La Palud sur Verdon

The Verdon Gorge - 29 April

Reluctantly we left Moustiers in the 'Beast' aptly named given that our car is a two door, 1.3 litre Toyota Echo with the power and carrying capacity only marginally greater than a 5 year old donkey.

The Verdon Gorge spills its crystal clear aquamarine river out into the vast Lake Saint Croix. At the portal of the gorge two huge cliffs each well over 500 metres beacon you to explore within like doors on a patisserie. Tired of walking, and reading maps, we opted for a yellow submarine shaped like a two person kayak.

Paddlying below the bridge and past numerous tourist spectators we entered (with the hoards of other frontier explorers). Collossal is not a big enough word to describe the overhanging cliffs up to 700 metres high as we paddle below in the equivalent of a couple of hundred plastic bags melted together.

Other tourist 'explorers' chose various flotation devices including the traditional canoe, foot powered paddle catermarans (with or without waterslide and sun bed) and even electric speedboats (1 or possibly 2 knots at a stretch). It was not long until we reached the cascades not far past the most obvious example we have seen of continental upheaval. The limestone and marble rock was layered at almost 45 degrees giving a true feeling of earths power.

As it became shallower we saw the river stones glide below. Coming in and out of the sunlight we rounded a corner to be faced with a series of massive tumbling and turbulent rapids gushing through the bolders. The previous description is scare the mums talk for easily managable ripples in the water. Our final obstacle seperated team Hall in opinion as Steve gushed with enthusiam regarding our ability to conquer the final upstream rapid. Camilla waited patiently and boatless, giggling quietly into the video camera as Steve failed to even make a stab at the trickle through the rocks.

A lovely afternoon was spent exploring the banks at this narrow neck of the gorge. Lunch was polished off rapidly (punn intended) before our down stream float back to the lake. Some areas of the river are like sitting on a big fish tank with huge trout swimming below. We were thankful that our day commenced and concluded when it did as we saw other paddlers struggling with the wind and current working with us through the gorge.

Our resting point for tonight was a leisurely 30 minute drive to cover around 10 kilometres of the most hairraisingly winding and beautiful roads glued to the side of the gorge. Looking down at the water from the heights gave us a further appreciation of where we were only moments before and how fantastic it is to find places only a few thousand tourists known about.

La Palud sur Verdon is one of those gorgeous yet forgettable country towns in the south of France overrun by walkers, climbers, hikers, campers, cavers, cayoners, cyclists and two little Aussies. Our campsight was originally bypassed without compromise by a now exhausted Steve (guess who did a few strokes of paddling more) only to be returned to once the voice of reason (a.k.a The Wife) made the observation that there is probably a reason why it is busy. Low and behold our tent looked out over the valley for 30 kilometres towards 1,700 metre high mountain framing the town as night fell. A hot shower didn't go astray either.