The day we arrived at Llauro in the eastern Pyrenees was, we thought, pretty darn windy. That, it seems, was just the Tramontane flexing it muscles and warming up. For the last two days, the Tramontane has been up to speed and it’s been damn windy, buffeting Guillaume on his corner steadies.

It’s still hot but sitting outside in the constant gale has become so tiresome that we’ve tended to retreat inside Guillaume for some shelter. The knock-on difficulty is that we’d like a lot of fresh air inside Guillaume but can’t really get enough because we can’t open any windows or the roof light on props for fear of something being ripped off  by the wind. Opening the door gets us frequent rattles and a caravan full of windblown dust.

There’s second issue with our choice of campsite at Llauro. Getting anywhere, and returning from anywhere, involves a 15-minute drive each way along one of two roads both consisting of a seemingly never ending series of hairpin bends. Being a Sunday, the seemingly never ending series of hairpin bends we chose today was full of a seemingly never ending series of French cyclists often rounding said seemingly never ending series of hairpin bends on the wrong side of the road, or, at least, in the centre of it. A car driver really does not want to hit a cyclist in France because, whatever the cyclist may have done, they cannot be deemed to be at fault; the car driver is automatically at fault, always. It’s a ludicrous law that some would have established in the UK.

We managed to negotiate both the hairpin bends, without colliding with too many of the maniacal cyclists, to get down into the valley for a morning Odo hunting trip with our friend, after which we bit the bullet and visited Argelès-sur-Mer for a beer or two and a spot of tapas for lunch. I say “bit the bullet” because we feared Argelès-sur-Mer would be just beach territory, definitely not us. However, our pal new a pleasant harbour location, Port-Argelès, which was perfectly fine, part of the port being home to some of the area’s delightful traditional fishing boats.

The presence of tapas highlights one of my main education points here. This neck of the woods, albeit France, is classed as Catalan, sharing much in common with the north-eastern part of Spain. Here, the Catalan flag takes precedence over the French tricolour.

So, after three days of being buffeted by the Tramontane and of negotiating 30-minutes worth of hairpins to get off, then back onto our hilltop campsite, the sheep are calling – we’re heading for Fanjeaux and our favourite sheep farm tomorrow. We can’t wait to get out of this bloody wind. One hears about how the Mistral, blowing down the Rhone valley, can drive a man insane but, trust me, this Tramontane has been the worst wind I’ve experienced. I’m sure it’s quite capable of causing similar insanity. The Dutch couple next door appear to have had enough, too; we spotted them thumbing through their (accursed) ACSI campsite book.

Having said all that, we have enjoyed visiting our friend and sharing a little dragonfly hunting trip with him. It’s been good to see his holiday home but we must confess to wondering quite why they chose this location.

I suspect we won’t be back but, if we are, we certainly wouldn’t stay on this hill top again. A valley location would be much more convenient and a little more sheltered should the Tramontane blow up again.

At our continuing-to-be-practically-full ACSI campsite near Mèze, we had a recent interesting new arrival. A lone traveller pulled into the pitch behind us driving a Spanish registered McLouis brand motor van,. An apparent lady got out and started setting up. Shortly afterwards, the site electrics blew (this was not an infrequent occurrence) whereupon the “lady”, in a rather gruff English voice, said, “I hope it wasn’t me”. I explained that the electricity was only a 6-Amp supply and “she” went on to say that she didn’t really understand what that meant. So, the technical knowledge fitted the clothing but the voice did not. When “she” donned a bikini and sat under a sun shade reading, we didn’t think the shape of the torso matched the clothing, either. Perhaps in this case the McLouis should have been a McLouise? Actually, a much more suitable camper van might have been something based on a Ford Tranny conversion. 😯

This morning we wobbled into into Mèze  on our bikes – I say wobbled because my bike now has an impressively buckled back wheel caused by my landing on it almost two weeks ago – and found the market in full swing. Though we’ve stayed in th8is neck of the woods before, we’d never really seen the middle of Mèze, just the harbour. We were impressed, particularly by the market and were forced into buying a splendid piece of espadon [swordfish] which I thought would do well cooked with the remains of our ratatouille. [For the insatiably curious, the idea stemmed from an Italian recipe called Impanata di Pesce Spada.]

