduce us to some of the awesome creekboating that occurs in that part of the country.
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