Surfeit of Seafood

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Surfeit_of_Seafood_Bateau_de_fruits_de_mer The weather pattern broke today. After further overnight rain, the morning rain forgot to stop and allow the afternoon sun to shine. Drat! The solution to the meteorological depression that seem sto be with us was to spend much of the afternoon at La Tremblade sampling the local specialities, oysters. Since it looked as though little else was about to distract us, we pushed the bateau out and, rather than stick to oysters, went the whole hog on a plateau de fruits de mer. The restaurant pushed the bateau out as well – the seafood selection was served in a model boat almost the size of our table. As far as I can remember, one person’s portion consisted of:

  • half a crab;
  • 6 fresh oysters;
  • 6 fresh clams;
  • 6 whelks;
  • 6 langoustines;
  • 8 prawns;
  • countless shrimps;
  • countless winkles.

Clearly, wading through such a feast is worthy of a little time and considerable effort, cracking and sucking various shells. A plateau de fruits de mer  is more of an event than a lunch. Washed down with a bottle of blanc marine, what better way to spend a dismal afternoon?

IMG_6405_Old_oyster_boat IMG_6410_Threatening_sky IMG_6414_Modern_oyster_boat The inlet at La Tremblade is a picturesque and entertainingly bustling little place with the oyster farmers going about their daily business as the tides rise and fall. The modern oyster boats are flat-bottomed metal affairs but yesterday we’d seen a wooden wreck that we took to be the remains of an old oyster boat from years gone by. Little seems to have changed other than the method of construction. The oysters are still damn good, too.

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Monsoon Season

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We appear to be in the French monsoon. The last two days have exhibited the same pattern: rain overnight and during much of the morning but with a pleasant and largely sunny afternoon. This morning’s heavy rain was accompanied by the occasional peel of thunder for dramatic effect.

We are in oyster country. The Seudre river on the northern edge of this presqu’île (peninsula) is a centre of ostriculture (oyster farming). One of the things we like to do here is to cycle out to the oyster shacks at La Tremblade and have a sunny, relaxing lunch sampling the oyster farmers’ wares. Unfortunately, the lunchtime sun has been notably absent.

IMG_5409_Mornac_sur_Seudre IMG_6398_Mornac_sur_Seudre The Seudre river has many little inlets and settlements along marshy edge, though, and we managed an afternoon trip to Mornac-sur-Seudre, supposedly one of un des plus beaux villages de France (one of the prettiest villages in France). Well, it was undoubtedly quite quaint but I don’t think I’d go quite that far. There were the ever-present and mainly useless shops for tourists, of course. It did, however, have one of the best value parking schemes de France that I’ve seen, other than entirely free ones. Having driven into the first signed car park that we spotted, the ticket machine announced €2 for a ticket valid for the whole of the year. I thought I’d misunderstood but no, the issued ticket proclaimed, “an 2020” (year 2010). Better save the ticket!

As we wandered out into the marsh looking at various artefacts of the oyster industry, we spotted a parking gratuit (free parking) sign.

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Games We Play

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Here’s a quaint little game that Francine and I quite often play upon arrival at a new campsite. First, we wander round and select a likely pitch. Second, we drag Guillaume (our caravan) to the chosen pitch and set him up. Third, we settle down to relax, usually with an “installation beer” and often with a slightly late lunch. Fourth, we look around, then at each other, and say, “On second thoughts, I think Guillaume would be happier over there”, indicating a preferred pitch. Fifth, we strike camp and re-site Guillaume all over again.

Having arrived here on Sunday, we were busily re-pitching Guillaume about 50yds from our initial attempt when another English couple approached us and asked, “were you here two years ago?”. Yes, we were, and we recognized them as having been here as well. As it happens, we were now pitching Guillaume in exactly the same spot he had enjoyed two years ago. Why we tried a different spot, neither of us knows. We had a natter to renew acquaintances and continued while they selected a pitch to their liking.