We were also taken by the possibility of a 55-minute, late afternoon catamaran trip round the oyster beds in the Bassin de Thau and decided to return after lunch. However, as the afternoon progressed, so did some very threatening black clouds all around us. Neither a stormy boat ride nor a wet return ride on board les bicyclettes appealed, so discretion got the better part of valour and we continued to sit around relaxing and waiting for the storm to break. It never did.

I was right about the swordfish and ratatouille, though. Yum!

Tomorrow we head for the eastern Pyrenees.

Now look, don’t get me wrong, I love birds, as those who know we would freely admit. yesterday morning, however, they were having a laugh.

The first assault was mounted yesterday when a small bird, possibly one of our surrounding Serins. Francine, bless her, Had put some laundry in our travelling bucket to soak prior to washing. She stood the laundry-containing bucket just outside Guillaume’s door. When she returned to take it to the laundry, she discovered that one of little avian friends had pooped right in the bucket. “Bother!”, uttered Francine, or words to that effect.

It could have been worse; our avian friend could have pooped on the laundry once it had been washed. Bearing this in mind, Francine was particularly nervous about pegging out her now bird-shitless washing. “Shields up, Franco!”, she commanded. I manoeuvred our parasol into place over our travelling washing line as Bird Shield 1 in the hope that it would protect against any additional cling-ons.

One bird made clear its displeasure by pooping on Francine’s left arm as she sat in her chair. Fortunately, both these initial assaults were just minor weaponry. I rushed for some toilet paper to clean up but the bird was already miles away. [The old ones are the best!]

This morning, Francine woke us early – 5:00 AM! – to go to Mèze harbour for a dawn photo shoot. 5:00 AM is no time to put the bed away se we left it until we returned. When we did return and I set about stowing the bedding, I noticed a small blemish on one corner of my pillow. “Curious”, I thought, sponging it off with a dampened sock. I glance up and was horrified. The source of the curious mark on my pillow became horribly clear. Guillaume has a very large sunroof which, in this climate, it is very nice to have fully opened – propped almost upright. The resulting large hole in Guillaume’s roof tends to let in insects so the sunroof comes complete with a fly screen which we habitually leave closed. Our fly screen was now caked in bird shit, not small bird shit but 5 megaton bird shit. The not quite vertical sunroof was similarly caked by another 5 megaton blast. Actually, it could all have the fallout from a single 10 megaton strike. Evidently an avian friend approaching the size of a Golden Eagle had been roosting in the tree branches above Guillaume and had scored a direct hit with its morning movement. “Bother!”, I muttered, or words to that effect.

In this baking heat, bird shit is a bit like Jetcem ® – it sets like concrete and it sets very fast. The longer I left it the harder it would get so I was anxious to clean up as soon as possible but how? A serious sponging would make a serious mess saturating the inside of Guillaume. I removed the upholstery and stowed it in the bathroom, then spread our groundsheet (purchased as a bicycle cover) over Guillaume’s floor and benches before setting about sponging down. The tenacious cling-ons on the fine mesh of the fly screen proved particularly tricky since there’s really nothing to press against. Guillaume’s roof itself was one helluva mess. Using our step, I managed to gain access through the sunroof and clean him as best I could.

OK, fine for now, but two more nights here would likely have poor Guillaume caked in guano again. We could leave the sunroof on a lower setting and avoid a repetition of the fly screen caking but in all likelihood he’d still get splattered again. After a little thought we managed to combine four old guy ropes with the corner eyelets in our multi-purpose groundsheet and deploy Bird Shield 2.

Our antics and bird engineering amused our neighbours greatly.

“It feels good to be on the road again,” muttered Francine as we drove out of Maussane-les-Alpilles.

We’ve done something rather out of character for us on our nest stop and it’s proved quite interesting. We’ve returned to an area of the Languedoc that we are familiar with but to a different campsite. We are near Montagnac, at Loupian this time, to be precise. The site we’ve chosen is one of the classic French Camping Municipale sites. Or, at least, it used to be.

Some years ago, when we were camping in the same area but camped at our then usual site, I cycled to this municipale site in Loupian just to have a nose around. There were a few units on site, which were, as far as I could tell, almost all French. There was a very french “clack” of boules drifting over the fence from a game of petanque in progress. To be frank, the site seemed at first glance to be a little rough and ready but very French.

