Travel: A rocky Iberian adventure

It might be a risky niche sport, but Stephen Bourke has no regrets about jumping straight into a canyoning holiday in Spain

Rock-climbing in Barranco Oscuros de Balced
The waterfall at Salto de Bierge is a popular swimming spot

After the harvest, the contents of the endless fields around Huesca, in the northern Spanish province of Aragón, take the form of huge blocks of square bales, almost the size of office buildings. In the dry heat of September, everything is the parched yellow of straw, with the Pyrénées rising like a hundred moons along the northern horizon.

It was in a trench in ...