Rock Climbing in the Dentelles Montmirails

We started the week with a visit from Mums' cousin. His name is Ruben. His hobby is rock climbing. He came down to Provence to take us rock climbing in the Dentelles aka Sawtooth. The drive was about thirty minutes from Mormoiron. On the road into the place where we would climb we encountered many holes and bumps. We were thrown around in the car a lot!

When we arrived, Ruben showed us how to use the equipment and how to climb properly. He then climbed up the slope and attached a rope to a strong tree. We changed into our climbing harnesses. We were ready to go! When it was my turn to climb, I looked up to see the challenge that lay ahead. There was a thirty metre slope with quite a few hand holes and a "chimney" at the end with no hand holes to climb up! At points in time, I was relying on small indentations in the rock!

After fifteen minutes of hair-raising climbing, I arrived at the chimney. There were no hand holes through this part of the climb and I had to use my feet to lever myself up to the final point of the climb. The first slope that I climbed was rated 4a and the second I climbed was rated 4c. The difficulty of the rocks are rated from 1a being very easy to 10c being almost impossible. When we packed up I saw all of Rubens' gear. He had a lot of harnesses and clips. He had a belt that he climbs with in case he gets into a sticky spot and it weighed a tonne!

We had a barbecue that night with Pascal, the girls, Christine, Serge, Isabelle, Raphael and Elisa. Ruben was also present. We hung out in the gym down stairs, listened to music and swam in the pool. The pool was very cold!

We woke up late the next day to go to Banon with Ruben which is well known for its goat's cheese and a large bookshop. We arrived and walked through the markets which were very interesting. The book shop is huge! It's three stories high and full of English and French books. I found a book and had a read for an hour whilst the others browsed. We finished our day in Banon by climbing up the hill to the top of the village. We got a view of all the villages and mountains around us.

On Wednesday I went to Aqualand with my school! It's a water park near Cassis which is a harbour on the Mediterranean Sea. We arrived at ten o'clock and were let into the park. There were lots of slides and pools. My favourite ride was called 'the wave'. If you've been to Wet 'n' Wild, it's like the cyclone. It's a big U shape and you sit on the edge and you get pushed down. I liked the slides because you flew out of the chute into the water at high speed.

Today is Friday and it was my last day of school, before two months off for the summer holidays. I will move on to 'cinquieme' grade when I return.

Au Revoir