So, here we are several years later and, horror of horrors, this erstwhile classic French Camping Municipale site is still a Camping Municipale but has been enrolled into the ever-expanding Dutch ACSI camping organization. I’ve been leery of ACSI for a while, for this reason: I suspected it would attract swarms of Dutch deal-seekers (ACSI members get an out-of-season discount) and sites that would otherwise have been quiet out of season would become very busy. We’ve pitched up in early June, decidedly out of season, and this time round the site was aproaching full. An English neighbour, who seems to stay here for about a month at a time, told us that last night it was full. That’s the ACSI effect for you and it’s exactly what I was afraid of. This site is really the first evidence I’ve actually seen of my fear. The site is fine but the ACSI effect makes it feel more like camping in August at the height of the season.

This site already feels considerably more friendly than did our last site at Maussane-les-Alpilles, which could best be described as impersonal. (It took me a long time to come up with that word but it’s perfect.) We are amongst tall conifers giving shade from the sun for most of the day and the conifers are full of Serins “spraying” us with their song. Serins deliver 3-4 seconds worth of immeasurably short, varying notes in what can only be described as a frenetic stream. Here’s one giving us a few seconds worth. They look a bit like Canaries and may be related but their song is quite different.

Having been Serin-aded over lunch, we cycled just a couple of miles down a conveniently adjacent voie verte [green way], an erstwhile railway track now tarmac covered serving as a cycle track between Mèze and Bouzigues. We headed for Mèze to stare at its idyllic looking harbour which issues onto the Basin-de-Thau, through which runs the Canal du Midi.

“What a place to park a boat”, we mused, as we sat and munched a salted caramel ice cream.

We had a lazy day putzing around Maussane, today. We began by putzing into town to do some shopping where we found a wonderful shop selling all manner of produce from Les Alpilles. I love the way the French are intensely proud of their local regions and the products from them.

There are three or four restaurants/cafes with shaded seating in te square outside the church and on our shopping putz, I noticed a waiter crossing the street (from the restaurant itself to the outside seating area on the opposite side of the road) armed with a circular metal frame of the sort used to support a Plateau de Fruits de Mer. Sure enough, this restaurant’s menu offered a Plateau de Fruits de Mer with crab, prawns whelks, clams mussels and three different types of oyster. We putzed back to Guillaume and then immediately putzed back to the restaurant to indulge ourselves with a posh Saturday lunch assisted by a Ricard and some local white wine.

As we were munching various morsels of seafood from various shells, Francine suggested that, in the afternoon, I might try to find her “a wren”. At least, that’s what it sounded like. I was confused – we’ve seen lots of birds but no wrens. All became clear when she explained that there were signs advertising a course of taureaux jeunes at 3:30 PM at the arènes. Not knowing quite what to expect, after snoozing off a splendid lunch, we putzed back down and found Francine her arènes.

For €3 each, what we got was a hard concrete step from which to watch Une Course Camarguaise, a bull fight French style. Last August in Spain, we’d been less than impressed by watching a bunch of testosterone-enriched teenagers taunt some Spanish black bulls. This French version of playing with bulls seemed a much more acceptable affair. The first official task was to introduce les raseteurs [fit young men with a good turn of speed] to the modest crowd.

Getting the excitement underway, the first bull is let into the arènes, it’s head adorned with various trophies: a cocarde [rosette? between its horns],two glands [tassles? at the base of its horns] and two ficelles [strings – tying the tassles to its horns, I think]. Assisted by a tourneur [bull provoker], the raseteurs [fit young men with a good turn of speed] take turns attempting to run a glancing course in front of the now charging bull and snatch one of the trophies from the bull’s head. After their run, the fit young men leap athletically over the barricade to nominal safety. Successfully grabbing a trophy wins the raseteur some money. The trick, or course, is to avoid becoming another trophy on the bull’s head yourself.

I said they leap to nominal safety over the barricade because, quite frequently, the bull also decides to leap over the barricade, somewhat less athletically than the fit young men, and proceeds to run round the perimeter. It’s as if the bull knows where the raseteurs are hiding. Suddenly, the arènes becomes the area of safety until, that is, the bull is guided back inside.

Each bull – there were eight – gets to chase raseteurs for up to 15 minutes, depending upon how long its trophies last. After the first four bulls, we got a beer break for the blood to return to our backsides.

