Europe > France > Poitou-Charentes > La Rochelle > Articles > Canoeing on the Charente River

Somewhere just west of Jarnac, southwest France, Thomas (aged four) and I came up with a new song. It was sung to the tune of “She'll be coming round the Mountain”, with lyrics that had been specially created for the occasion:

“We're coming down the river in a boat” (Thomas: "in a boat")
“We're coming down the river in a boat” (Thomas: "in a boat")
“We're coming down the river, coming down the river”,
“Coming down the river in a boat” (Thomas: "in a boat").

On the riverbank, an old fisherman and his wife peered at us through thick glasses from behind a trestle table groaning with a lavish Sunday lunch. "Il est content" - he's happy - I heard the old bloke say as we drifted past. Could he mean me?

It was intended to be an old-fashioned, “Swallows and Amazons” sort of holiday, just me and my boy, a Canadian canoe, a tent, and a placid French river brimming with fish.I am delighted to say that, despite the potential for disaster, that was how it turned out. Dappled mornings, tumbling weirs, and lashings of fresh air.

The Charente flows through southwest France, rising near Limoges and making its bow into the curtains of the Atlantic near La Rochelle. Somewhere in the middle it meanders through the vineyards of Cognac country, which is where this journey began.

Getting a four-year-old native of West London into an open canoe, sleeping under the stars and eating funny foreign food, is a piece of cake - provided it's attractively sandwiched within return journeys on the Eurostar and the TGV. The concept of a river voyage didn't really begin to strike home until we'd been afloat for an hour, and Thomas decided it was time we went back.

"Back" was Les Gabariers, a riverside bar southwest of Angouleme owned by an Englishman, Simon Constant. Constant has been arranging canoe hire from here for some years, and there's an air of the “Wind in the Willows” about the place,expressed by a variety of rivercraft in varying states of decay, dogs, ducks and swans, and a collection of venerable mopeds outside the bar suggesting that the denizens of the riverbank are within.

My mid-river revelation that we were not going back to Gabariers for three whole days produced a torrent of "whys" from Thomas. It took a whole new made-up story about a frog that decided to go on holiday to distract him. That's one advantage of going downstream; you can ship paddles and do your story telling with no fear that the scenery will begin to rewind.

By lunchtime he was absorbed in the journey. We stopped to heat up some baked beans - mon dieu, la gastronomie anglaise - on the river bank, and then drifted with a fishing rod made from a stick, trying to attract perch with pungent maturing frankfurters.

By mid afternoon the sun was showing no mercy so we struck off up a narrow, fast-flowing cut, which broadened into a mill pool surrounded by decaying mill buildings in lichen-coated limestone. This was Vibrac, where I knew there was a bar called Coco's.

There were four mopeds outside Coco's, and four pastis-drinking paysans inside. "Coca-Cola!?" repeated the lady proprietor, as if we'd asked for Ecstasy. They had none, never had, and I suspect never will. On the wall were dog-eared black and white photos of Vibrac as it used to be; absolutely nothing had changed. What was wrong with these people? Hadn't they heard of downshifting or teleworking?

We stopped for the night opposite St.Simon, pitching our tent amidst the trees amongst undergrowth that smelled of mint.

Next morning I woke to a sound which I had hoped not to hear: the patter of rain. For some while we lay cosily in our sleeping bags and watched it fall, but it showed no sign of relenting. A quick phone call to the local taxi company, and half an hour later we were in a trendy bar in Jarnac, watching rock videos.

The next day's weather was kinder. We had a lovely passage, ticking off the romanesque churches and family-owned cognac distilleries as they drifted astern. At midday we completed what became known as the two ice-cream walk: I wanted to see the 13th century Benedictine abbey at Bassac, but incentives were required to get Thomas the mile uphill from the river.

"The Sisters of Ursula welcome Visitors", said a notice outside the abbey church. I wasn't sure the Sisters of Ursula would welcome a four-year-old in wellies and singlet and carrying a Kermit the Frog ice cream. Especially as there were holy noises emanating from behind the abbey church door.

By the early afternoon we were nearing Jarnac, and I was listening to cricket on my short-wave radio while quaffing red wine and Hula Hoops. At the lock above the town we had a stroke of good fortune: a hire boat full of jolly Germans was coming upstream, and they did all the hard work with the gates and winches.

At Jarnac itself there was a lock-keeper on duty, and we sat alone in the middle of the huge, emptying bath, father and son dwindling downwards as the prison walls grew higher, watched by groups of curious, pointing tourists.

We didn't stop at Jarnac, having seen it all before. It was the weekend, and suddenly the river seemed almost crowded. Cries of "cochon" went up from the riverbank at every hint of motorboat wash. Not only had these people not heard of teleworking, their cursing was old-fashioned too.

That evening we came ashore for the last time at Bourg Charente, made the required phone call, and lay down on the grassy banks to wait for Simon to come with his trailer to take father and son back to the world of the TGV, work and school.

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