Ardèche with my parents

Today we woke up bright and early in Alba La Romaine because we will arrive at Camping l’Ardeche in Salavas to meet my parents and spend 11 days with them on their vacation. First we had to go for breakfast, we walked into the village of Alba La Romaine where we had arrived late the night before and looked for a bakery. Luckily you never have to search far for a bakery here in France and within no time we had a baguette on our hands. We quickly looked for a bench in the shades as the temperature was rising quickly. We ate our baguette with La Vache Qui rit in the middle of the town square under the trees and enjoyed looking at all the locals that had breakfast in their local café. After finishing our breakfast we walked around the village for a bit, a typical French village with small, cobblestone alleys, lots of flowers and of course a petanque field in the middle of the town square and headed back to Limão to set off on our journey towards Vallon Pont D’arc. The drive was quite short and we only stopped once for a quick bathroom break. Before we knew it we were at the campsite where we arrived just before noon. Our reservation said we were only allowed on the campsite after 3 but we still decided to try and check-in since the high season has come to an end which means the campsite is probably not nearly full.

We were right and the kind lady at the reception let us check-in right away. She gave us a map of the site and recommended a few shadow-rich pitches. We walked around a bit and settled on a pitch with lots of trees. We parked the van, set up our outside furniture and enjoyed the fact that we would be here for 10 full days before having to think about leaving again. It’s strange how quickly just having a toilet and shower nearby, not having to look for it can become such a luxury. I cleaned the van while Julian cooled of in the river and took a shower. Way earlier than expected, around 2, my parents called and told me they arrived at the campsite. The reception was closed for a while so I went and welcomed them, we carried some of their stuff to our van and Julian joined us after his shower. We had a lot to talk about, we hadn’t seen my parents since leaving on July 12, they read the blog of course and we text and call regularly, but there was still so much to be talked about. They kindly brought some rations as we were missing some Dutch products, mostly Dutch mayonnaise, licorice, cheese and my mothers homemade granola. They also brought a charger for our home-battery, paddles for the paddle board and a small solar panel that can be used to charge a phone.

I poured some drinks and put out some snacks to enjoy while we all caught up. Eventually my parents could check-in and they unpacked, they will be staying in a mobile home a bit further on the campsite. We let them unpack before we came to check out their accommodation and soon we left for dinner. No groceries had been done yet so we tried looking for a restaurant. The one on the campsite didn’t look great and had few options on the menu. In the village Salavas, where the campsite is located there were few restaurants and none of them seemed to appealing. In the end we settled on the camping restaurant of the campsite across from us. Here we ordered drinks, a beer for dad and a liter of red wine for me, mom and Julian. The waitress kindly told us the food may take a while since it was busy, we didn’t care as long as the wine would arrive, which it did fairly quickly. It was a great red wine, one that you drink like lemonade. We soon ordered food and talked and laughed until it arrived. The food was phenomenal, entrecôte grilled to perfection, burgers also grilled to perfection with the right ratio sauce and filling to meat and bread, and Julian had a perfectly baked pizza with a nice thin crust. Wine kept flowing and soon the liter was finished.

Since it was about 35°C that day and my parents had been on the road since 2 in the morning the wine hit and let’s just say we had a great time. The waitress realized we may have had a drink to many and asked us if we wanted dessert. And yes, duh, we always want dessert. She tried telling us which flavors of ice-cream were sold out, but had a hard time keeping a straight face as we kept trying to order things out of stock. Eventually we all made a decision, dad wanted chestnut ice-cream with chestnut liquor and I settled for mint chocolate chip ice-cream with the last scoop of chocolate ice-cream. This started the discussion on mint flavored ice-cream and chocolate. The waitress luckily chose my side and somehow, suspiciously, she thought Julian also ordered 2 scoops of mint chocolate chip ice-cream, even though he took the opposite side of the discussion. She joked that she will then sadly have to eat it herself and not even 5 seconds later, we saw her grabbing a spoon inside and eating the ice-cream.

Yesterday we had a chill day, my parents had to recover from the long drive the day before and as it was Sunday we couldn’t do groceries yet. We ordered pizza at the same restaurant where we ate the day before.

