So the weather was marginally in the Ubaye valley so we decided to run the racecourse section.

With James, Ben and Doug II (aka Aquaman), who arrived last night, twenty two of did it including our five new friends from Liverpool and Fort William.

Last time I ran this section, back in 2003, the levels were dog low. Today it was honking down, big, bouncy and fast it remined me of some of the rivers we ran in Austria last year.

This obviously caught some people out with some swimmers taking an early dunking and a minor epic later one.

So to cut to the chase, the swim count:

Phil – 2
Doug (aka Aquaman) – 1
Liz – 1
Jane (from Fort William) – 1
Laura (from Fort William) – 2

Aquaman’s swim obviously disturbed him slightly, the shock of it caused him to vomit on the river bank! I guess it was a full on river for his first of the trip. He says he enjoyed it afterwards though.

Liz’s swim was particularly horrendous, long and tiring, though the gorge section towards the end. Dave H made an heroic effort rescuing her boat and paddles just by the get out. Meanwhile Ol and I walked out with Liz, then returned to get our boats and finish the river.

Despite this I thought it was a great river, really enjoyable and a nice step up from the river that we did yesterday.

Everyone else seemed to enjoy themselves as well.

On a personal note I did two things I don’t do today; drank a cup of tea and went to McDonalds!