Our next stop after leaving the Pyrenees was The Cevennes, a mountainous region to the north of Montpellier on the Mediterranean Coast of France. Over 30 years ago, we lived in Montpellier for five years, so coming back to this region was like a return to "chez nous". We spent a lot of time in The Cevennes then, exploring its mountains and deep valleys, the forests of oak, pine and chestnut, and the clear fast-flowing streams, not to mention the many villages, with their narrow cobbled streets and old stone-walled houses. The Cevennes is a place where nature and culture merge and, when we left Montpellier all that time ago, we promised ourselves to come back one day and spend some time there.

Thus, we found ourselves driving up a narrow winding road to the gîte above the village of St Laurent-le-Minier that we had rented for a week. It was just what we wanted - a restored bergerie, converted into an apartment, beneath an old stone farmhouse. A Belgian couple bought this place some years back, restored it, added extra living areas, redid the gardens on surrounding terraced land and built an infinity pool with some of the best views from a pool that I have seen, out over the forested mountains of The Cevennes.

After 8 weeks of walking, cycling and travelling, it was the perfect place for a week of repose, be it reading a book in the shade, doing a few lazy laps in the pool, or eating outside on our small gravelled terrace, sipping a chilled rosé as we watched the clouds drift over the green mountain landscape and listening to the hypnotic chorus of the cicadas.

Time to relax at our bergerie in the Cevennes

A little activity is required of course, so we did do a few outings, to visit some old friends from our time in Montpellier, as well as checking how much the city had changed in 30 years. We also explored the local village, and visited the morning market at the nearby town of Ganges.

Catching up with Christine - our neighbour from Montpellier

With the days all topping 30°C, the weather was not really conducive to walking. Water sport, however, was a different proposition, and the highlight was a chance to canoe down the Herault River, a lovely fast-flowing stream of clear cool water that springs up in the Cevennes and flows down to the sea through deep forested valleys, gorges and open land.

This is written up below.

Thus, our European adventure ended on a very pleasant and relaxed note, with a bit of nostalgia and memories of glorious summers in the south of France.

In all the time we lived in Montpellier, we never got around to doing descent of the Herault River gorge by canoe. We canoed the Tarn and the Ardeche Gorges, which were further away, but for some reason never paddled down our local river. There was no excuse this time, as St Laurent-le-Minier is only 5 km from Ganges, the starting point for most canoe trips.

There are a number of canoe hire companies and we picked one, Kayak Herault, that offered 3 options, an 8 km "sportif" trip, which took you through the gorge and the biggest rapids, a 7 km "familiale" which had calmer, deeper water, suitable for younger kids and with nice deep swimming holes, and the "integrale", which combines the two. We did the Integrale. Conveniently, their base at Valrac was in the middle of the two options. Thus, we drove down there from St Laurent, checked in and collected our gear, and hopped into their minivan plus canoe trailer for almost the reverse trip back to Ganges. The starting point was just below the medieval stone bridge and, after the mandatory safety briefing, we towed our double canoe down to the water, put on our helmets, and headed off.

The first section, lined with beautiful trees, passed through a series of deeper pools and shallow stony races, so shallow in fact that it was a bottom-bumping run through them. The deeper pools gave us time to get used to the vagaries of our canoe.

Not long after, we could see the stone church tower and buildings of Laroque, a beautiful medieval village. The esplanade was lined with shady plane trees and with riverside cafés - it was time to stop for morning coffees. That also gave us a chance to observe our first serious obstacle, le Toboggan de Canoe. A long angled weir stretches across the river at Laroque and the water was flowing over the sloping wall, which provides a slide down to the river below.

Back in the canoe, we paddled around the small sandy beach, lined up the weir wall and went for it (the risk of not paddling fast enough was to get stuck on the wall). Over we went with a perfect slide into the river, whereupon I tried to do a sharp left turn to avoid running into the opposite bank and rolled the canoe in the wash. We had nailed the slide, but failed the landing.

Nothing hurt but our dignity, we righted the canoe and headed on to soon find ourselves looking at the limestone walls of the Herault Gorge. This was the most beautiful section of the trip with some nice long pools from which to admire the gorge. The pools, however, were connected by a series of rapids ... the first, and most difficult being Le Grand S, where the river dropped sharply through a narrow gap in the rocks. We made it with a bit of bouncing off side walls.

Le Petit S and Les Piquets were easier, two series of rapids through boulders in the river. We were enjoying this section with the towering walls of the gorge above us.

Eventually, though, the gorge gave way to more open countryside and longer calm stretches of water as we neared the village of St Bauzille-le-Putois, though we still had some more nice rapids to run. Passing under the single-lane suspension bridge at St Bauzille, we reached the canoe base and pulled in. It was time to hand back our helmets and put on normal hats - the sportif section was over and the familiale section was starting.

This started off with a short sharp rapid (that would be an interesting intro for the kids we thought), but soon settled into a calmer tree-line course with several sandy beaches. It was lunch time, but others also had that idea and most beaches already had canoes and people on them.

Rounding a broad bend, we spotted a nice grassy bit of bank with a shady tree, and pulled in to enjoy lunch with the cicadas chirping and a family of ducks dabbling at the edge.

Heading on around the curving course of the river, we continued the pattern of long stretches of calmer water (with some huge trout cruising about) separated by rapids - some short rock barriers, others longer races over a shallow stony bottom.

A series of limestone cliffs now forced the river into a couple of big loops and all too soon we saw the sign marking the pull-out area and end of the familiale stage. We had lined up a 3pm rendez-vous for transport for us and the canoe back to the base station, but got there early enough to have a final swim in the cool, clear water of the Herault.

A massive overhang on the bend

With perfect sunny weather, it had been a great outing on this iconic river (the whole region is named after it). Finally, after more than 30 years, we have canoed it.