Jon & Julie's travels : The Absolutely Amazing "Lac Sainte-Croix", "Gorges Du Verdon" & "Grand Canyon"

Bonjour,

We have had to do this extra blog this week as we have just left one of the most spectacular places we have seen so far which was recommended to us by Marc & Kitty who we became friends with in La Franqui. The drive there from Millau wasn’t anything special until we were almost at our destination, Camping La Source in a little village called Les Salles-sur-Verdon on the Lac Sainte-Croix. Well as we rounded a bend in the road we got our first glimpse of Lac Sainte-Croix it just totally blew us away with it’s beauty and torquoise blue water, it just didn’t look real, it was like a picture postcard, so with us both very excited we got the van set up at the lovely little site next to the lake and like a couple of kids ran down to the waters edge just to get a look and our feet wet, we were in total shock at what we were looking at. The lake is a man made lake constructed between 1971-1974 and holds 761 million cubic metres of water. The original village of Sainte-Croix-De-Verdon is now completely underwater and the new village was built to replace it.

The next day we jumped on the XT and set off to see the rest of the area, we only got a few miles down the road when we found this bridge over what we later found out to be the canyon or what some say is the French Grand Canyon which is a popular tourist area. One of the things to do here is hire a canoe, kayak, pedalo or electric boat and follow the canyon up so we put it on our to-do list. So after a quick photo it was a case of just following the road round the rest of the lake then up above the canyon to another place mentioned by Marc & Kitty called the Point Sublime.

We followed the D952 up which had been cut out the side of the canyon and zig zagged it’s way along the side of the canyon itself and I can honestly say it was heaven on the bike and so much fun. After about 20km we found the Point Sublime which is a view point 591 feet high looking up yet another canyon which seemed to go on and on. We spotted some steps and people below so we made our way down and came across a lot of groups doing “canyoning” which involves wetsuits,crash helmets and life vests then jumping in and being taken off by the river for as far as you could see over boulders and small rocks. We then came across some small metal steps leading up into series of tunnels which had been excavated for an old hydro electric scheme which was abandoned after 4 years but the tunnels still remain intact for walkers and mountaineers to gain access to the canyons beyond. The longest tunnel was 650m long and in the pitch black apart from the odd hole to one side which must have been something to do with the construction which from reading an info board took place from 1905 to 1909 when it was finally abandoned. Once back in the sun we found a nice rock and just took in the amazing scenery.

One of the other things on our to-do list while here was to paddle board across the lake to the opposite side which must be just over 1km. We couldn’t believe our luck as the day we picked to do this it was mirror flat and scorchio so we knocked up a quick pack lunch, chucked the towels, sun cream, camera and a couple of beers in a wet bag and set off across the lake. We can honestly say we were absolutely speechless at the beauty of the lake and it’s crystal clear water, we have never paddle boarded anywhere like it. As we neared the opposite side we spotted a small shingle beach and made it our own for the day and what a fantastic day it was too, just swimming, chilling, watching the world go by and sunning ourselves. It was so amazing we didn’t want to leave our little haven but as we finally left we heard an almighty noise and saw a fire fighting plane coming into land on the lake and taking off again, obviously someone was having a practice run!

As we said we decided to hire a canoe and go up the canyon, the guy at the hire place said 2 hours would be fine so we jumped in and looking like a chinook helicopter, paddles everywhere we set off in a erratic fashion towards the canyon but after a while we found our rhythm and got quite a move on, manoueviring between the other boats, canoes & pedalos (no motor driven boats are allowed on the lake/canyon which was nice). Once again the scenery was surreal and we had to pinch ourselves at times, on route there was a fabulous waterfall.

Each evening before dinner we would grab a couple of glasses and a bottle of wine and the hammock and walk the few steps to the banks of the lake, tie the hammock up between our favourite 2 trees and watch the sunset, just breathtaking…….

Our on our last morning we had one last trip out on the XT up to Aiguines the village above ours to the 17th century Chateau with it’s pepper pot towers which overlooks the lake, we just stood for a while looking at the lake for one last time before moving on.

We looked at the map and sat nav and decided that the best way to our next stopover would be to go up the D952 above and through the canyon (which we had done part of on the XT to Point Sublime) we were both slightly nervous but we knew if we took our time it would be fine and plenty of other motorhomes were using the same route. We put the GoPro on the front of the van and took a few pics along the way, OMG it was scary yet exciting and something we will always remember from our travels. There were overhangs of rocks and even a small rock tunnel but again it’s all part of the adventure as we keep saying but one thing is for sure we are glad we are doing this in this van and not our big 8m 6 wheel tag axle that we had before!!!