Transparent canoe treasure hunt

Get to Mostuéjouls, at the gateway to the Gorges du Tarn. If the village is a little perched, the Aqua Soleil Eau canoe base is down below, at the water’s edge.

Access is via the charming Notre-Dame des Champs chapel. Rather massive at first glance, it’s actually a little gem in its cocoon of greenery, with its combed bell tower, slate roof and mini-cemetery.

Isabelle and Laurent welcome us to the base. Easy, friendly contact. Head for the Gorges du Tarn by shuttle bus to reach Les Vignes. The road is winding but so pleasant…

Arriving at Les Vignes, everyone pitches in. Mission: unload and launch the “boats”. These transparent canoes are surprising. You’re not on a glass-bottomed boat; it’s the whole hull with its flat bottom that’s transparent!

Laurent gives us a few instructions to avoid damaging the canoes, which are a little more fragile than traditional kayaks, but very easy to handle.

VIP comfort for these transparent canoes, as a small adjustable backrest can be installed.

At Les Vignes, the River Tarn widens out a little to form a shallow stretch of water, ideal for swimming. Get in the water here!

Water sports are plentiful around Millau: canoeing, kayaking, paddling, megacraft, tubing, rafting, hydrospeed, canyonning, water trekking, dragon-boating…Try it out here

Our equipment for this aquatic treasure hunt: a map with beacon positioning, a punch card, a discovery booklet, all waterproof of course!

Objective: find the beacons scattered along the river, upstream and downstream of the start and authenticate the discovery of each one by punching the map. We’re revisiting geocaching!”

As for strategy, we decided to first set off in search of the beacons downstream of the start, on the stretch of water, to familiarize ourselves more easily with the transparent canoe. Then it’s on to the “remontada” in the Gorges du Tarn!

What a view! The flat, transparent bottom offers an unobstructed, undistorted view of the “seabed”! The river’s inhabitants don’t seem bothered by our passage. We even forget to appreciate the landscape, so absorbed are we in observing the fish, multicolored pebbles…

The markers are easy enough to find… you just have to hold the map the right way round! The punching machine hangs from each beacon. And that’s where the sailor has to be nimble! The transparent canoe is easy to handle, but it’s still hard to make a turn or stop right on the marker. More to the left, stop, to the right, atteeeeends, I’ve got it!

Each beacon bears the illustration of an element of local biodiversity, to be discovered: the beaver, the snake, the trout, the kingfisher… We weren’t lucky enough to see a beaver (we were probably too noisy!) but the other animals did!

The underwater world of the Gorges du Tarn no longer holds any secrets for us, and the sensation of sitting on the water as you watch the bottom scroll by is pretty incredible!

As we caught the “damselfly” beacon, we were lucky enough to welcome 4 or 5 damselflies, not very shy, onto our transparent canoe. What beauty! Blue-green colors and reflections, flying swiftly around us before resting on the paddle or canoe. They too are on a treasure hunt, looking for mosquitoes and other mini-insects on the surface of the water.

The little booklet provides some explanations of these elements and encourages us to be more attentive and observe nature.