Ten days in the Lozère in the South of France with Jenks and Will. Caving, Via Ferrata, Climbing, Canyoning, Kayaking and eating. We stayed at a very cute and rustic little cottage on the top of a hill, in a village called Balazuegnes.
It’s a converted farm building, and it’s perfect for a caving holiday (i.e. a long way away from its neighbours, not too fancy or pretentious inside & with plenty of outside space). Gorgeous views too.
Our first day in France was boiling hot and so, after the 24 hour drive from Somerset to the Lozère, we decided to spend the day at the river. We slept in late, and then headed down the hill to the swimming hole at the river. Jenks wasn’t keen on swimming after we saw two water snakes (one quite little and one rather large) sunning themselves in the shallows but we still managed to get him to leap in from the jumping-off point.
Jump!
Then we headed back for some pretty comfy relaxing in the garden and a fairly shambolic game or two of Sevens
On the second day we headed off to the Cave Previously Known As The Unnamed Cave – which I now know is called La Duganelle! I’m going to write up all three of the caves separately, so that I have an individual record of each one. But you can find my write up of this cave here (or just select Cave: La Duganelle from the drop down menu to your right!)
On the third day we did Via Ferrata which was, to put it simply, terrifying. We did it on our own (that is to say, without a guide) because Generous Jenks had purchased three Via Ferrata kits before the holiday. Will had done this particular Via Ferrata before so, armed with kit and knowledge, we drove off to the village of Rousses. I might write some slightly hysteical things about this Via Ferrata but actually, it’s fairly simple if you know what you’re doing (I don’t). There are easy and simple routes all along so people with proper equipment can do it on their own, safe in the knowledge that they won’t get stuck.
In Rousses, park in the obvious carpark just past the village bar and, basically, walk and follow the signs! It’s very well signposted all along. You will walk back along the main road the way you came for a bit, then down the valley on footpaths and narrow lanes (through the garden of what I think is the village library / school) and then back up the hills on the other side. It’s about 25 minutes brisk walk there, followed by a 10 minute walk / scramble down the gorge face to the start of the Via Ferrata. There are so many signs – you simply can’t get lost.
The course itself has two zipwires and three different styles of bridges. You begin with a long zip-wire. The first choice is between the hard route over the bridge and along the cliff face, or the easy route across a direct zip wire. We did the hard route (which was HARD (for me)), but once we’d completed it and met up with the easy route we had buyer’s regret. So we walked / jumped back across the river on some rocks and scrambled back up to the zip-wire. That way we got to do both routes! Probably frowned upon but we didn’t damage anything and we were the only people on the course that day.
I remember that all the way along the course I opted for the hard route apart from once. The final difficulty option is to either go left parallel along the cliff face, or to take the easy option and climb up the staples onto the very top. I got halfway along the hard route before the overhang became too great for my puny arms to deal with. So I went back and did the easy route, which was actually a lot of fun because it took you up really high. It also featured an overhang, but it wasn’t as knackering.
On the fourth day, to the best of my recollection, we went kayaking down the Gorges du Tarn. We used Canoe Blanc, who we’ve used before and are super friendly and reliable. I would absolutely recommend them. Ideally, you should do the 20km course which has a weir and takes about 5-6 hours. To do this, you need to get there no later than 11am roughly. If not, the 11km course is also very good. We stopped and swam at various places, and the fish are hilariously cute (they nibble your feet!).
The fifth day was a day of climbing, which again required us to use Generous Jenkins’ kit. We’d tried climbing for the first time ever at this wall and not loved it (too hard, too sweaty, too vertiginous, etc) but this time was different. Due in part to the lack of audience and in part to Jenk’s serious tough-love mantra, we both did pretty well for beginners and, more importantly, actually enjoyed it! I have plenty of photos, most of which are hideously unflattering. Being photographed from the arse up while wearing a harness is simply never going to catch on.
See?
Our sixth and penultimate day was a day of caving once again! Two caves today – Castlebouc No. 4 and Grotte Prades. Clicky click for write-ups (coming soon)
On our final day, which I think was a Friday, we had a choice between Canyoning and going to a show cave (to do proper caving, not the tourist trip). We booked canyoning a day before, but they said that they might not have a guide available, so the show cave became our back up plan. But luckily, the nice people at Cévennes Evasion called us on the Friday morning to say we had a guide! It was us, plus a bloke with an unpronounceable name, who was referred to as ‘Belgium’ for the trip (I think he quite liked it) and our guide. We piled into a rickety minibus and set off at a hair-raising pace along a succession of ever-narrowing roads to the Tapoul Gorges.
Arriving, convinced that after that drive the canyoning would be a breeze, we were given some hilarious wetsuits and helmets and hiked down a path to the river. We lunched on some flat rocks, and then kitted up. The wetsuits consisted of a base layer that had long legs but was sleeveless, followed by a kind of neoprene leotard, that had no legs but long arms and a hood. We had no life jackets, but were given a canyoning harness with cowstails and a slippery bum area, and a special canyoning helmet. Sexy. The neoprene was extremely thick, which made bending arms and legs difficult! I thought this was overkill, until I jumped in the water. It was bloody freezing! And it was obvious why no life-vests were needed – the wetsuits were the most buoyant things I’ve ever worn. It was quite literally impossible to swim under the water (although getting temporarily stuck upside down, midway through a roly-poly was, as it turned out, quite possible).
The canyonning itself was such good fun. We travelled down the gorge, jumping off a succession of rocks that got higher and higher. There were also slippery bits, where you lay on the rock in a channel and were pushed along and down by the water. One of these went under some rocks for a little bit – canyoning caving! A couple of these slides also ended up shooting you off a large concealed drop (25 ft or so) into a pool of water, unbeknownst to me who had gone first! There was a lot of flailing and I definitely did not land in the recommended safe position on that one! One of the jumps was a ‘technical jump’ where there was a safe area to land, surrounded by a lot of underwater rocks. Rather than leaping off the edge like all the others, you had to take a tiny step off and fall straight down, keeping yourself straight and landing feet first. I’m going to be mean and write that Will was too scared to do that one and did the alternative, after Jenks told him he’d hit the bottom (meanie). I didn’t hit the bottom, so I’m sure it would have been fine!
The guide had a go-pro in his helmet which he recorded us with, but it turned out you had to pay for the video. Also, it took him two days to produce it which was no good as we were going home the next day. This video shows the correct gorge (It’s the best I could find) but it’s not the same course as we did – this is a group of children, I think, we didn’t do anything that involved ropes and we definitely weren’t being belayed!
I’ve plenty of photos of this trip in an album on my Facebook page, which you should be able to see if you’re friends with me and maybe even if you’re not. Facebook works in mysterious ways.
Flos Caves 