Day 14 (Friday 11th July)
It’s the last day of the holiday, so everyone is a bit down.
Thankfully, the weather seems determined to cheer us all up, so we leave for
the Gyronde in brilliant sunshine. The Gyronde is an interesting river, as it
starts at grade 6, drops to 5, 4+, 4 then 3 at the footbridge, then 2, then it’s
a 1/2 float to L’Argentierre slalom course on the Durance. If you don’t like
what you see, you can just walk further downstream.
All through the time we’ve been here, the river has been
running quite high due to some sort of confusion of hydro schemes that also
meant the Durance gorge had no water in it. Today, however, it is at a perfect
level and the whole group is getting on.
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| The Gyronde put in. |
After running a shuttle to the slalom site and finding a
convenient tree to hide my car under, we head down to the river. The first path
down looks a lot more like a cliff than it does a path, so I opt to follow Rory
and Raffa a little further down to a slightly less vertical slide to the river.
Walking with creekboats is wildly overrated, so we decline to walk up the river
any further. Also, there is a nice eddy right where we are. Those who had gone
down the cliff put in join us and off we go straight into the maelstrom.
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| Rory in the put in eddy. |
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| Amy and Raffa. You can see the river getting steeper upstream! |
The water is as blue as the sky and full of frothing white.
I shoot down the first drop and blast through a big hole. Somehow I end up in a
micro eddy in the middle of the river and remember to breathe. Chris is leading
my group, so when I see him peel out of an eddy above I follow on behind and we
eddy hop the rest of the grade 4 to the bridge. The rest of the group is
waiting there for us. We relax, bouncing down nice grade 3, changing up the
lead in each large eddy we find.
The difficulty drops again and soon we come to
the weir, at this level an easy boof on the left. The river from here is grade
1/2 and we float along in the sunshine.
A quick party surf on a small wave in
the middle of town and we’re here, back where we started. We catch some eddies
on the way down the slalom course, surf some diagonals.
The final eddy comes
too quickly and we’re done, out on the bank, watching the others bounce down.
In an echo of our first day, we eat lunch on the grass by
the cars, man-wiches all round.
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| Photo by Jon Wyles. |
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| This bug fell out of the tree onto Andre! |
Some people are keen for more paddling and head
to the Guisane for a second run. Others paddle back to camp down the Durance. I
drive my car back while the masters of the BBQ visit the supermarché to buy
large quantities of meat.
Back at the campsite, the deep blue Lac is inviting, so some
of us go swimming. It’s colder than it looks, but actually nice and refreshing.
We swim across and back and some of the more adventurous do some rope swinging.
Eventually we wander back to camp and potter about tidying and packing. I empty
my car and find most of the world’s plastic bottles. The BBQ is roaring – too hot
to get near!
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| Photo by Jon Wyles |
I cook all my leftover stuff for dinner while the others
have burgers and sausages and chicken bits if you’re not Rory. At the
supermarché I had bought a giant melon, so I slice it into lots of bits and
pass them round.
Then it’s packing time and tidying time and making sure
everything is in the right car time. I don’t think the Austria-bound guys would
appreciate it if we took their tents away!
Day 15
We wake up to rain. It matches our mood fairly well,
especially as it’s way too early. Sad to see us all go, the Austria guys have
woken up too, and help me stuff my very wet tent into its teeny wee carry bag.
Off we go in the rain. Rain rain rain. The supermarket in Briançon is shut.
Dave and I, desperate for morning coffee, are distinctly unimpressed.
The pass over the Alps towards Grenoble would probably be
really spectacular if we weren’t in the clouds. A loooooong drive down and we
find a supermarket. Coffee!
We change drivers at Grenoble and as Dave starts us off on
the long motorway north I have a nice sleep. Not quite awake, we manage to fail
spectacularly at one of the toll gates and get a bit lost around Lyon. Our next
driver change occurs at the busiest service station ever.
At Calais we find a fuel station and top up before returning
to the land of expensive diesel. Then we get really lost in Calais in a saga
that shall be termed the case of the Missing McDonalds That Wasn’t Worth it
When We Actually Found It. We arrive at the ferry terminal five minutes too
late to catch the early ferry.
Point worth noting: Calais ferry terminal is really boring.
I make it driving from Dover to Ascot at stupid o’clock through
sheer force of will and the promise of sleep on a comfy sofa.
Day 16
Jon brings me coffee. I kind of want to hug him. The drive
back to St Andrews is a blur of service stations and pointedly remembering to
drive on the left. I only slip up once, and that’s in the back roads of Ascot
with no other cars in sight. The passengers are very quick to let me know about
it!
Back in St Andrews we dump boats in the shed and passengers at
their various houses. I drive home and collapse on the sofa, so glad I booked
an extra holiday tomorrow!
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