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Stories and Articles Paddle the famous Hawaii sur Rhone wave.
| Paddle the famous Hawaii sur Rhone wave. |
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| Thursday, 15 February 2007 | |
 Thursday 27th October 2005. Departed London Stansted flying to Lyon in France. The purpose of this trip was to paddle the famous Hawaii sur Rhone wave.
 Me Surfing at Sault-Brenaz The course Dave took us to was brilliant. The course is next to a village called Sault-Brenaz just north of Lyon. I for one really liked the course especially the big drop half way down. The course had a few nice play spots and at the bottom of the main drop was a great surf wave. A great day was had by all. In the evening Dave left us to start the long drive back to Eire. That evening when the four of us got back to Lyon we went out to dinner in a nice pizza restaurant. Then after on our way back to the car we found a street stall selling Disney prints. In the end we bought three pictures. Saturday 29th October 2005. After some discussion we decided to go to another course at St Pierre de Boeuf. This course was good but without the big drop like yesterday. There were three main holes with a sticky hole behind the middle one. All four of us liked this course allot and rated it as good if not slightly better than the course at Sault-Brenaz. I was having problems flat spinning on the middle wave which resulted in a nice spanking in the sticky hole behind. After a tip from Chris I was able to get the flat spin to work a couple of times. Jamie, Chris and Richard were all doing well on this wave and having loads of fun.  Chris been Chris When we were all suitably tired we headed back to the hotel to sort out our kit and review the days footage. That evening we made our way back to the pizza restaurant for some more great pizza. During dinner we discussed the difference between the two courses and which one we liked the best. The conclusion for us was that the course we paddled today was the better but if we were ever to pass this way on our way down to the Alps either course would make an ideal stop off point to break the journey and to have some fun. Go to http://playak.com/article.php?sid=250 for a Playak.com review of this white water course. Sunday 30th October 2005. Yet again we woke up to some fantastic weather. So off we went back to St Pierre de Boeuf. On route we managed to over shoot our turning thanks to Jamie starting a very rude conversation that managed to distract us enough to loose track of where we were. This lead us to find out that the French motorway system can be confusing and that it makes absolutely no sense when it comes to the location and numbering of there junctions.  Rich Boofing off a Rock At last we found our way to the course and after a nice lunch I was the first to get on. I was to do a run so that Jamie and Chris could take some good photos of me. In the first hole Chris gave me some instructions on how to pull my first intentional loop. This did not go to plan as I managed to fluff it in style which resulted in my head crashing into a rock whilst I set up for my roll. Yes it was one of those “you catch the number of that bus” moments. Ah well time to recover and move on down the course. At the main wave I managed a sweet flat spin. The next point on the course was a rock in the middle of the river which was great for boufing. Now from here it was a short distance to the final hole on the course. Personally I did not like the hole much due to the big rock five yards down stream just left of centre and then a rock one yard behind this just right of centre. Because of what happened a short time before and because my head was still hurting a bit I decided not to play here. So off I got to walk back to the top and recover as well as check the damage to my crash hat. The damage was a few chips in the gel coat, but its better than if it had been my head. I eased off paddling the rest of the day because of my head hurting loads.  Jamie Gettin Masive Air Time for the other three to get on and have some fun. Richard and Chris were pulling some great moves and Jamie was getting some really nice big air loops in hole three. The day was summed up by great weather and some fantastic paddling. Afterwards we had to get the car back to the rental company. So back into Lyon for the evening and time for Chinese food. Then we had a nice walk round the city centre on the way back to the hotel. Monday 31st October 2005. For me its time to go home back to England. After a nice relaxing breakfast. I decided to head to the airport. Whilst waiting for my flight I started to write the notes for this article.
 Me again Thanks to Jamie for organising this trip and to Richard and Chris for all the fun we had on and off the water. Next time we come back lets hope the wave is working and if its not we now know of a couple of backup places to paddle at as well. A personal account of Lyon
Keith Barker |
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