We generally try to visit a mix of new French locations, to investigate, with some known, “safe” and favourite locations. It’s not unusual to bump into others from previous years doing pretty much the same. The Dutch tent, our 50yds-distant nearest neighbour in yesterday’s picture, was also here two years ago in exactly the same spot. My suspicion is that it is here every year in exactly the same spot. The Dutch gentleman in question has a serious tan highlighted by a mass of completely white hair and a white moustache. He looks just like Dick van Dyke. He also has two dogs – spaniels – which he takes for a wander every evening so we’ve tagged him Dick van Dogs.

IMG_5387_Broomrape The morning today was dull but it was market day in La Palmyre. We treated ourselves to half a poulet rôti for lunch from the market stall. The sun returned for the afternoon and we pedalled our way around another 15 miles of new VTT circuit entertained by some very active and uncooperative dragonflies and some much more readily studied stationary flowers. One plant that Francine had been spotting, and thought to be some type of orchid, actually turned out to be an example of a slightly odd group called the Broomrapes. These have no green pigment or leaves, as such, and are parasitic on the roots of other plants. To identify a Broomrape accurately it is necessary to first identify the host plant. Weird! Isn’t evolution wonderful?

IMG_5397_Franco's_Salade_Nicoise Despite our best efforts, though, several poulet calories remained unused so dinner became a relatively lightweight but somewhat labour-intensive Salade Niçoise.

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Unnatural Habitat

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Those who are aware of Franco and Francine’s preferences might consider them to be somewhat out of their normal habitat – and they’d be right. Though we now are in an area known as La Côte Sauvage (the Wild Coast), which might sound like us, the name is a little misleading. About 100yds down the road from our campsite is a disastrous looking place called “Luna Park” with a water slide and a roller-coaster towering over the surrounding trees. Almost opposite that is another campsite with it’s own water slide. On this road alone there are no fewer than seven campsites and three quad bike rental establishments. One of the campsites is even a year-round nudist campsite – now there’s a mind expanding concept. [Ed: Most other things would shrink!] Then, of course, there’s all the other roads. Though, mercifully, the French never seem to sink to the depths of a classic English seaside town with tacky amusement arcades and kiss-me-quick (embrace-moi-vite?) hats, the description does begin to resemble something out of one of Franco’s nightmares.

Here’s the first thing, however – we’re out of season. You can tell we’re out of season for several reasons:

  1. Luna Park is closed (phew!);
  2. the campsites are not full to bursting;
  3. nobody is screaming about on quad bikes;
  4. some of the speed limits are not in force until 15th June.

What? Yes, the road into La Palmyre has speed limit signs which are in force only between 15th June and 15th September. I know the UK sometimes has seasonal parking restrictions but seasonal speed limits is an interesting concept. The trick to maintaining sanity is clearly to avoid this date range.

IMG_5370_Pastoral_bliss Secondly, our particular campsite is just about the finest camping aire naturelle site that we’ve ever seen. There are no pitches, as such, just oceans of space and loads of electricity hook-ups. I’ve never seen this site in season (and I wouldn’t want to) but now, in low season, we have a section amongst some trees all to ourselves. The nearest other unit, a Dutch tent, must be at least 50yds away (you can just see it far left of the photo). This is so peaceful, it’s one of those campsites one actually looks forward to returning to after a day out.

A third redeeming feature is the fact that, beyond the towns themselves, La Côte Sauvage itself is actually quite wild and rural. There are some very well thought-out cycle tracks just inland of the sand dunes through the coastal pine and broad-leafed woodland as well as across some of the surrounding reclaimed marsh land. It is actually a sensible destination at this time of year for those who like to explore the countryside on a bicycle observing the wildlife.

IMG_6371_Viper's_Bugloss IMG_6374_Red_Helleborine IMG_6375_Rest_HarrowUnfortunately today has been a little unsettled and, though we managed a ride, most of the wildlife exhibiting the equivalent of a heartbeat was keeping itself hidden. C’est la vie! The botanical specimens don’t move, though, so there was something to keep us distracted.

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Kite Flying

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In returning to this site near La Palmyre, we were hoping to repeat our experience of two years ago. On that occasion, about the same week of the year, we had heard the haunting, night time call of recently fledged Long-eared Owl chicks. [We were lucky to have identified them through sound alone, being dark!] This strategy seemed like setting ourselves up for disappointment but all was well; at about 10:30 PM a Long-eared Owl chick dutifully began its call in the area around our pitch and we listened, mesmerized, until it departed, presumably on its overnight feeding expedition.