Today the temperature finally dropped below 35°C and Julian and I figured that would be cool enough to go climbing. We woke up early and had breakfast in the van before heading to Balazuc as early as possible. The rock face should be in the shade till noon so we had to start early to get some routes in. We arrived in Balazuc around 9, the parking pointed to in the climbing guide stated that no camping cars were allowed to park there. But since it’s off-season and we would be gone again early in the day we figured a note in the window should do (see picture). We left towards the rock face, a fairly short and calm walk-up brought us to the foot of the face, and we could start setting up. Slowly we keep getting better at the setting up process, I untangle the rope (at this point there are barely any tangles in there), while Julian finds a proper route and gets the hardware ready, then I get ready and we start climbing. We are now down to less than 20 minutes of setting up, which is great since we have to hurry due to the heat. We found some routes and I was sadly still unable to reach the top. Julian keeps getting better and more comfortable so he got up there a few times and now comfortably cleans routes.

After our climbing session we had to do a few groceries, my parents were on a quest to do some big groceries but we still wanted some water, small snacks and yogurt in the van so we didn’t have to fully rely on my parents. We arrived at the store, or so we thought, when we drove up to the parking lot, we had to circle around the store for about 1 km to get to the actual parking lot. And when we were parked we had to walk for at least another km to get to the actual entrance of the store. It was a huge Super U and literally everybody there was Dutch. But that is something we have gotten used to by now, no matter when or where you are, you will hear Dutch people. We slowly strolled through the store enjoying the cool air. We bought some extra cold drinks which we drank in the cool air of the shopping center before we were ready to head out in the heat again. We drove back to the campsite and went to my parents for drinks and lots of games. Eventually we had dinner, played some more games and headed to bed.

This morning we wanted to go climbing again, and my dad told us he would like to join. So early in the morning we got our stuff ready, had breakfast with my dad and we went to Balazuc again. We parked the car, this time completely legally, and headed towards the same rock face. My dad has been indoor bouldering with us a handful of times and one year ago, I went outdoor toproping with my dad in Spain with a guide. So it’s not his first time ever on the wall, but he was still a bit nervous. We explained some things to him and showed him how to climb safely and gave him some tips on how to climb the route. He soon felt comfortable with how disciplined we went over the safety aspects and got dressed to go up on the toprope Julian had installed. He reached the top once, which made us very proud, and he then went up another time, but couldn’t make the top there. When he rappelled down, he somehow thought he had to go further down than the bottom of the wall and while Julian was untying the rope, he somehow hung in his harness and fell backwards. He was still attached to the rope (even though there was some slack in the system) and Julian kept him from rolling to far backwards. This made for some laughs and we applauded him for somehow falling while not even being on the wall.

After he was done, Julian and I decided to climb another route, and I would lead. This was the first time for me I topped a route on lead and soon I started feeling way more comfortable on the wall. We finished the climbing session feeling satisfied and we headed back to the car. The rest of the day we took it easy, we went swimming for a bit, played some games, had dinner and went to bed early.

Yesterday we spent all day relaxing at the river and doing some neglected household chores. Today we are going on a hike to Pont d’arc. Julian and I went over to my parents for breakfast, we had a big breakfast and Julian and I packed some water and snacks for the road. We first had to walk to the start of the trail for about 30 minutes along main road. We arrived at the start of the trail and the first part was quite calm, through some fields and trees. Soon we had to start climbing, my dad has some issues with his knees but he told us he felt good so we could easily continue. After a big climb, stopping to admire the view quite often, we arrived at the top of the mountain. Sadly, the arc couldn’t yet be seen. We continued our journey down and soon arrived at the main paved path towards the beaches around the arc. On a previous hike Julian and I had discussed that it would become more important for me to learn to navigate on a hike, since I want to start hiking alone, but also in case I would get lost. So this time the navigation was on me. Sadly, when we got out of the mountain I sent us left, but we had to go right. Luckily my dad had been here the day before with my mom when they were driving the gorges and he sent us right. Crisis averted, and we went the right way again without having to walk the extra meters. We arrived at the beach next to the arc, took some pictures, had a few snacks and continued our way.

Soon we were back in the mountains and our second ascent of the day started. Halfway up we had to take a path to the left, I triple checked if it was the right way, so on we went. But the path kept getting more narrow, and more debris kept appearing on the path. We concluded that this used to be a path, but it hadn’t been maintained for a while. It was still the right way, so we were extra careful. Some parts of the path had completely disappeared, or had moved down by a bit creating an interesting trail. Eventually we arrived back on the main path and the ascent was almost finished. We quickly reached the top of the mountain again and descended the same way we came up this morning. When we reached the bottom of the mountain and the end of the trail we still had to walk back to the campsite. Somehow this last flat part of a hike is always the worst on your body. The last part we had to stop ourselves from complaining and we texted mom to start baking the fish so we could have lunch at our arrival. We had an amazing day and were glad to start eating. We told mom about our adventures and relaxed the rest of the day. Of course we played some more games before bed.

