Day 1 - Friday We had decided to all meet at the Club early and get ready for the journey in time. Surprisingly, packing went without a lot of flaffing and by 6 pm the vans were ready to go. We waited for Petra who could not get off work earlier and finally piled into the vehicles by 6:30. Plenty of time… Plenty of traffic, too, and we missed the ferry by 10 minutes (bummer)! We hit France at 11:30 pm local time and to avoid their massive tolls, got off the motorway at the 2nd exit to take the “scenic road” through the night (on the wrong side of the road!). Clare made the most of it sleeping from the moment we left the ferry. [Same counts for John in the first van, while I tried my hand at navigating through the French maze which at one stage involved about 8 laps, in one and the same town … Ed.] At 9 am, after a “real French breakfast” of tea (milk to be ordered separately!) and cold croissants in a café that looked like a pub, we finally crashed out half-dead on a lay-by for a 4 hour catnap.

Day 2 - Saturday Another full day drive was interrupted only for a quick take-away dinner in some nameless French town on the road. It featured neither a burger place nor a Pizza Hut, so we ended up with a 2 ½ hours sit-down meal in the crammed upstairs room of a Creperie. I had a “Lamborghini” crepe, but it was not as revvy as the menu suggested. As for the “Skoda” crepes etc. - enough said J. It followed an arduous crawl over some pre-Alpine mountain range [distinctly avoiding to lock my gaze on the climbing needle of the temperature gauge in our old ..erpa van - Ed.] into Grenoble with its promise of the Alps “around the corner”. An hour later, the vegetation around us getting sparser, and still nowhere near Briancon, we crashed out on another lay-by at about 1 a.m.

Day 3 - Sunday We woke up at 10 a.m. to see our first mountain just across the road, worked out the best route to climb it, but then decided for a wash in the local stream and a fry-up instead! Very reluctantly, we got back into the van for another 4 hours of bum-numbing driving (this time at least we had some lovely scenery: mountains, streams and of course, the back of Sean’s van). We arrived at the campsite in the early afternoon under a brilliant blue sky, and much to our delight discovered that the best playspot on the river was right next to it: a large surf wave close to where the Rabioux meets the Durance. Securing a good spot we “quickly” pitched tent - plastic pegs in hard rocky ground - and off we went for a nice and easy “warm-up” paddle down the Lower Durance (Grade 3), past our camp site and all the way down to Embrun, where the exit point is right next to a nice little bar... Unfortunately, no food except lunch time so it was up to Clare to spoil us with a pasta dish in front of our “community tent”.

Day 4 - Monday With the long journey still in our bones, we got up, flaffed and, in true ACC style, did not leave camp until midday. The weather was tops again and we had our first real Alpine river experience - fast, white and exciting: the Upper Guisane, a Grade 3 with about 300 yards of grade 4 rapids (the “S-Bends”) where unfortunately Petra took quite a nasty swim and we spent a while fishing for her paddles which were stuck underneath a rock. We took the recommended “beginner’s exit” and after inspecting the following stretch of the river by means of mountainbike were glad that we had done so: The next feature was a weir with a huge drop full of jagged rocks, a “cheese grater” for any boat attempting to shoot it, and more of the like to come… Pedalling back to the vans, we happened to come across this nice little pizza bar and stopped for a beer or two, but Clare insisted she was starving so we also had dinner there (Yam!) - and a few more beers…

Day 5 - Tuesday We were woken up at 5.30 a.m. by a storm rattling our tents and things flying about and got up to find out what happened, just to see Phil’s big tent lifting off the ground and spent about 15 minutes holding it down before we came up with a plan how to keep it on the campsite with us. Maybe one peg in each corner wasn’t enough?!? We went back to bed and only got to paddle around midday, minus Petra with her bruised legs. The river was the Onde which started off with a grade 4 section and this time it was John’s turn for a particularly nasty swim. Kev and Sean chased his boat half a mile down the river before they could nudge it to safety (didn’t look quite as new afterwards). The rest of the river was a constant 3+ and, I must say, the best river I have ever paddled. What a buzz! Petra shuttled Kev’s bus down the hill and met us at the exit point. Vast improvement time-wise, however, after some more flaffing we found that it was probably too late anyway to run another river. We opted for an inspection walk down the Gyr instead. The walk was well worth the effort for the menacing sound of boulders moving along the river bed gave us a faint impression of the power of those milky masses shooting over rapids classed as grade 4 and 5. If any of us had thought of running the Gyr, that wish was effectively stilled! We went for a beer instead at the bottom with two guys who had just paddled the river, to learn that they were part of an English tour company’s team camped just across the pathway from us - the world is small for paddlers in the French Alps! It got even smaller later that night when we met Slime, the author of White Water Europe, who was camped right next to us! We bought three of his books which made him quite happy and kept us entertained reading his accounts on the rivers we planned to paddle during the days to come.