Eventually we slept and set about our first full day here. Francine, my navigation officer, had noticed an interesting-looking VTT cycle route. I’ve never been keen on our term “mountain bike”; the very last thing I’m likely to do is cycle any form of bike up a mountain. I much prefer the French term “velo tout terrain (VTT)”, an all-terrain bike; it sounds a generally much more applicable term to my way of thinking. Anyway, we set off on a very varied 23 mile VTT route.

IMG_6357_Black_Kites IMG_6364_Stork_joins_in The route began by crossing a marsh area where we came across a farmer turning hay in a field. Whirling above the field, waiting for critters to be disturbed (or chopped up?) by the tractor were no less than 14 black kites. Above them occasionally were four buzzards and, strutting their stuff on the ground, four Storks, all looking for a meal of unfortunate furry creature. The kites’ aerial acrobatics, now and then swooping for and squabbling over the odd morsel or two, was an impressive site. We’ve never before been so close to so many majestic raptors, though, doubtless, this is not the furry critters viewpoint. The farmer had clearly seen it all before and carried on unemotionally turning his hay.

IMG_6342_WhirlwindIt was a generally calm day but, as we were watching the kite flying display, a whirlwind formed and began whipping up the initially neat rows of hay into small tornados, turning it once again rather more randomly whether the farmer wanted it or not. I could just imagine him putting his head in his hands in despair. I’m sure he took it in his stride, though. You can’t time shots like this so thank technology for machine-gun cameras. Francine successfully re-used several million pixels capturing this unexpected display of nature.

Some of the VTT route was softish sand – our legs ache a tad.

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Adieu to the Marais

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This weekend turned out to be a very busy one in Arçais. The sun, which had been shining for the last few days, continued unabated and our campsite all but filled up. It began to feel as though we were back travelling in high season but the human hordes were most probably weekenders enjoying the clement weather. And why not, indeed?

IMG_5348_Petanque Wherever Frenchmen, and sometimes French ladies, meet and there is a piece of roughish gravelled ground, an occasionally vociferous game of pétanque tends to ensue. As in the English game of bowls, the idea is to place one’s own boules (bowls) closest to the target butt (jack). The French boules, however, are not biased woods but are heavy metal balls which are more frequently thrown than bowled. A skilful game is a sight to behold. Highly manicured and, therefore, expensively maintained grass is not required for the French game. The piece of rough ground outside our campsite became filled with games of pétanque.

As something of a late-developing nomad, one develops a certain feeling when it is time to move on. We’d had a great time in the Marais, once the sun decided to banish the initially unsettled weather, visiting Mike and Linda and studying the local flora and fauna of the region but now we were ready for a change of scenery. Fear not, fortune willing we will be back but, for now, we are moving a mere 60 miles down the west coast to see if we can get some local oysters. 🙂

Here are a few parting shots of the gentle lifestyle of the Marais Poitevin.

IMG_5163_Tending_the_veggies IMG_5347_Promenade_en_barque IMG_6284_Marais_Poitevin IMG_6285_Marais_Poitevin

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Lunch Emergency

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Mike seemed keen on getting a little exercise having another week working back in Blighty so we went and dragged him out for a bike ride. Like us, Mike is also fascinated by wildlife so our trip turned into more of a nature ramble than a cycle.  We spent a couple of hours, stopping and starting where nature beckoned, covering about 12 miles.

IMG_5293_Orange_White-legged_Damselfly IMG_6297_Franco_gets_close The Sèvre Niortaise river flows through the Marais Poitevin and, just having crossed it, we spotted a sort of damselfly orgy in the form of some group-ovipositing by a few pairs of orange-coloured damselflies. I’d seen this species before just by our campsite but hadn’t correctly identified them. I was keen to get a shot, not only because the species was new to me but because they were adopting the so called sentinel position very nicely; the male stands sentinel to guard the female during egg-laying. Having consulted my odonata bible, I now know them to be the delightful Orange White-legged Damselfly, a mouthful of a name but a species which does not occur back at home in Britain so a welcome addition to my catalogue.