Today my mom felt good and was ready to join us to our climbing session. We left a bit later than planned, around 10, and the four of us got in the car towards Balazuc. We tried parking on the same parking as the last few times, but since it was after 10, the road through the village was closed and we had to park at the top of the village instead of down by the water. This meant quite a far walk to the rock face, but we still got there in the end. As soon as we entered the woods to the rock face, the path gets a bit steeper and my parents slowed down a bit, but they also made it in the end. We had started unpacking already and choosing a suitable route for my father to toprope. I learned how to clean a route a few days earlier so now Julian could lead and I could clean. Julian installed a toprope and my dad decided he wanted to give it a try. Sadly he had hurt his knee a bit on the hike to the arc and he had to bail halfway. He did however give it a fair try.

This was the first time my mom joined us on any of our climbing activities so in the beginning she got a bit nervous at seeing us go up. To our surprise my mom felt good and wanted to also try and go up, or at least she wanted to experience how it felt to hang in the ropes and feel the security of it. We gave her a safety briefing and some quick tips on the climbing itself, we did however forget to tell her how to rappel comfortably… She put on the harness and she got attached to the toprope. She got up for a little bit and then sat in the harness for a bit. She tried getting higher up but sadly this was a bit too much and she wanted to come down. As we had forgotten to brief her on how to rappel (we only told her the safety necessities, not how to sit comfortably), she now had three men shouting at her on how to sit, which well, didn’t really go to plan. And at this point she just came down, knees scraping against the wall. But we could all laugh about it (yes, my mom as well), when she was down again she saw the appeal and understood how the safety mechanisms work, having faith in the fact that we climb safely.

My parents decided it was time to walk back down and have a drink in the sun, while we climbed up another 2 routes. Soon it got too hot, we packed up and joined them on the beach. After a quick swim we explored the village for a bit, had an ice-cream and headed back to the campsite. It was an adventurous day and back at the campsite we all relaxed, played some more games and had a few drinks.

Yesterday I got the van travel ready again, some cleaning had to be done and I wanted to reorganize some drawers and cabinets while my parents and Julian went to the river. Afterwards we played some games and we went for a drink in Vallon Pont d’Arc. We woke up at 7 and started packing since today we are saying goodbye to my parents. We were done packing quite fast as we only put some furniture outside and I had done most of the cleaning already the day before.

We said our goodbyes after breakfast and started driving towards Casteljau. We didn’t have a solid plan on where we would sleep yet, but we had seen that there were some options quite close to a climbing site. On our way to Casteljau we first had to do our laundry as it had been almost two full weeks since we had done a proper load of laundry. Julian got the responsibility of loading the washer while I headed into the worst Intermarché of the country of France. Empty shelves, tons of workers and customers in the way, a terrible selection of products and a cart with a broken wheel… This was not it, but I tried to get our weeks worth of groceries in and think I did an okay job. As I got back we unpacked the groceries but still had to wait about 2 hours since the dryer had broken with the people in front of us so we had to wait until that was fixed, and they had finished with the dryer until we could finally make use of it. In the scorching heat morale quickly dropped. But in the end we got everything done and continued our journey.

Arriving near Casteljau we soon discovered all parkings either had a height barrier of about 2m (our van is a rough 3m high) or clear signs saying overnight stay is strictly forbidden. In the end we found a place to at least have lunch and come up with a plan. This is when we saw an “in nature” tag on Park4Night where we decided to take the chance. We found the right path and soon discovered this may have been better tagged as a “4×4” parking. Luckily Limão has quite a high wheelbase and is quite sturdy overall. Julian did an amazing job at driving and in the back only the kitchen roll had unrolled throughout the entire kitchen and some stuff in the sink had fallen over or fallen on the floor but all in all it really wasn’t so bad. Upon arrival we found a perfectly flat spot not to close to the road. A bit further we noticed another van camping and we felt pretty safe sleeping at the start of this hiking trail. We went to bed early and got ready for a big climbing session in the morning.