Day Twenty Nine

France: L’argentiere

Saturday 2nd August

River Rats

We awoke hung over and dizzy from the previous night’s excesses and we forced ourselves into the wellness centre for a hang over swim. It took us all a while to muster ourselves. We had planned a visit to a local street market and a trip to Pont d’arc on the Ardeche for swimming and a BBQ.

We reached the market, a little later than planned and floated around the stalls, taking in the sights and smells. I say floated as we were all still a little delicate from the previous nights excesses. We bought some duck breast and other ingredients for our BBQ but not the tuna streaks we had planned on. The fish stall having closed by the time we reached it. As we trailed back to Priscilla we stopped at a chicken rotisserie stall and bought some aromatic roasted potatoes to go with our BBQ.

On route we stopped for groceries and realised that we had things missing for our BBQ, like plates and wine glasses etc so we routed onwards via our campsite. We eventually made it to Pont d’arc about 2pm and headed down onto the river beach. It’s a very beautiful and dramatic location the Pont d’arc being a natural bridge that the Ardeche river has carved through, right in the heart of the gorges. We swam in the warm waters, another blue sky day and it wasn’t long before we had the BBQ sizzling and the corks popping.



Johnathon rustled up a duck brest salad to start, when I think back this was quite appropriate considering we were by the river! More swimming and splashing about followed, a glass of wine gaving us the courage to do some river jumping off the rocks around the Pont d’arc into the river. I took the first plunge and having survived we were all soon clambering through caves, up onto rocks and jumping back down into the river. Our second wave of cooking consisted of chicken breast with an orange sauce, the potatoes from the market and petis pois. Quite a feast considering we were on the beach cooking on our little BBQ! We stretched the day out and as people left for the day the the beach began to feel like our very own.

Still very warm we were swimming and gazing at the views when around 7:30pm things came to a standstill on the beach. A river rescue team had canoed onto the beach on the opposite side of the river with what looked like a body wrapped in the reflective foil sheets, strapped onto the top of the rescue canoe. The body or human (we couldn’t work out if the person on the stretcher was still alive still) was taken onto the beach and an eerie silence enveloped the gorge. Soon things became a little clearer as 2 significant others were rowed from the other side of Pont d’arc to the beach. By this time we had guessed the body was still alive and that an air ambulance may well be flying into the curve in the river to take the poor person off to hospital.

Indeed our suspicions were confirmed as a helicopter scoopped in overhead breaking the silence, it was scouting out the landing spot. Not long after, the chopper glided in through the gorge landing on the beach opposite us, men dressed in white, jumping out with medical bags etc. It was all a little surreal, just like something out of a movie. Eventually the patient was stretchered into the helicopter and off it flew, up and out over of the gorge, the significant others being rowed back to shore by the river rescue. It was all a little sombre, especially considering we had planned to canoe the river the following day, but kind in a strange way exciting, simply as its not something you see everyday.

Undeterred we swam some more as the sun slowly sunk, at this point we were the only people still swimming in the river, the temperature remained incredible warm, really refreshing. We ambled back to base camp with a sunny glow and some fab blog material!