Basque Country and Huesca Trip Day 6

Thursday August 20th,

This morning, we headed back to Murillo de Gállego for our next adventure, whitewater rafting!  We were glad that this time, we didn't have as much trouble putting on our neoprene suits.

Ready for rafting

We drove to the nearby Gállego river where we received our first lesson in whitewater rafting.  We had our own raft and guide, although we shared the river with quite a few other rafts.  After learning all the safety rules and how to turn and move around in the raft, we set off down the river.  It was really fun, even Ciara had to smile :)

After our half day of rafting, we decided to visit a nearby castle called the Castillo de Loarre.  We were really impressed with this castle which was built mainly in the 11th century and is the oldest fortified castle in Spain.  It is built right into the foothills of the Pyrenees mountains and was the setting of the movie "Kingdom of Heaven."

On our way to the Castillo de Loarre

Inside the castle walls

Great views of the Huesca Valley below

We took this shot as we were leaving Loarre

Basque Country & Huesca Trip: Day 5

Wednesday August 19th

At 8:30am we left for the town of Murillo de Gállego, about a 20 minute drive from our house. There we waited to meet the guide that would take us canyoning.  Prior to this trip, I had seen many pictures and videos of canyoning and it looked fantastic but also a little dangerous.  I was frankly surprised that the company we booked with, All Rafting,  allowed us to bring a 6 year old along (Cole was still 6 at this time).

This is an example, we never jumped from this high!

Lots of wading through really cold water

We met our guides, and picked out our equipment.  You need lots of equipment to go canyoning.  We all drove to Sierra y Cañones de Guara Natural Park about 45minutes away.  We met up with another young family from France also canyoning for the first time.  Once we reached the outskirts of the park, we had to hike into the canyon with all of our equipment (helmet, two piece neoprene suit, harness for repelling, neoprene socks and hiking shoes).  All of this equipment is very heavy, and the kids really struggled to carry it all.  We hiked for about 1.5km, but it felt like much longer because Bob and I had to carry Ciara and Rylan's stuff as well, the guide carried Cole's equipment.

Once we finally reached our starting destination, the place where we would repel down into the canyon, we had our greatest challenge of the day, putting on our neoprene suits.  None of us are really that big, sure Bob and I could loose a few pounds, but the kids are downright skinny.  It took us about 30min of struggling in 30ºC weather to squeeze ourselves into very tight neoprene suits.  Some of the kids were close to giving up, to them, no matter how fun canyoning would be, it was not worth the effort of putting on that suit.  It was good that it was hot, because once we reached the canyon, the super cold water felt pretty refreshing.

Here we are just about to set off on our hike to the canyon, everyone was all smiles!

Repelling into the canyon itself was pretty fun for the kids.  Once you land into the cold water, it's a bit of a shock, but the thick neoprene suits prevent you from feeling too cold. Canyoning was not quite what I expected.  It's pretty tricky, and the guide is essential because he knows how deep the water is, when it's safe to slide or jump.  I was really impressed with the kids, because it's quite physically challenging.  The canyon was busy that day with  many other groups descending at the same time as us.  We kept a good pace and the guide was also impressed that the kids weren't afraid to jump off of high ledges.

Well, it was definitely an adventure!  We signed up for a half day of canyoning, and we finished at around 3pm in the afternoon, completely exhausted, I can't imagine what a full day of canyoning would be like!

Here we are at the end of our canyoning adventure