IMG_6263_Pyramid_orchid IMG_6302_Lizard_Orchid Francine being a hawk-eyed flower spotter, a little botanical excitement was caused when, showing Mike a collection of Pyramid Orchids which we’d already found, she noticed a Lizard Orchid flowering nearby. The Lizard Orchid is a fabulous floral creation whose blooms really do resemble a long-tailed lizard in form.

We’d done well with nature but had screwed up our lunch arrangements, having forgotten in the morning to buy any bread for lunch. Now, of course, it was lunchtime and all the local shops were shut, a delightful but occasionally inconvenient practice still prevalent in much of France. In Arçais, even the bar (which also sells bread) was closed. What on earth is a bar doing closing at lunchtime, the very time folks are likely to pop in for a bevy? Mike came to the rescue, rustled up an admiral selection of salad and pasta, and fed us. Thanks Mike!

IMG_5315_Humingbird_Hawkmoth Just as we were leaving nature distracted us once again. Mike and Linda have quite a collection of Red Valerian growing in and around their property and the Red Valerian was attracting quite a collection of Humming-bird Hawkmoths. I’d snapped a just-about-recognizable shot of these in the days before digital when I was using 50 ASA slide film; very slow. Here was a chance to see if I could do better with some newer technology. 800 ASA and F8 gave me 1/2000th second – that should help. Autofocus wasn’t flying properly so I had to do what I could with manual focus but here’s a reasonable result, albeit slightly soft focus. I’ve got a better shot but I suspect I can’t copyright it anonymously. 😉

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Action Stations

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What a difference a day of sunshine makes, not just to we humans but to the whole of nature, it seems. The Marais Poitevin is something of a wildlife haven. With its intricate network of canals, one might reasonably assume that it would be the perfect habitat for odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) but, with the weather we’d been experiencing since our arrival, we’d seen none.

Today was wall to wall sunshine and very warm. As well as a sudden burst of human activity enjoying the serenity of this rural setting, there was a definite sudden burst of wildlife putting itself on display for those bothered to look. As usual, our activity took the form of cycling around some of the lanes and woodland tracks, criss-crossing a few canals keeping our eyes peeled for nature in all its glory.

IMG_5191_Hoopoe We were not disappointed. First, we were treated to a slightly distant but very welcomed view of one of natures weirdest creations, a Hoopoe. This is one of those onomatopoeic names suppose to invoke the bird’s call. It should be called a Hoohoohoo, if that’s the case. It was feeding on someone’s manicured lawn but eventually got fed up with the radio playing in the adjacent house and flew off. The picture, handheld and manually focussed with the extender, isn’t great but it just had to be reproduced.

IMG_5205_Broad_Bodied_Chaser Next up hawk-eyed Francine spotted a fabulous dragonfly specimen whose hunting ground seemed to be a couple of water butts at the edge of a farmer’s field. It buzzed around while a camera could be pressed into action and patience paid off; it eventually adopted the perfect pose. ‘T was a magnificent (and new to me) Broad-bodied Chaser and was captured full-frame in all its glory.

IMG_5171_Banded_Demoiselle IMG_5235_Small_Red_Damselfly An occasional Banded Demoiselle graced us with an appearance. Canals were lined with swarms of blue damselflies, identity uncertain as yet. When we returned to our campsite our local canal was similarly teeming with damselflies of various colours. Suddenly, all the dragonflies and damselflies that had been absent over the last few days were flitting about eating and mating. Those, after all, are the main purposes of zoological organisms: to eat and have sex. Sounds perfect – learn from nature!

IMG_5238_Large_Copper IMG_5254_Large_Copper And nature provided us with one last, late evening piece of colourful theatre. A butterfly had alighted, unseen, on the privet hedge bordering our pitch. It sat with wings folded, showing only its relatively unremarkable underside markings which were reminiscent of a blue. It looked a little bigger than a blue, though. Eventually it took to the air and flitted along the hedge, dazzling us with the most vivid orange wings I’ve ever seen. Fabulous and, then, a complete mystery. Yet more patience paid off and a shot or two of mostly open wings at rest proved it to be a male Large Copper, extinct in Britain since about 1850 when the Cambridgeshire fens were drained effectively destroying it last English habitat. Mankind does such a bad job with ecosystems. The Large Copper lives in marshes and we are now in one of Europe’s best.

