161 pages,
size: 240×170mm
Printed in two colours, black & blue,
16 full pages of colour photos.
70 maps, photos, drawings and, cartoons by “Foxy”.
Published 2002
ISBN: 0-9519413-6-4
Price £14.95
REVIEWS
“Another top quality guidebook from Pete Knowles”
Mark
“All in all another winner!
The guide is inspirational with anecdotes and sketches scattered here and there to whet your appetite, you can’t help but being enthused by the time you get off the ferry. We found the guide to be wholly accurate not only in the technical description but also in what to expect of the scenery. For us the book was well thumbed by the end of our 3 week trip and had made the whole experience very slick”.
Review by Alan Tilling for Amazon.
“I would recommend this guide to anyone considering a trip to this area.”
Scottish Paddler magazine.
“A Must for family boaters”
The perfect guide to relaxed, easy grade white water rivers of the massif central. It covers all the points from what to eat locally, to portage advice, with Slime’s humour evident in his writing. If you are into Canadian boats with the family - or solo the rivers in a modern playboat and leave the kids on the beach, there is no other guide to use.
Review by Surf n squirt for Amazon
SAMPLE CONTENTS
Why the Massif Central?
The Massif Central is the upland area in the heart of France - not an area of high mountains like the Alps but an area of rolling hill and sweeping plateaux. This book is a guide to the rivers running off this upland - these rivers don’t have the gradient or the power of Alpine rivers so they offer easier and friendlier paddling - ideal for families, canoe camping, or as a warm-up to kayaking in the Pyrénées or the Alps.
The northern part of these uplands is predominantly volcanic in origin, so the rivers tend to be steep-sided valleys with basalt cliffs in places. In the south the rock is limestone, and the rivers have cut spectacular and famous gorges through these limestone plateaux - the Gorges de l’Ardèche and the Gorges du Tarn are perhaps the most famous.
Because it’s a guide to the rivers this guide covers more than just the upland area, but takes us down into the historic river valleys at the heart of France - the land of ancient fortresses, beautiful châteax, and timeless villages - famous areas like the Dordogne valley, and World Heritage sites such as Conques or St Guilhem le Désert.
In historic times the rivers in this book were at the heart of French life, they provided water for washing, drinking, fish and wildlife for food, power, and most importantly of all transport. Long before roads and the recreational canoeist, these rivers, like the Dordogne, Ardeche, and Lot were all the main means of transport with goods and people being carried in small flat-bottomed wooden barges.
Travel down these rivers today and you are paddling through a real-life history and geography lesson - also a gastronomic one if you so choose - because many of these valleys are famous for the quality of their food and wine!
River tourism in the Central Massif goes back some 150 years to when ‘les Bateliers’ took the first tourists through the Gorges de l’Ardèche and it is now recognised as an important, and ecologically friendly source of tourist revenue (Estimates of the tourism benefits of rafting, kayaking and canoeing suggest that these are probably worth over 100 million euros per year in indirect revenue for Europe as a whole).
It is sad to contrast this to the current situation in most areas of England and Wales where medieval property laws mean that rivers are not shared for recreation and local communities lose the economic benefits from this type of tourism.
Our message is to come to the Massif Central, run these wonderful rivers and spend your money in local communities: you will be made welcome, and you will be helping to protect the rivers that you enjoy. Note that throughout France (as in most of Europe) you are welcome as a tourist to run the rivers without permit, payment or licence - you are merely asked to follow any local regulations, to behave considerately, and to follow the country code.
Using this guide
Which rivers are included?
This guidebook hopefully includes every river in the Massif Central which is class 2 or above and has sufficient water level in the peak summer months. We have included a few important, classic rivers that are just class 1 (for example the Dordogne), but have missed out lots of flat rivers with weirs on because Fluffy doesn’t like rivers like this!
Local French paddlers all say things like “Why haven’t you included the ’so and so’ river - it’s an absolute dream - a brilliant paddle in the spring”, etc. - but if there is the likelihood of no water in the summer, then sorry, but all it gets is a mention.
This is a guidebook primarily for those people paddling class 1-3 and the accent is very much on open canoeing rather than kayaking, however for the more experienced paddler, we hope it gives an overview and opens the doors to the other more difficult rivers of the Massif Central that are covered in French guidebooks.
The rivers in this guide are listed in a clockwise order, starting with the Allier.