This was quite entertaining and an unusual new spectacle for us. One poor bull seemed to bite its own tongue and draw blood, probably jumping the barricade, but that appeared to be the extent of any injuries. The bulls ranged between 4- and 9-years old.

Now, here’s an object lesson in how to put an old, disused bauxite mine to good use – in the unlikely event that you happen to have a suitable old, disused bauxite mine lurking about, of course.

As it happens, there are a few old, disused bauxite mines in the so-called val d’infer [hell’s valley] just below Les Baux de Provence. From these mines, huge blocks were cut and processed for the bauxite, whatever that might be. 🙂 What was left behind was a series of vast caverns with near flat, light coloured walls such as those in this picture.

Being fans of the son et lumières [sound and light] entertainment form, the French came up with a spectacular ways to put these caverns to good use. The light coloured, near flat, massive walls make a natural series of projection screens. Accompanied by music, multiple projectors cover the walls with projected art works and moving pictures. We witnessed version 1.0 of this entertainment form some years ago, Cathédrale des Images, a Pablo Picasso display. That spectacle, regrettably, was shut down because of some modern health and safety nonsense. Fortunately, version 2.0, Carrières de Lumières, has now opened and we went along to see the “Klimt et Vienne” [Klimt and Vienna – whoever Klimt was] show.

I have to say that Version 2.0 outshone Version 1.0 [pun intended]. Clearly Herr Klimt was some artist – I’m a self-confessed artistic numbskull so how would I know. Klimt images were interleaved with scenes of Vienna accompanied by suitably chosen music. I even came out humming some. I felt I needed Chief Inspector Morse to tell me what operatic creation I had been listening to.

Having seen the blank walls of the bauxite cavern above, my inadequate vocabulary cannot possibly describe the transformation made by the myriad projectors so here’s a few images which will hopefully do the job. Do take note of the people in the images to get a true sense of scale.

I am not easily impressed but this place and entertainment form impresses me. This is worth a detour to see. This is somewhere we would always go almost whatever is on. The spectacle is simply breath-taking.

We needed an impressive dinner to follow that and the local Spar supermarket happened to be selling some faux-fillet [sirloin steak] of taureau de Camargue [Camargue bull]. My count of tasty instances of beef in France is now three. Tasty it was, though it had obviously been running around a little and was not the tenderest of steaks in the world. Still, it was a bull. [Note the patriotic table cloth for the 70th anniversary of D-Day.]

On to my main interest for wanting to be in this area at this time of year: the Peau de Meau.

As an amateur odonatologist, the Peau de Meau is irresistible. It is a part of the larger area known as Le Plain de la Crau. It is pan flat and, at first sight at least, looks like a baked, desolate landscape with little in the way of life. When it comes to dragonflies, however, nothing could be further from the truth. It is one of the premier dragonfly sites in Europe. A fellow enthusiast claims to have seen close to 50 species there. To put that in context, there are 40-odd species in the whole of the UK. We have visited once in September (and not got anywhere near 50) but I was keen to see what a spring visit would add. Today looked like good conditions, sunny and with little wind, so we packed lunch and called in to St-Martin-de-Crau to buy our €3 permits to visit.

Here’s the view that greets you as you drive in through the entrance of the Peau de Meau, the car park being on the immediate right. Dragonflies, here? Nah, surely not!

Actually, the first thing we saw was a large raptor, yet to be identified [who forgot to pack the bird book, then?] so something else thought there was life here to be hunted, too. It may be a Booted Eagle; they tend to eat snakes and lizards which would probably be in this sort of environment.

The dragonfly habitat is a small stream that runs along the northern border of the area and that you cross as you drive in. One might easily miss it. Assuming that you don’t, here you quickly see fluttering Demoiselles, both the more mundane Banded demoiselles but also the captivating Copper Demoiselles that you have to come this far south to see.

On this visit, one good addition was this Blue-eyed Hooktail (Onychogomphus uncatus) with the fearsome looking anal appendages. Just imagine a sexual encounter involving those.

Our most interesting addition to the location’s list, though, was our completely inappropriately named Norfolk Hawker (Aeshna isosceles). Here were several Norfolk Hawkers patrolling up and down a small stream in Provence. The Dijkstra suggested European name of Green-eyed hawker seems so much more appropriate. The critter isn’t even limited in range to Norfolk in the UK, now. More curious is the fact that in the UK, this creature is tightly bound to one specific aquatic plant on which it oviposits, Water Soldier. Here in mainland Europe, no such association exists; there wasn’t a single Water Soldier plant in sight.

