Bristol Canoe Club trip to the Massif Central, 4th – 11th July 2026.
Report by Conor O’Neill
In July 2026, a dozen Bristol Canoe Club members travelled to the Massif Central in France, for a week’s mellow kayaking on the River Tarn.
The definitive guidebook for this area is “Best Canoe Trips in the South of France – A paddling guide to the friendly rivers of the Massif Central”, by Peter Knowles. This year we decided to head to Sainte-Enimie on the river Tarn (a few years ago a club trip stayed on the river Allier at Aleyras).
Without any particular intent, the group ended up as mostly couples. Conor & Lisa, Nick & Lynne (plus Ruby the dog), Anne & Dave, Phil & Norma, Paul & Isabelle, plus Teresa, and Jeremy (Jezza). Nobody under the age of 50, unfortunately. We all ended up driving down to the river in pairs too.
We had planned this trip for a while, and we chose a recommended campsite from the guidebook; “Camping Couderc”, just a couple of km downstream of Sainte-Enimie. It turned out to be an excellent campsite, with plenty of shade (for most pitches), and direct access to the river, plus a tiny shop, tiny bar, and a swimming pool.
We all turned up in dribs and drabs on the Saturday afternoon, having driven down through France, mostly over a couple of days, during one of this year’s many French heatwaves. Conor & Lisa had spent the previous two weeks on a cycle tour through the Gironde region (around Bordeaux); that’s a separate trip you can ask us about.
At the campsite, we set up our tents. Nick & Lynne had been allocated a pitch with zero shade, so they moved to a shady pitch a little further away, while Paul & Isabelle had booked a hut. The heat meant that the shade was very important.
The campsite has a food van arrive every evening, with different food each day. This meant that the first night we were all able to be lazy, and most of us bought lasagne from the van. This then developed into the standard pattern of sitting in the campsite for the evening, chatting and drinking various amounts of wine or beer (or neither).
The campsite rents out sit-on-top kayaks directly from here, so on the Sunday, Paul rented a boat. Dave unfortunately wasn’t feeling 100% so declined to paddle. Nick & Lynne preferred to stay at the campsite, swimming, as did Isabelle. The rest of us paddled 10km downstream, to the small town of La Malène. This was a grade 1-2 scrape; the river was very low, so there were a couple of places where people had to shuffle over shallow gravel. There are very many boat rentals along the river valley; we probably saw fifty or more tourists paddling sit-on-tops on the river. Paul’s boat was picked up for him at the get-out, the rest of us had time for a cool drink in a cafe before shuttling back. La Malène was actually chaotic, because they were running a motor-sport hill-climb from the town this weekend, so all of the car parks, etc, were full.
We had a communal meal at the campsite on the Sunday night, cooked by Lisa and Anne.
On the Monday, Dave joined us, and we paddled the section above; from Montbrun down to the campsite. A similar distance, similar grade, and similarly low water, but still definitely worth doing (once). Again, plenty of tourists on sit-on-tops, and spectacular scenery. Jezza managed to lose his phone into the water, in a waterproof bag. We found it again, but the bag clearly wasn’t waterproof, and the phone had been damaged beyond use. The efforts to get Jezza back into communication were a notable part of the next couple of days; difficult when he didn’t remember any of his passwords. We stopped for a refreshment stop at Sainte-Enimie as we passed the town, before getting back to the campsite around 5pm, with the temperature still 36 degrees!
Some of us headed back into Sainte-Enimie in the evening for a pizza, and then wandered around the tiny medieval streets in the town.
On the Tuesday, most people wanted a rest day, involving swimming and/or sitting in the shade. Jezza and Conor decided that we really should paddle something, so the two of us paddled the 2km-ish from Sainte-Enimie back to the campsite.
Tuesday’s meal was saucisson and potatoes, from the food van.
On the Wednesday we had enthused Nick and Lynne enough to join us on the water. We drove to La Malène to paddle the section downstream from there. Nick & Lynne, Paul, and Dave, rented canoes and sit-on-tops; they would be picked up somewhere, above the “Pas de Soucy”, a grade 6 (un-paddleable) section. We kayakers shuttled the cars to try to find a suitable get-out, but the guidebook was unhelpful; most of the access points were private. Eventually we found an access point for a short-ish trip; maybe 8km.
This section of the river is also paddled by the “Bateliers”; local boatmen paddle wide punts down the river for tourists. Originally this was all manually-propelled, with a long punt pole, but nowadays they use a small outboard engine for the flat bits; this does seem to spoil the trip a bit.
A good day was had by all; we didn’t paddle into the grade 6 section. Ruby (the dog) enjoyed it all too.
Phil cooked a chicken curry for everyone in the evening.
Thursday; we decided to try the ‘hard’ section, from Les Vignes to Le Rozier, listed as grade 2(3-). At this very low water level, it is hard to call it a grade 3, Only Lisa, Conor, and Jeremy took this on. A minor upset for Jezza on the “La Sabliere” grade 3- rapid, but we went back to repeat it, and Jezza did fine the second time around. This whole section was very pleasant being less gravelly and therefore less shallow in general. Again, there were very many tourists (and school kids) on sit-on-tops. It was entertaining to see how badly they negotiated the simplest of rapids. 🙂 Another notable feature was a naked lady standing in the middle of the river, seemingly unbothered by the boats paddling past. The guidebook also mentioned a cafe on the river bank, towards the end of the trip; we used this for a very welcome cold drink (or ice-cream for the others, due to a language misunderstanding).
While we were paddling this, Paul took Isabelle on one of the Batelier tourist boats on yesterday’s section. Their conclusion was that yes, it does give you a view of the river & scenery, but the engine does spoil the ambience.
Nine of us headed into Sainte-Enimie on the Thursday evening, for a stroll through the market, and a meal in a restaurant.
Friday would be our last day paddling, so there was a little more enthusiasm. Dave & Anne repeated the La Malène section on sit-on-tops. Paul borrowed Anne’s kayak to paddle the ‘hard’ section with us. So there were 7 of us today, starting off on the canoe shoot at Les Vignes, where I managed to get some photos.
A small swim from Norma on a wiggly bit. We inspected the grade 3 bit, then most of us paddled it. All ourselves were OK, but there was entertaining carnage from lots of rental sit-on-tops as they tried the same. But the rapid finishes in a huge pool, so there’s no real risk from swimming there. We stopped at the bottom of this rapid for a water & snack break, then paddled down to the cafe for lunch. There was a delay because a large group (not paddlers) had just beaten us to it, but a nice Croque Monsieur for me, and chicken wrap for many others.
In the evening we packed up most of our kit, then four of us headed into Sainte-Enimie for a gallette (savoury pancake) at a nice little restaurant.
Back to the campsite for a late beer with the rest.
On the Saturday morning, Jeremy and Teresa headed off early, to make it all the way back to Bristol the same day (arrived around 10pm). Lisa and Conor headed three hour’s north, to The Sioule, another river in the Massif Central, mentioned in the guidebook. We didn’t do any kayaking, but managed a nice swim here too. Then all of us headed on various routes northwards through France, over a couple of days, to get back to Bristol.
Nick & Lynne rented an apartment in Sainte-Enimie for the next week, to get their money’s worth of the scenery and swimming around here.
Conor’s full set of photos are available here.
And photos from Conor and Lisa’s cycle touring trip here.
