Day 14 Cazals to Cabrerets

Well, it was a very different day today! The really great news to start the day is that Alison’s eye, while not recovered, was much better after a couple of doses of antibiotics and several cleanses, and it continued to improve during the day.

The less good news is that it is bloody hot and not likely to change for the next two days, however it will return to “normal” summer temperatures from Sunday.

We had booked a canoe at 10am, so we set off from Cazals just after 8am – you could already feel the heat but it was a fairly pleasant, mostly covered, walk down from the plateau to the valley floor and Marcilhac-sur-Célé. After about 4kms we reached the town, bought some supplies for the day and headed slightly out of town to get our canoe – I’m calling it 5kms in total on foot.

Just after 10am we got underway with our gear in two barrels strapped to the canoe just downstream from a barrage so the river was moving reasonably quick but not excessively so. The river is very shallow, though, and despite the instructions from the canoe guy on how to navigate past the shallow spots in these sort of “mini rapids”, we got stuck in the first one! We managed to get off though without getting our shoes wet, albeit with a bit of water over the side (it was called a canoe but it was really a kayak!).

Th guy has explained there were four sections to Cabrerets: from Marcilhac to the bridge at Monteils, from there to the bridge at Sauliac-sur-Célé, from there to the bridge at Liauzu, and from there to just past the barrage at Cabrerets, and that each section would take a bit over an hour, getting us to Cabrerets at about 3:30 pm, and that’s pretty well how the day panned out.

We made about the same speed as our walking pace and initially it was comparatively cool and shady, not really becoming very hot until close to Cabrerets when the sun was around its zenith. We saw some amazing views and the river was swarming with a bunch of what I think (based on Alison’s opinion!) were damselflies, some a brilliant blue colour.

We mostly worked out how to manage the little rapids without getting stuck too much but we did nearly tip the kayak at one point going down a slightly bigger rapid and hitting a tree – no harm done but a bit wetter after that😀

We crossed two barrages – they leave a little chute for canoes and kayaks to go down but they also provide a portage route, which we took both times.

The river meandered between the two cliff faces defining the valley, which kept the river in shade for most of the time, and we saw lots more houses built into the cliff faces – there are obviously caves or grottoes that have been converted into the interior of the house!

I wasn’t sure whether to count the kilometres today – I was expecting a faster moving river that would basically carry us what turned out to end the 19kms here. However, we are both pretty stuffed and let me tell you that 4+ hours in a kayak is just as hard as the same time walking, just different muscles hurt! What is different is the heat stress and I’m glad we took the river option. In any event I’m counting them so a total of 24kms today for a total of 302kms!

Not sure what we’ll do tomorrow – we only have 10km to St Cirq but it is going to be hot again. There’s a boat trip up there ….