It’s the late evening after a hot day in Southern France …And then, the question is asked, “shall we run this again?” A couple of nods later and, the next iteration of the Essex Wing Ardèche Expedition had begun with two years of preparation ahead for another fantastic journey down the Ardèche River had begun…
One significant advantage of running the repeat of an expedition is being able to use all the good info from the first. However, when mother nature is involved much is still new on each and every visit. In the months that followed, routes were chosen, letters of intent sent and a Staff team built. The nominations from the Cadet units then followed and we had more than sufficient interest for a full expedition.
Our intent was to offer a ‘pinnacle’ AT paddling expedition. The nominations fitted this plan well and, before long we had an initial training weekend to do the first selection of candidates. The first training weekend was underway with a paddling trip and overnight camp. As a result, a final personnel list of 12 was in place. A few staff undertook a reccee trip to France with the phrase “the river decides” being very apt here with the whole river at dangerous levels and in an unpaddlable condition, even alternative trekking routes were underwater. Not disheartened, we proceeded with this new education on the Ardèche River and, enhanced our final training weekend using the proposed expedition equipment.
A few more weeks of planning calls, finances, moving equipment around the county and then finally, the team were ready. An equipment packed support vehicle left of Fri 16thth Aug with the cadets getting up in the middle of the night for an early flight to Marseilles on the 18th. All personnel were now in France and the ‘allo allo’ version of ‘Ardèche 19’ had truly begun. A commercial vehicle transfer to a base camp and collection of our hired kayaks meant a ‘selfsufficient’ approach now lay ahead. Months ago we had decided that we wanted to run this without buying-in outside support and so, teams of Staff and Cadets set about preparing the first nights meal in base camp.
Preparation day was about acclimatisation to 30+ degree temperatures, food shopping and expedition lunch preparation. A bit of refresh safety training, a recce of the local area and to bed before lé grade départ. The morning saw us leave on our journey on the Ardèche River. ‘Putting on’ at a new and very quiet location meant us having the river to ourselves for virtually the whole first day. We set off, paddling towards Vallon with the fun of Canoe chutes allowing progress down the many weirs that lay ahead; kayaks loaded with Barrels containing all our worldly possessions, it suddenly felt remote, real and a proper adventure.
Day 2 started, some cheeky rapids to start off the day, and then the famous Pont d’Arc (80m high limestone arch) loomed into sight. Lunch under the Arch bought us the tourist activity that any significant landmark brings. Not so remote now but the team has formed and we were in full adventure mode. The afternoon saw us challenged by the strengthening sun and a very warm river taking us right into the full two sided gorge that we would call home for the next few days.
Part of the design of the expedition was to take our time to ensure we could explore on route. One of these appeared early on with us trekking journey through a limestone cavern to meet the river again and a short swim back to our kayaks. A day in the gorge is quite impossible to describe but the closes we could come to is ‘breath-taking’.
Arriving at our remote bivouac campsite we were met by the Police, Gendarmerie and a playful looking Alsatian. It was just a look, Drugs and Alcohol were the dogs speciality. We passed the test!, still not quite sure how they all got to this remote woodland environment. Kayak perhaps! A bivouac site for overnight so, time for some manual clothes washing and impromptu washing line. Dinner from our barrels and time for some star gazing and then to turn in for a well earnt night’s sleep.
Day three was another 14k of paddling with a long lunch stop for some sun and running the rapids a few times over. A move off the water to climb up and try and find an old Knights Templar and St John’s ruin. Try was the key word, the forest kept this ancient relic from us this time around. Still we got to spend hours in the forest trying to get back to our boats. The second Bivouac Campsite arrived with a long drag of all our equipment up the hill away from the river. Cut into the side of the limestone gorge, we climbed up from the campsite to a remote historic cave for our team dinner high above the gorge.
Towards the end of the last day, as the gorge starts to end into an open plain, there is a long 2km stretch of slower moving water, perfect for a bit of synchronised paddling. A complete fail with that as, standing up paddling being the preferred approach to the final section. Of course, as had happened many times over the last few days, the water claimed most of us for that final dunk into the warm and, ever flowing, Ardèche River.
A bus and trailer picked us up from the finish point to return us to base camp a few hours later. We’d done it ….. we’d run the gorge, four days self-sufficient adventure and teaming.
Our final day was a mixture of R&R visit by bus to the local village of Vallon d’Pont Arc Returning to base camp for the team final pack up and end Ex dinner.
In summary, a very successful expedition which delivered on its goals of a significant paddle sports based expedition being both scalable a repeatable for the future. Clearly it would not have been such a success without the ATC’s sponsorship and important fiscal sponsorship from The Ulysses Trust. The latter enable us to better equip the cadets and help us achieve our self-sufficiency goal. The feedback from the all participants was very positive and underlying those sentiments, many individuals commented that they learnt so much about, technical paddling of course, but importantly perhaps, much about themselves and how they worked within a team and skills they discovered during the venture.
One candidate commented:
“I never thought I could achieve anything like this, the best thing I have ever, ever done.”
It is those last comments that will have an underlying long term benefit to the organisations future leaders and builds the spirit of adventure and exploration within an organisation whose motto is, after all, ‘venture adventure’.
The Ulysses Trust also wish to thank the generosity of the Royal Air Force Charitable Trust for supporting this expedition. www.rafct.com
