Thursday

We started off a little later than planned. Jon and Ryan were in the Canadian, Sam and Pete in the banana boat and myself + Robert in singles. Robert and I went off to take a picture of the beginning of the lake whilst the slower boats continued. 10 minutes later we caught up. And we paddled along for a bit. We was surprised when we saw the dam because it looked like totally miles on the map. And we moored on the bank. And Ryan did a dump and we didn’t have any bogroll.

Toilet technology went back to the middle ages. I went myself using skankey old leaves to cover up what had left behind. We saw Kaa (highlight of the day) talking to someone in French and canoed across.

Ryan pulled up his trousers and after a short time we were going again. But Ryan had forgotten his buoyancy aid and so we went back for it.

We had arrived earlier than expected so we docked up, Kaa being with us and we set out for the dam visitor centre. But nobody knew where it was so we wandered around up near the dam, took a wrong turning and ended up on a building site.

Our schedule was running late as we asked someone where we were. And took a silly picture of everyone apart from Peter. We wandered around late for our tour around the building site, running away from moving trucks.

High up we saw our tour  that we were missing. And took a photograph. As we tried to get to the dam itself. We went down in two different groups and Ryan cut his leg open. that was a bit of a silly thing to do. Missed our tour so we went back to the canoes to get Ryan sorted out, determined to see Crawford. we turned back again. climbed a massive hill to get to the entrance. Jon talked to a man on the phone who let us onto the carport. Then explained we’d have to wait 2 hours to take a picture of the inside of the dam. Continued to the site of a castle that isn’t there. A 191 metre climb for no reason whatsoever. Perhaps the maps were just rubbish but there was meant to be something there,

It wasn’t long before we came to the conclusion that there was nothing worth seeing so we go back to the canoes. We have already had our lunch.

On the canoe bank we had to stop to let Ryan do another dump. Somewhere more hygienic than a bush.

so (it says that in this paper I’m copying from - no reason for it being there)

We got up at 8. I had slept outside with Ryan and Jon and we had left and dropped site at 0. The maps are totally out of proportion and after an hours canoeing we had to get out because of a lock. Hall our canoes up.

The next lock we encounter was at the Abbey that is in ruins. There’s nothing much to see at the Abbey. Visit the shop. Seem to sell polished bits of stones. nothing more. An obstacle course is set before us. We’re on the right with the opening, on the left, there is a bridge with frequent traffic weir and lock below. We could haul the Canadian over it and risk it getting ran over. At first there seems no alternative. But Jon finds a more risky way of travel by going almost upto the lock and lifting it up some eroded stairs. Eat lunch when we decide to do the second option. The whole event was decisively dodgy with the Canadian at funny angles and almost capsizing to the water. With Sam and myself having to climb a little because there was next to nothing on the narrow stairway. I’ll maybe type up the rest of this some other time.

Cut to some other time and typing continues. Where was I? I dunno. At my keyboard typing from this paper. OK - I’ll restart.

We then had to drag the boats along some 50 metres. This was real teamwork and we had to do it with the other boats. We were totally knackard when we continued. Some hour and a quarter since first thinking about it. This wasn’t marked on any map and we’ve got to do it again tomorrow. We  =went past three weirs on th e way up. At the last we thought about pitching and I had a dump. French maps are truly rubbish. Then we continued for absolutely ages. There was no sign of suitable campsite anywhere. Discussions as we continued around. The map was totally out of proportion. We looked for a field that was on the map. We complained and wandered in search of a French town where we came to a sea saw. Pitched there and tried to contact leaders. They came eventually and were surprisingly happy.

-note on text

Loads of other stuff happened which I obviously couldn’t be arsed to write about. I still can’t.

Ryan Gracey:
star of this partial holiday account