Green River Canoes: Take the kids canoeing

Connect your children to nature



In my other guise as a guide for Green River Canoes. We have some excellent short canoeing trips in the school holidays for 2014. We canoe on rivers in the Belgium Ardennes, just a short hop across the channel and also in the Lot region of France.

Plenty of things for the kids to do apart from splashing about in the river of course. Lots of butterflies and dragonflies to observe and plenty of history with castles and caves to get involved in.

We take the stress and strain out of organising the trip and everyone has a great time.

The rivers are easy to paddle and eminently suitable for children over the age of 7. Being able to swim 25m is a must. We paddle tandem open canoes with an adult and child in each canoe. Once we assessed the abilities then kids can paddle together under supervision. We all where life-jackets when on the river.

We provide instructions on paddling for those that have never tried it and generally mess about on the river whilst we learn. Of course we also make sure everyone is aware of the dangers and run through the safety regularly.

All the different trips are on the web, with summaries, day-to-day schedules and notes on the places we stay. You can also read our brochures and download them too.

Our scheduled trips are limited to 7 people, plus our two guides. We can arrange for larger groups if required. If you are 4 or more then we can arrange a private group and schedule for you. Talk to us if you want to tweak the dates, include or exclude certain things, change the rendezvous place etc and so forth.

We really love canoeing and we would love to take you.

Green River Canoes: Family Trips

Connect with nature: Canoeing in the School Holidays

During each season Green River Canoes dedicates some of its Inn-to-Inn Guided Canoe Trips to the idea of families with youngish children to come canoeing with us to the Belgium Ardennes and to the Perigord and Lot regions in the south of France.

These trips will coincide with the school holidays, including the breaks around Easter and Whitsun, the long summer holidays and the half-term holiday in the Autumn term (usually towards the end of October).

The trips will operate on the same schedule as our other trips to the region except that we will make special efforts to ensure that the focus is on the wants of the children especially when it comes to the amount of time spent canoeing, the activities we pursue away from the river and making sure the children are fed and watered at suitable times. This is not to say that the adults will not also have a great time.

The trips we schedule in the school holidays will be those of a shorter duration: 5, 6 or 7 days. Although of course longer trips can be arranged.

We offer a discount to children under 12 years of age of 25% for the first child and 50% for subsequent children. For young adults under 18 the discount is 15% for the first and 25% for others.

The 7 Day Trip to the Belgium Ardennes also has a discount of 10% for all adults.

For the 2014 season we are offering the following trips to coincide with the school holidays:

5th-11th   April:        Seven Days in the Belgium Ardennes
13th-19th April:        Seven Days in the Belgium Ardennes
25th-30th May:         Five Days on the Célé in the south of France
23rd-29th August:    Seven Days in the Belgium Ardennes
25th-30th October:  Five Days on the Célé in the south of France

On all the trips we will endeavour to engage the children not only in learning how to canoe, but also assist them in attaining a certain level of water-craft and to become involved in the natural history surrounding us in and around the rivers.

We will also encourage the children to become engaged in the history of the region we visit in particular where we can visit castles and other historical sites. Of course we realise that this is a holiday too so we will try to avoid a too heavy-handed approach and take our lead from both the parents and the children about how we spend our time.
We will also encourage the children to learn something of the local culture where we are; this will involve the local cuisine obviously but also the observation and joining in of local events. We often come across Fêtes and Fairs and Festivals during the summer months.

We will usually canoe in tandem with one adult and one child per canoe, and if the paddlers become sufficiently proficient during the week then we may allow two children to paddle together. Closely watched, of course.

Children must be 7 years of age and be able to swim 25 metres. Life-jackets are worn by everyone when on the water.

Children older than 12 may canoe together after we have observed how competent they are.

The rivers on these trips have no white-water or rapids although the river can flow quickly in places. On our first few days canoe instruction will be given and everyday we will go over the safety drill before starting the paddle for the day.




Brochures can be browsed here and downloaded for offline reading.

 

Introducing Green River Canoes

Green River Canoes Ltd

My friend Steve Lines and I have just kicked off a new project for the New Year. It's called Green River Canoes and it's a small company that runs Inn-to-Inn Guided Canoe Trips to the south of France.

All the links to our web site, blog, facebook and twitter are in the panel on the right.

Here is what our Home page says:

Welcome to the Green River Canoes blog. We are a company offering Inn-to-Inn Guided Canoe Trips in the south of France. Our main website is here. We are currently offering a 6 Day Trip in the Perigord region on the Vezere and Dordogne rivers and a 5 Day Trip in the Lot region on the Cele river. A combination 12 Day, 3 Rivers trip is also available.

Bespoke/Custom Trips can be arranged if required. Here are some ideas.

All our holidays comprise of mostly canoeing with some (often optional)  hiking. The itinerary is planned but is flexible enough to be changed on the day if required. These are detailed here for the Perigord trip and here for the Lot Trip.

