SuperUser Account posted on October 30, 2009 11:45
This was the inaugural foreign CAP trip and to give you a full update of everything that we got up to would probably take a week to write which no one would bother to read so here are some interesting facts
No. of Cars Taken – 2
No. of Boats Taken - 9
No. of Miles Driven – 1972.6 miles in each car
Average Cost of Petrol - 1.55 Euro per litre
Amount of Tolls – More than it costs to Tax my car
No. of Days Paddling – 4 (2 on the Durance and 2 on the Veneon)
No. of Accidents – 3
No. of Days where it rained – 4
No. of Hairpin Bends – Too many to mention
No. of Bottles of Wine consumed – See above
No. of Road Closures due to land slides – 1
No. of Hours spent waiting in the local tavern for the road to open again – 3
No. of U Turns in Grenoble during a day off – 3 (Not quite a CAP record).
No. of Times a Peugeot 306 can overheat while negotiating the Paris Ring Road – 1
No. of Times someone can lane change on the Paris Ring Road in a minute – 7
No. of Hours a Ferry can be late leaving Boulogne – 2
No. of times you can play I Spy before it gets boring – 3.
No cars were injured or hurt during the making of this trip
The plan was to paddle the French Alps. Unfortunately, Team CAP could not complete the mission. Due to 4 days of constant rain the Police closed all the rivers after a couple of people died. This didn’t stop Team CAP from getting a couple of days paddling before the rivers closed.
We then played the game “Whose Line is it Anyway” where you stop anywhere you can see a river and try and find the line down the rapid that would allow you to get furthest before you drowned. All lines ended in death but how far did people think they could get. This got a bit boring though after the second day as it still hadn’t stopped raining and everyone was getting soaked every time they left the car.
A bit of sightseeing was needed so Grenoble for lunch was decided upon. We would have stayed longer but the threat of rain was always hanging over us like a drysuit in a bunk house.
With only 2 days left to paddle, we needed a local river that might be out of the Closure Zone. The Veneon was decided upon as we could go rafting there if the river was open. Bernard was very surprised to see 5 customers turn up and spoiled us with his fashion parade of Kayaking kit from yesteryear before taking us down the river in his raft.
With the river checked out, we proceeded to spend the next 2 days making up for lost time on this Grade 3+ river by trying to get in every feature.
Friday evening was a sad affair as it dawned on everyone that the week was at an end. Kit was packed and cars were loaded to help save time the following morning.
The plan was to see if we could catch an earlier ferry but unfortunately on arrival at Boulogne we were told that not only could we not change ferry but our ferry was also delayed by 2 hours.
Thank you once again to Chilled Mountain for letting everyone stay. If anyone fancies a great skiing location then I heartily recommend their chalet. You will love what he has done with the place.