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<p>It ended up being quite a late night, so I'm (yet again) writing this a day late.</p> <p>We rocketed into action in the morning, and were ready much earlier than usual (i.e. before midday). We headed off on the bikes towards Vallon-Pont D'Arc, the location of the canoe trip company we tried to find the day before. There weren't any signs to it, so we stopped at a random one - Alpha Bateaux - and had a chat with them. They were nice enough I guess, though I get the feeling the 100 or so companies are much the same! We paid up, got our kit and hopped in the minibus which took us to our kayaks at the start point. The man there was very brief - I said I could kayak already and could show Helen the ropes and he said OK and showed us to the water. You wouldn't get that in England - too much lawsuit potential!</p> <p><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/B.Hymers/EuropeTrip/photo#5152423619152985554"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/B.Hymers/R4EV-5_yPdI/AAAAAAAAAXg/f0GSoVDp7c4/s144/100_0471.jpg" class="alignright" /></a>I was like a fish to water... well a fish that floats on the water. Like a duck to water, really. Helen got the hang of things very quickly too - much less spinning in circles than I was anticipating! We made our way down the river slowly, since we were only doing the 6km route and wanted it to last a long time! It was really quite crowded, unfortunately, which led to some collisions (not our fault - rude French people's!) and a lot of upside-down boats in the rapids!</p> <p><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/B.Hymers/EuropeTrip/photo#5152423657807691234"><img src="http://lh4.google.com/B.Hymers/R4EWBJ_yPeI/AAAAAAAAAXo/gCW-TbSxhf8/s144/100_0483.jpg" class="alignleft" /></a>The views were excellent and I got several good photos, which I'm pleased about. The rapids were very fun, though Helen didn't care much for them, and mucking about on the water was great too. All in all, lots of fun, well worth it!</p> <p><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/B.Hymers/EuropeTrip/photo#5152423709347298802"><img src="http://lh4.google.com/B.Hymers/R4EWEJ_yPfI/AAAAAAAAAX0/iiQpjitJaN0/s144/100_0494.jpg" class="alignright" /></a>We finished a lot earlier than we thought (about 1:30), so after stopping off for lunch in the town, we headed further south along the gorge. There were many, many beautiful photo spots, with many, many people crowding the place trying to photograph them.<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/B.Hymers/EuropeTrip/photo#5152423748002004482"><img src="http://lh5.google.com/B.Hymers/R4EWGZ_yPgI/AAAAAAAAAX8/xcoy8jL2F7c/s144/100_0492.jpg" class="alignleft" /></a> It's a shame the Ardeche has become so tourist-y really - though I suppose saying that is more than a little hypocritical!</p> <p><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/B.Hymers/EuropeTrip/photo#5152423795246644754"><img src="http://lh4.google.com/B.Hymers/R4EWJJ_yPhI/AAAAAAAAAYE/lDOfI7ScbX8/s144/100_0573.jpg" class="alignright"/></a>We ended up going to one of the many ‘grottes' in the area - “Grotte de la Madeleine” - which proved very educational and insightful, and again a great photo opportunity (though I doubt my budget camera did it justice!).<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/B.Hymers/EuropeTrip/photo#5152423833901350434"><img src="http://lh5.google.com/B.Hymers/R4EWLZ_yPiI/AAAAAAAAAYM/0QsWdnoPKys/s144/100_0594.jpg" class="alignleft"/></a> It was also very cheap, which was welcome!</p> <p>We made our way back to the campsite and had dinner at the restaurant again - lasagne and carbonara this time - and then went to bed, ready for the journey the next day.</p>
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