All our holidays are guided. Our guests will be accompanied on the river and trail by an experienced guide who knows the area and rivers well. Our other guide will accompany us in the background by driving our vehicle between lodgings. When necessary this vehicle will be transferring our luggage, rendezvousing with us for lunch and generally being available as and when needed.

All the accommodation on our trips is in small local Hotels, Chambre D'Hotes or B&Bs, which are detailed here for the Perigord trip and here for the Lot trip.

All our holiday prices include transfers, canoe hire, accommodation and meals (except one).
All trips have a maximum size of 9 people. That is 7 guests and 2 guides.

On all our trips we will enjoy the natural history and local history of the region and see many of the fabulous sites along the way. Needless to say we will also enjoy the local wines and regional cuisine.

We take trips from late spring, through summer (avoiding August) until the autumn and fall. When to go? These books and maps will also help you enjoy the trip.

More detailed questions are answered here.

If you have any other questions we would be delighted to hear from you. All the details are on the panel to the right, where you can also sign-up for our quarterly Newsletter.

I'm back!

Canoeing and Hiking

I've just returned from 8 weeks. Most of it was spent guiding two canoe trips in the Lot and Dordogne regions of France. I also spent a few days hiking in the Vosges, also in France, as well as catching a stage of the Tour de France. In between times I was hanging out in Paris and also took time out to visit my Dad in the UK.

The canoe trips went well and we had a lot of fun with all our guests on both trips. I guided the first with Carolyn and the second with Paul. It's been a couple of years since I worked with Paul. He's a blast! It was Paul that also came with me to the Vosges.

Although I've done these canoe trips many times I still enjoy them everytime. The rivers are always different and the company is always different.My mood is also different each time so I get to shoot things that excite me at different times during different visits. I don't always get to shoot a lot when actually on the water and it's difficult to paddle and shoot at the same time. It's easier to do when paddling tandem.

More about these trips in the coming days.



The Vosges

Paul and I took the new TGV Est to Colmar and then a little dinky train up into the hills to Metzeral. By the time we arrived we were the only two on the train! In the small town we bought some provisions in the local outdoor market and then made our way to the trail head. Luckily the trails are well waymarked and we had no trouble finding the trail which would take us up to the Petit Ballon.



The trail zigzagged it's way up the hillside thropugh some woods giving us an occaisonal view of the village we'd just left below. Every now and then we had to pass through some stiles; some in the form of kissing-gates and others as turnstiles. We remarked that only thin people seemed to be allowed on the trail.

At one point we found our way blocked by a group of horses one of which had the temerity to push Paul out of the way. I hung back until it was safe.



As the trail climbed it reached a more major trail and we encountered our first fellow hikers. Further on, at a conveniently placed bench, with a superb view, we stopped for some lunch. As we were sat down we were approached by a Dutch fellow, called Carl, who stopped for a chat and told us about a Ferme-Auberge further up the trail where we could get a beer. Superb news.

After our break we continued up the trail which opened out above the trees into beautiful flowered meadows. The number of butterflies around was astonishing and I spent some time trying to get some shots of them,

Eventually we came upon the Ferme-Auberge but we were disappointed to find that they had no tables set up outside. However inside we found Carl having his lunch and we joined him for a couple of pints. He told us how he comes here every summer from The Hague, and how he walks the trails every day. He also told us that he'd have to walk home as his wife now refuses to drive up the winding roads to pick him up! We quizzed him on the best place to view the Tour as it loops around this area in a few days. Unfortunately it seems that we will be unable to get a birdseye view of the climbs as they are all shrouded in trees. That means we will have to watch at the road-side. The problem is where?



After our refreshments we continued up the trail to the summit of Petit Ballon where a group of people were flying radio controlled gliders! We then joined the GR532, which would later take us to the GR5, towards a hostel where we were planning to stay the night.

On arrival we found the Hostel closed. Paul spent some time trying to pick the lock but was unable to. We sat and read at the picnic table and had some supper. We were going to have to sleep outside. I, fortunately, was carrying a bivvy, a sleeping bag and a mat. Paul only had a sleeping bag! He used a tabletop top leant against a wall to fashion a shelter and slept under there. I just chose a soft spot to bed down. We are not plagued by any insects but are slightly concerned that some cows might wander through. The evidence that they do this is splashed around the place!

To be continued ...

Dad

My father has spent a good deal of this summer in hospital. A few weeks after returning from a holiday in Texel he contracted an infection in the valves of his heart. He had to spend six weeeks in an hospital bed whilst being dripped antibiotics to clear it up. He was at home briefly before being re-admitted with pneumonia. He now has to wait for this to be cleared up before having a heart operation. This will repair a leaky heart valve or it will be replaced.

Naturally all the family are concerned and although he's had many visitors whilst in hospital it must be deadly dull in there day after day. We are all hoping that once the operation has been performed and he's had time to recuperate from that, that he can slowly get back to a more normal, if slower, lifestyle.