River descriptions
We have tried in this book to give a ‘feel’ for each run and the important things that most paddlers would probably want to know if they were thinking of running it. What these river descriptions are not is a blow by blow account of how to run each rapid - this would take the fun out of paddling! We have normally noted major rapids, bridges, weirs or hazards, but be warned - rapids sometimes get washed away and new ones appear.
1. The stars for paddling are 1-3 and our measure of subjective overall satisfaction at that grade.
2. We have tried to do the same for scenery.
3. Fluffy’s rating is an idea of how friendly we think the river is for children.
4. Water quality is poor, ok, good, or excellent. (poor you would not want to swim in it, excellent you wouldn’t mind drinking it?). This is our subjective opinion taking a broad view. Government bodies test the water on a regular basis at popular bathing beaches but these are only at a few spots on the river so not necessarily representative. (see www.sante.gov.fr/htm/dossiers/baign.)
5. Water temperature is warm or cool - happily we didn’t find any cold rivers!
6. Busy is how many boats you might expect to meet on a typical day in high season - <10, <50, <200 or >200. This is different and much less than the total number of boats per day which may exceptionally be in the thousands.
7. Water volume - on most rivers, we have tried to give an idea of water volume, as an estimated figure in cubic metres per second (’cumecs’). This is the typical low water volume in say early August.
8. Distance is in kilometres measured down the middle of the river (some paddlers we know will do twice this distance!) We have deliberately not tried to give any time estimates as this varies so much between different people.
How difficult?
Note that the class of difficulty is for low flows in the middle of the summer - with a higher volume the difficulty will normally increase and the river can become dangerous. We have used the standard International Classification of Difficulty (see Appendix A) when grading these runs, and like many other modern guide books we have used + and - grades and ( )s. We think that these two ideas make the classification scheme a lot, lot, more meaningful.
Where we call a run class 2 we mean that in our opinion this is the overall standard - there may be long sections of lower difficulty, but to do the run safely you need to be 100% capable of paddling at this level.
Class 2 (3) means that in our opinion the overall standard of the run is Class 2, but there are a few (normally one or two) class 3 rapids that can usually be easily portaged if required.
We have based our opinion on the class of difficulty of the river as it was when we, or our informants, ran it. Landslides, roadworks, floods, etc. may completely change a river and make it easier or harder - it’s always sensible to seek up-to-date advice from other paddlers or canoe hire companies.
Sketch maps
Planning your trip
This chapter includes sections on:
When to go
Climate
Before you go
Medical cover
What to take
Canoe Hire
Security
Language
Money
Driving from the U.K.
Driving in France
Food and Drink
Where to stay
This chapter includes sections on:
Camping
Huttes de France
Gites
Hotels
Choice of Rivers
This chapter includes sections on:
Planning your programme
Canoe camping
This guidebook includes some of the best and most popular rivers in Europe for canoe camping - these are long, multi-day trips on beautiful rivers, with historic towns and villages, easy rapids to add interest, and lots of riverside campsites.
What makes it really easy is that a few canoe hire companies specialise in multi-day trips and will hire you all the gear for your trip - canoes, waterproof barrels, paddles, etc. They will also book your campsites for you if you wish, and then transport you back to the start and your car from where-ever you end up. All of this at such incredibly good value (an Old Town 17ft canoe cost us 50 Euros for 4 days) that many paddlers prefer to hire rather than have the hassle of transporting canoes from their home country.
If you have a choice then do try and plan your trip to avoid the summer peak season so that you miss the crowds. We ignored this advice and deliberately paddled all the rivers in this book in late July and early August. We didn’t book our campsites ahead and although most looked full, all had a site or two free - even if technically full, we suspect that if you arrive by river, they will find you a spot.
Examples of the most popular canoe-camping rivers are:
Dordogne - 157 km of free-flowing, unspoilt river, almost no portages and typically done as a relaxed 10 day trip.
Allier - normally canoed as a one week trip 120km from Prades, but could be paddled from near its source, some 300km to its confluence with the Loire.
Célé - a small friendly river, ideal for young families, 48km and an easy a 3 day trip.
Lot - 150km through a beautiful valley but weirs on the bottom half.
Gorges de l’Ardèche - a famous, exciting, and spectacular 2 or 3 day trip.
Best rivers for young children
Best white water
Best for wildlife and scenery
Best for heritage and culture
Best weekend trip
Rivers elsewhere