Mercifully, the magnificent Large Copper is now protected here in France. I feel privileged to have enjoyed something I can no longer enjoy at home.

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The Chain Gang

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At last, after four days of irritating rain, a settled day – not sunny but settled nonetheless. A slightly stir-crazy Franco and Francine made good their escape from camp à bicyclettes.

We were off in search of coypus or ragondins as they are known over here. At least, the polite members of marais society call them ragondins. There are apparently much less polite names used by others since these large aquatic rodents do great damage to the banks of the canals and are regarded as a serious pest. Somewhat typically, the French have turned the pest into a resource by putting down traps baited with sliced apple and, in turn, turning the hapless trapped ragos into pâté de ragondin. Yum!

We caught a brief glimpse of just one coypu as it swiftly clambered out of its canal and began hiding on the bank that it had set about destroying. Camera not required, regrettably. We did have a very pleasant bike ride, though, which included a slightly heart-in-mouth crossing of the river Sèvre Niortaise on a bateau à chaîne (chain boat). The chain boats were an traditional old method of getting about between otherwise isolated sections of land in the marais (marsh) before the advent of roads. Two chains attach either end of the boat to either bank of the river.

IMG_5166_Bateau_a_Chaine We were a little timorous but keen to give it a go. Francine gamely grabbed one chain and lugged the boat, which was, of course, on the opposite side of the river, across the water towards us. Getting both bikes and both of us aboard was a tad dodgy but we made it safely and, once aboard, the boat proved to be very stable with its wide, flat hull. Francine leapt into action once again, this time on the other chain, and dragged the boat, us and our two bikes over to our destination on the other side of the river. Disembarking was an equally delicate process. I soon learned that it was necessary to place all the retrieved chain inside the boat when mooring it to prevent the boat drifting off downstream.

Great fun!

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Drought Protection

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It’s supposed to be dry tomorrow. Meanwhile, today, the rain continued in an irritatingly sporadic kind of way. What better time to be given an insight into French water engineering for allotments?

The Marais Poitevin has what appears to be quite rich soil in between its plethora of canals and drainage channels. I readiy confess to hate gardening but it looks good even to me. In addition to many of the water-surrounded fields being used to raise a few cattle, the area is also littered with what we would call allotments, though the plots here are at least twice the size of our English plots. Many of the locals can frequently be seen tending their vegetable patches in pursuit of the French national love of good food. Quite frankly, so many people here seem to be growing their own that I’m a little surprised that the local grocery stores sell anything.

Having just suffered four days of rain, it is also hard to believe that watering these vegetable gardens could be a problem but, I am assured, a problem it is. Fortunately there is a ready solution to drought in the form of the network of canals covering the countryside. Linda, having recently taken on a plot of land, was keen to prepare for the hot summer weather [Ed: bring it on!] and today, in her company, we drove around a few suppliers learning a lot about French irrigation techniques in the marais.

The done thing here is for keen growers to invest in a petrol-driven water pump. Linda’s neighbour, having many years experience of such matters, was adamant that she should invest in a 4-stroke rather than a 2-stroke pump, though we’re not entirely sure why. From one side of the pump – the suck side – a pipe with a filter is tossed into the nearest handy-dandy canal. The other side of the pump – the blow side – feeds a pipe delivering the canal water to a series of spray heads supported on stands. The spray heads are smaller version of those that can be seen automatically swinging back and forth in farmer’s fields. I may not be into gardening but I do like a bit of plumbing and I’d love to be around to help set up the watering system. Great fun! We’ll be moving on by the time Linda’s 4-stroke pump arrives, though.

The land rental is dirt cheap [Ed: sorry, couldn’t resist it] at €22 p.a. and the water is free but the irrigation kit ain’t cheap. So far it’s looking like about €600-700 so I hope Linda remains keen on market gardening for a few years.

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