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Quote: Originally posted by Val A on 05/5/2012

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We've had an inflatable (Gumotex - not a cheap blue and yellow job) and have had it six or seven years now, with no problems.  We do 'white' (ish) water - the Tarn, the Ardeche, the Ceze, the Chassezac and the Herault, and have dragged over rocks and rapids with no punctures at all.  We've seen one couple with a dog - quite a large black lab - but I don't know if they'd made any special arrangements of lining the section the dog used.

We've been taken up the Tarn Gorge by the site minibus and canoed back to the site at Riviere sur Tarn (Les Peupliers), and we've 'car shared' with another couple where we leave one car on site, take one car to the start, two couples canoe back, and we take the second car back to pick up the one left at the start.  On the Ardeche we've canoed down and caught the bus back, and arranged with a canoe company to get a lift back on one occasion.  On the Chassezac (and all the ther rivers) we've also just canoed upstream and then drifted back down, or canoed down and paddled hard back up!

Usually canoeing companies are quite happy to offer you a lift - sometimes a small fee is involved, sometimes they won't accept anything.

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Val A.

Hi. You mention Les Peupliers. We stayed at Les Rivages which is close, but found the water level shallow.

Can you recommend other campsites where we can kayak from and then get a bus/taxi/minimbus back from

Also my OH is not keen on inflatables. She thinks we are better off hiring the rigid ones with the canoeing companies and not bother with transport, B.Aids, etc. Hence, I dont want to spend much and looking at getting the Intex Explorer kayaks. Any thoughts on that.

cheers

Ek

The water level at Les Peupliers was fine this time (two weeks ago) - though shallow over the rapids, as it usually is.  Hard bottomed canoes are able to go through OK but with an inflatable we had to take ours out and walk it through the rapids, or carry it along the banks - both possible in the lengths of river we canoed up and down from the site.  We only 'pootle' these days, we did about six or eight kilometres up river, and then back down again, carrying the canoe through the rapids where the water level was too shallow, or too fast flowing for us to get up, but canoed most of the way back down again, wth the exception of one small section.  There's been little rain though so levels will have dropped already.

The Ardeche is a good canoeing river, with many sites along the banks, but as Kelper says you can canoe almost anywhere in France where you can get access to the river..  We've just done a small section of the Aude, but it's not a river we like The Lot is a good one, again with lots of riverside sites and is fairly 'uneventful' in terms of white water or shallow water.  The popular section of the Dordogne is deeper and slow flowing, but its also like the M25 of canoeing rivers!

Another point about hiring is that you can only 'do' the rivers where they hire canoes - and that's always on the busier sections.   This is fine if you only want to do it once, and want to do a long section, but we like to try ours out on quieter spots where we might be the only ones on the river, doing shorter trips, bird watching, watching the dragonflies, and just drifting back down again for most of the way except where the flow demands a bit more effort, and we used it nearly every day.

Today we're probably going to move on to another site with a river and if that's any good then I'll post again..

Val, Thanks for the post. But shouldnt you be off the internet if you are camping ;-)

Anyways, there's a lot to think about. my OH feels we have done too many breaks this year and finds the packing, unpacking, clearing and cleaning quite an effort. But she wont allow us to help! I'm trying to create some plan to ensure the boys and I can take ownership.

Quote: Originally posted by eksohek on 04/6/2014

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Val, Thanks for the post. But shouldnt you be off the internet if you are camping ;-)

Anyways, there's a lot to think about. my OH feels we have done too many breaks this year and finds the packing, unpacking, clearing and cleaning quite an effort. But she wont allow us to help! I'm trying to create some plan to ensure the boys and I can take ownership.

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I'm an early rise, and work on the internet, so I log in the early morning to see if there is anything to do - I answered five work emails this morning, so a quiet morning.  If there's no much to do, then I fill my 'sitting out on my own in the sunshine with a cuppa' time with a few camping forums, and the weather forecast,  whilst OH sleeps on for another hour.  Then he makes and brings me my breakfast!  What can be more civilised!

Send her off on her own to do something she likes and surprise her with all the work done when she gets back!