IrishFreestyle

Hi all, hope ye all settling in to the summer well, de-stressing after the exams etc, not that many of ye got that stressed in the first place!

The trip has been interesting, to say the least, and not at all as 'planned' so far. Our 'plan' was to be leaving Rosslare for Cherbourg on Monday morning and head pretty much straight for Bourg St. Maurice for a week until the club joined us in Briancon. The first spanner in the works was when Irish Ferries contacted us to say we would now be leaving from Dublin Port instead of Rosslare due to rough seas. Then a further text from them telling us that we would be now landing in Roscoff due to fishermen striking in Cherbourg. We didn't mind too much, after all we had the van (a.k.a. "The Beast" ) and were pretty flexible.

Tony met us in Waterford with the van that looked full, although myself and Kevin didn't have any of our gear loaded! After an hour or so of constructive packing we were on the road, many thanks to Cora and Clare for their help! They seemed quite eager for us to leave…….hmmmm. We had only made it as far as ballyhale when we saw our first hint of trouble, the oil light on the van started winking at us. After a brief inspection, we felt that the dinner waiting for us in Tomard was a far more urgent issue. Once we were well fed we made tracks for the ferry.

Once we got off the ferry we drove to Le Mans and found a place to park for the night. The next morning we woke up to bad news that all the rivers in the French Alps were closed due to torrential rain, time for plan B. We checked the net and found some play spots that we felt were worth a try. We couldn't leave Le Mans though without having a look at the Race Track. Even after some haggling from tony the guy on the gate wouldn't let us unleash "the beast" on the track, but he said we were free to have a wander about the stands etc. It was definitely worth the look. Was great to see the track, pit lane and all the surroundings for real.

Next stops was tours where we found a brilliant play spot, pretty similar to curragower only a bit wider so you have room for three people on the wave at a time. The river was also in flood, so there was plenty of debris floating down the river, including whole trees! Back surfing was always a bit nerve racking as we didn't know what was going to come at us next. The play spot was so good we spent three days there. On our third day one of the locals told us Hawaii-sur-Rhone in Lyon would be working at a nice level. On our way in to Hawaii-sur-Rhone the van got stuck, and a group of people helped us get it out. They were having a party on the side of the river, so we joined them for a while, they were a crazy bunch of people. They invited us in to an Australian Bar they work in in the middle of Lyon, once we got off the river and had some food we went looking for the bar. All I can say is that it was a mental night! We were back on Hawaii sur rhone today and probably heading for Italy tomorrow. Just waiting to see what the water levels are like, it is still raining quite a bit, but we are still managing to work on our tans J. Must run again now, keep the emails coming people. Bye for now.

Brian

BEERTIME from Left Tony Brian & kev

Dinner time,............ Hawaii sur Rhone,...........'The Beast' in lyon

The flying crew hit the skys Thursday morning around 11. Plan of action is to head to argentiere and suss things out. Prob spending a day and night sorting out our campsite booking and visiting the shop in st clement on our annual shopping spree!!!! before moving on into italy for an over night and a paddle the next day and then on to Slovenia, As soon as things are back to normal in briancon area we will return for maybe a weeks paddling before we head home

talk to you all soon

mikef