I KEYED YOU... I KEYED YOU NOT

The above title is an example of the wonderful humour I must endure from my other half, Mike. Although you kind of had to be there to find it funny. Be where you ask? In France of course what else does a girl do with a week of paid holiday, so to the Ardeche I went and I am bitterly regretting stepping on that plane to leave.

 

Mike and I have had an amazing week with our usual adventurous and slightly mad exploits from walking down pitch black caves in a gorge to swimming the rivers and jumping from strange little holes worn through the rock to plunge into the water below. I’ll confess I regretted that too because our ears were painful all night!

So it was to Nimes first after my rather interesting and extended journey to the land of the frogs and I swear I had landed in Rome; we visited a colosseum, a temple and gardens teeming with statues, pools and canals. The sun gloriously beat down all day and we had a jolly old framing the rock. It was a like a rock jungle for climbers! Then we had a journey down the gorge road ogling the sights from the viewpoints, before retiring to bed for a long sleep definitely for me and hopefully to wake up with repaired ears.

time. Back to the Segries PGL centre and I was introduced to many of Mike’s staff friends most of which referred to me as Mrs Hood which is quite unsettling but still a little amusing. The little liar that he was had booked us into one of the chalets for a week instead of bumming around in hammocks like I thought so we set up our little fort for the week and went off down to a mysterious place called Pont d’ Arc. And at first glance it was truly magical, an enormous natural arch framing the river beneath and on closer inspection from the water we found little holes we could jump from and a sort of chasm you could swim into that quite reminded me of a natural cathedral. Mike then took me up river hopping barefoot across the rocks to show me another of his treasures, (the name eludes me), but just up the river was a great little climbing venue with huge stalagtites and tufas (that's what Mike called them anyway).

Mike took me to the Cascades the next day, he said there were lots of crazy underwater tunnels, waterfalls and rock jumps and there most definitely were! We went for a swim, explored the tunnels although I didn’t go through a few of them as you had to dive down into a hole swim along and pop up somewhere else which didn’t fill me with confidence but it was quite funny watching Mike disappear and pop up a few metres away. Our tunnel exploration was put on hold however when I spotted a little scorpion on a wall so we swiftly escaped and clambered around some more before chilling out on the rocks

Not liking my accessorising 

Wednesday brought a new adventure, this time Cirque De Gens, the upper part of the Ardeche which has created an amazing horse shoe shaped gorge with some good climbing. We walked the circuit through the gorge and out and around Ruoms, we found a cave as well which of course we had a wander into. It was so cool, sitting next to the river I felt like we were in another world, it didn’t seem like France it was like an undiscovered land that we had to ourselves as all we could hear was the birds, the water and all we could see was trees, rock and ourselves. Once back at the car we had lunch and walked up to the climbing spot and we did a few routes which were pretty cool. When we got, well I got tired we headed back and planned the next day. 

We debated what to do with my last day and the obvious answer was paddle the river, do what people actually come to the area to do. So we grabbed some boats in the morning and pushed off in the flow. Now I haven’t paddled in forever! So it was definitely strange being in a boat again especially going down rapids solo which I have not done much of so Mike and his friends who we bumped into later must have had a good little chuckle at me squealing my way down a river they do every day, oh well. Mike played around in the rapids while I snapped piccies then we carried on through Pont d’ Arc to the rock jump they do with the kids. Then it was another short stretch to the get out where it was the start of our trudge back up the river (with a short stop off in a restaurant sharing a HUGE slab of beef) to the car. What do you need straight after a paddle? A climb! How right you are. So off we went to Salavas to do some climbing. Although to me the walk up to the place was steep enough to be a climb itself phew! I doubted the route Mike put me in front of at first, it looked a little blank for the 4 he was telling me it was however upon watching him go up and clambering up myself it had so many hidden jugs and brilliant handholds that were near invisible from below but from above it was like Leerdammer cheese. We did another few and I let Mike try a few harder ones I wasn’t bother about following him up before heading off to Vallon to see if the river photographers had captured us at Peaches B where they take tourists’ pictures (and also to eat pizza mmmmm). They hadn’t got us or we couldn’t find them but oh well so we went to the restaurant before heading back to the quiet little car park at Salavas to spend the night. Mike hadn’t booked us the chalet the last night thinking we could do something cool so we had a little camp out and watched the sky grow dark. Well we actually watched Bolt but that isn't very romantic!

Not much to tell of the journey home other than multiple naps, many loud children and heaves of people in London before alas back at Newland I found myself, longing to be back in France. I never thought I’d say that but I suppose when your heart is not with you but off somewhere else you will always desire to follow it.