swimming in France

Dan Start has produced the third in his series of Wild Swimming books, and this time the focus is France. For those of you who already have the two UK books, focussing on rivers, lakes and coast, you’ll have a good idea of how user friendly and enticing the content of the book is. Dan’s made some improvements to layout; mainly by including much clearer maps of where swims are, and his photography is wonderfully engaging – the inclusion of people in many of the shots also gives a good sense of scale.

The book focusses on the more mountainous south of France, but there is a chapter on the Dordogne and surrounding region. If you were hoping for a guide to Brittany and the north, then I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. But. Why be so? The book almost invites you to book a Eurostar ticket to Avignon forthwith and be wet in a canyon within 24 hours.

Whether you are a swimmer in search of new places to jump in pots (or marmites as they say in French), rivers to horizontally canyon along (aqua randonnee) or are planning a self catering stay in the Ardeche, Provence, Pyrenees, Cevenne or Alps; this guide will show you where you can swim, jump and splash about in safety, in delight and in warm temperatures – the air that is, not the water. In short, Buy It.

the swims of 2011

Lakes and Rivers

River Cam, Newnham Riverbank Club

River Nene at Tansor and Wadenhoe, Northants

River Sava, Slovenia

Loch Lubnaig, Trossachs

Glen Etive, Western Highlands

Ellerton Lake, North Yorkshire

Easedale Tarn, Cumbria

Lake Bled, Slovenia

Lake Bohinj, Slovenia

Lake de Presil, Italy

Cardingmill Valley Reservoir, Shropshire

 

Sea

Calshot Beach, Hampshire

Coldringham Bay, Borders

Cley-next-the-Sea, Norfolk

Madellena Archipelago, Sardinia

Outer Hebrides – between the isles off Barra

Bamburgh, Northumberland

Tenby and surrounding beaches, Pembrokeshire

Whistable, Kent

 

Lidos

Tooting Bec

London Fields

Hampton

Temperatures varying between 0.5 degrees C to 20 degrees C.

Cardingmill Valley, Shropshire

Kate and I went up to see her Mum in Shropshire on Saturday morning. It was a lovely sunny day, so we decided to walk up Cardingmill Valley and swim in the disused reservoir – which we think is called New Pools. It’s a National Trust property and they have relaxed their attitude to wild swimming, as there’s a helpful sign about wild swimming on a post by the reservoir. I’d say the water was about 9 degrees C. We felt refreshed, invigorated and ready for the massive dinner that followed.

Sandycove Island

For those of you with an interest in the wild and/or long distance swimming check out the Sandycove Swimmers site. It’s where a lot of Irish swimmers practice for both the Channel and other long distance swims. A rough mile out and round the island. The temperature changes and so does the sea, depending on which bit of the island you’re swimming by; and you get to see way beyond the end of your arm – unlike mucky Dover Harbour.

If you like the Emerald Isle and swimming, pop down for a swim on your way by. There will, likely as not, be some friendly soul swimming around and you’re just south of Kinsale; apparently (though I’ve yet to be convinced) the culinary capital of Ireland. And there’s a lovely pint of Murphy’s to be drunk in The Tap…and ghost stories too.

Slovenia day seven – playtime

Final day. Final swims. Met James and took him down to the canyon to play

I believe I can fly

Commando stylee

And another twist from the ape

don't try this at home kids

Mrs Ape considers her options

Before another large pizza, beer and flight home

 

Slovenia day six – horizontal canyoning

The thought of another uphill slog put Mrs Ape’s calves into spasm, so we decided to walk along the river and find the diving board we’d espied from the van enroute to one of our earlier swims. We found a cycle path just north of the hotel and walked a couple of km down until we came to a bend in the river; from which we could see the diving board a hundred metres or so upstream. We stripped into our swimmers and placed all the damageable stuff into a waterproof sack and waded up to the dining board and played for a while

flying ape

We then waded, shot rapids and jumped in off rocks all the way back to the hotel – a cool two hours of playing later.

Mrs Ape getting ready to shoot the rapids

go ape!

 

Slovenia day three – Lake del Prebnil, Sava River

Another early start to drive over the border into Italy to swim in a high lake. Enroute we sang along to the Greatest Rock Hits Ever!!! – thanks Saso. Discovered that Alan is a rocker, as well as a geek; who’d have thought? And that Royal Marines can sleep anywhere under any conditions. Had a lovely cool 2km swim across Lake del Prebil

Before heading off to walk up to and swim in the plunge pool below Slap Kozjak

Mrs Ape strolling back from her plunge

We then had some wonderful local food at lunch and chatted away to three of our guides, Sandi, Thomasz and Saso, before heading off to swim 2.2 km downstream in this river

River Soca

Before driving onto a train and passing under the mountains on the way home.

Met my baby on the six o'clock to Ribcev Laz

Slovenia day one – Lake Bohinj

Despite being on a plane surrounded by FC Samba football fans, who managed to murder Joy Division’s “Love will tear us apart” by singing, “Gib, Gib will tear us apart again” for almost two hours, we arrived in Slovenia having read the papers cover to cover and mastered the quick crossword. Such are the travails of the modern liberal.

Met Saso at arrivals and piled into a transit van for an hours drive to the glorious Lake Bohinj

Where we had a quick swim

The wonderful Mrs Ape

before meeting all the other Strel swimmers. A few drinks later we were all pretty friendly and ready to start our adventures.

Glen Etive

The last time I was here in 2009 the river was in spate and Kate and I couldn’t get in. But last Friday we were blessed with a sunny day and clear waters. We only stayed for 40 minutes, as we were on the way back to Kelso. Both upstream and downstream of this large plunge pool are several others. On a sunny day, with time to spare, you could spend hours and hours here swimming, jumping and messing about.

So, if you ever find yourself in the vicinity of Oban or Fort William check it out. Just off the A82 east of Glen Coe, there’s a turn down a single track road. You’ll come to a bridge. You can swim, a little, below this, but the wonders appear further downstream – three big pools. You may have to scramble a bit to get down to them, but it’s well rewarded.

Outer Hebrides – trip logistics

So you don’t have the money to pay for a Swimtrek holiday, but you do have a bunch of mates who can swim and fancy something a little out of the ordinary. Here’s the breakdown.

Boat – You need a boat for safety. Heading out into wild water without someone to save you is foolhardy. One of you needs to stay on the boat to provide cover and deal with anyone who gets hypothermic, jellied or otherwise affected. The boatman needs to understand the water – how it moves, when the tides turn and any special currents. And there needs to be a ladder to get on to the boat. Our boat was £400 per day. We’d budgeted for three days, but used two. A total of £800.

Accommodation – You can camp, but it rains a lot on the Outer Hebrides. Various cottages are available. Ours slept six and was £360 for the week.

Travel – Ferry charges from Oban to Barra were £106 per car return and £23 per person return. A total of £327. There were five of us.

Petrol, food, drink and sundries came to around £300. Obviously good to have a fuel efficient car.

In total the cost of the trip was just under £1800. Or £360 per person. If we’d taken the boat out for another day it’d have been £440 per head in total.

We did nine crossings ranging from 200m to 3km. And many other beach swims.

You’ll also need to take into account accommodation on the way up and down, unless like us you have friends or family to stay with. Otherwise it’s a minimum 10 hour drive from London to Oban.