Cathy’s uncle Rod and his wife Jane are visiting for a few days which makes the extended family total eight plus our five. The suggestion of going on the river came up and canoe hire at Tremolat was arranged with Peter Checkley of Aquafun.

On arrival at the river Cathy and her mum pulled out leaving us needing just four canoes.  We agreed Le Buisson as our start point.  All canoes, kit, oars sorted and off we went in the minibuses to Le Buisson.

I took Finn and Georgia in my canoe and off we went.  It took abot an hour to get to Limeuil where we met Cathy and Chris on the river beach.  We had our lunch on the river’s edge and took in the delights of this very pretty place.  mental note to come here again.

After an hour we set off again with a few swaps of children made. I now had Aine and Finn in my canoe. All was going nicely but unforunately Finn was getting bored so we transferred him to the canoe with Jack and we carried on.  We were getting to the end of this two hour section when we decided to have a little race.  During this spell we started to ship water causing Aine some little concern.  I tried baling out the water but this was not working so I called over Rod and Jane who quickly took Aine off.  Within  20 seconds my canoe sank and I was swimming in the Dordogne. 

After many whoops of laughter from the others Ali (from her canoe) and I (in the water)started baling out the water and after five minutes or so we got enough water out to allow me to geback on the canoe and head to the finish.

It seems I am too heavy on my own for this canoe because the drain hole at the back was dropping in a out of the water.  Surely it should have had a bung fitted?

One very damp me and one very amused family - except Aine who was very worried that the crocdiles would get me!