Day 6 - Wednesday To get Petra back on the water, we decided to paddle the Lower Guil, an easy grade 2+ maybe. What the river was lacking in excitement, it made up with lovely scenery - sheer cliffs with an old fort on the top and a waterfall cascading all the way down - and the odd little play spot. We also enjoyed a picknick on a little island and refreshing jumps into the crystal clear waters of a little rapid. For an evening adventure, we chose a friendly game of volleyball with the guys of the tour company during which Clare lost half her front tooth! Who would have thought this was a dangerous sport??? The night ended calmer with a true Italian dinner - delicious pasta and red wine - from our new “next-door neighbours”, an Italian couple who spent their holiday between the slalom course of l’Argentiere and the Rabioux surf wave…

Day 7 - Thursday Today, the Claree was on the agenda. The upper part is a grade 3/3+ and Clare took a swim on a technical section. (They say “ All things happen in Threes” - oh, dear.) Another chase for a boat down the river… The Lower Claree was only a grade 2 but did not really have a lot of water which made for a very bumpy ride. Enough said… Afterwards, we went shopping and to Embrun for a drink while Sean and Petra had some business down the local canoeing club. [The “a” drink must have been a barrel, for after waiting for about 2 hours at the campsite, we got so hungry that we decided to go for a “dinner for two”. On Slime’s recommendation, we found a tiny non-descript pizza place in Embrun where they sell “one-serves-four” pizzas the size of dustbin lids for the equivalent of a Fiver, and really tasty! - Ed.]

Day 8 - Friday For the final day, we thought Kev and Sean deserved a chance to explore at least one of the really exciting runs so they dropped the rest of us off for another go at the Lower Guil. Quite a difference in water levels since we started much earlier than for our first descent, amazing! We took an extra long picknick at the island under the waterfall until the weather changed to thunderstorm and quite a bit of wind which made us paddle on. Our little trip ended paddling on into the Lower Durance and right down to the campsite while the intrepid duo tackled their epic journey through the Durance Gorge. There were many ah’s and oh’s when Kev later told us how they had scrambled round a grade 6 section, how Sean had blindly paddled a grade 5 shoot, how they had splatted on the sheer cliff walls, how Sean had been stuck in an undercut, how …well… This time, it was Petra’s turn to get the pasta ready before Kev entered the student’s rodeo at Rabioux. In his class, no paddles were allowed so there were all sorts of funny implements in action which was quite a laugh for us watching. After an unsuccessful series of rolling attempts, Kev had a long exhausting swim but a perfect flatspin on the front wave finally got him the price. Yes, Kev won the Rodeo (and a case of French wine), what a legend! [Unfortunately, it prevented us packing our stuff away that day, which is why we were behind schedule the next day, which is why we had to skip our final paddle - well, you can’t have it all, can you?!? - Ed.].

Day 9 - Saturday It was getting up, flaffing, packing and leaving straight for home (not without missing the other van after a shopping stop). We drove some stunning mountain roads and finally onto non-toll motorways in Switzerland with a break to swim in Lake Geneva and another one in a top class lay-by (with marbled seats, running water etc) where we got the stove out and I prepared our last pasta dish, followed by a game of Hide & Seek that got the locals bemused. On we went through Germany into France near Colmar where we crashed out in yet another little lay-by.

Day 10 - Sunday Too much flaffing in the morning made us miss the ferry again after an arduous journey through the Vosges Mountains, some bits on and off French dual carriageways and in true EC style, on the motorways of Luxemburg and Belgium back into France to Calais. The last bit home was uneventful and unpacking at the Club a no-fuss affair. [All in all, an enjoyable, unforgettable venture into a new dimension of canoeing which I would highly recommend to anybody who has found adrenaline-charged white water to be the ultimate paddling choice. - Ed.]

(Co-Production by Sid, Sean & Petra), August 1998