An interesting day, for those of us that care about such things, anyway. 😉

Campsites can be entertaining places sometimes. Today we were treated to a couple of international entertainment acts.

Act #1 was from Deutschland.

Popular though they most certainly are with many punters, I am personally very disparaging about motor vans. There is something vaguely insolent about motor vans. We arrive on site in the early afternoon, pick a pitch as far from any other instances of homo sapiens [the word sapiens is applied loosely] as is possible then, generally much later, in swarms a collection of roughly 2-ton, £60K motor vans with accursed roof-mounted, auto-seeking satellite dishes that ruins everything. They just seem to be saying, “up yours”!

One particular German big mo’-fo’ motor van had clearly not understood the motor vanners’ manual ‘cos it turned up early in the afternoon. It paid dividends, though. It was of the brand Roller Team. How naff is that name, for a start? Specifically, it was a Roller Team Granduca Magnifico. Yikes! No wonder it was big – it needed to be big to get all the signwriting on. It was driven into a pitch adjacent to us and stopped by its kommander, momentarily, anyway. Herr Panzer Kommander dismounted to join seine Frau and began looking at surrounding pitches wondering where precisely to site his tank. Leider, Herr Panzer Kommander hat vergessen to apply the hand brake. Ever so gradually, two tons of Roller Team Granduca Magnifico began roller-teaming majestically down the slight gradient of the pitch. Frau Panzer Kommander, realizing the situation, began shouting excitedly at Herr Panzer Kommander. Had Herr Panzer Kommander been Japanese, he would undoubtedly now have done the honourable thing and committed hara kiri by flinging himself onto the ground in front of his tank to arrest its progress. Fortunately, he was saved from this course of action by the hedge surrounding the pitch, which crunched a little as it finally brought the Roller Team Granduca Magnifico to a stop in much the same fashion as did the Normandy bocage 70 years ago this coming Friday, June 6th.

A narrow escape for the assembled resistance personnel in the opposing pitches on the other side of the track.

Act #2 came from Holland.

The Dutch have a reputation as being magnificent travellers but I sometimes wonder whether they really deserve it. A KIP Grey Line 470 Special caravan turned up, being towed behind a Volvo estate that sounded more like a Massey-Fergusson than a car. This combination regrettably chose to become our neighbours. Bother!

The Dutch, of course, are fond of their bicycles. Our laudable Caravan Club strenuously discourages any attempt at mounting bicycle carriers on any part of a caravan. This is a perfectly sensible stance. Carriers are available to sling bicycles across the draw bar of a caravan but doing so vastly increases nose weight. Other carriers are also available to sling bicycles across the rear of a caravan, as if it were a motor van, but doing so on a caravan seriously decreases nose weight. To tow safely, one needs to have a positive nose weight within a specified range. Indeed, the police force representing Act #1 [see above] may well check your nose weight when travelling through Deutschland and give you a ticket if it is found to be out of bounds. As travelling savvy as they are supposed to be, the darn Dutch sling their goddamn bikes in both unsafe places, sometimes across the draw bar and sometimes across the back of their vans. Our new prospective neighbour, the KIP Grey Line 470 Special, had two weighty, style-free Dutch bicycles slung across its rear.

The caravan was unhitched from its Massey-Fergusson and Mr Cloggy began using his caravan mover to position the beast on the pitch. When going in reverse, each time the caravan stopped, its jockey [nose] wheel lifted off the ground a little. With the bikes slung across the back, this combination clearly had next to zero positive nose weight. The final scream came on the final rear braking manoeuvre. The back end heavy caravan reared up and sat on its rear with its nose in the air. “Hi-ho Silver, away!”, shouted the Lone Ranger. The KIP Grey Line 470 Special needed a tail skid. The Lone Ranger and Tonto both rushed to add their weight to the caravan’s draw bar and drag the nose wheel back into contact with terra firma.

Most entertaining, how we did applaud. 😀

To calm ourselves down after all our exciting international cabaret, we drove off into Les Alpilles. This is the first time we’ve had a chance to walk in them as they are closed between July and September to guard against fire risk. Things looked a little quiet at first but then  perked up when we started seeing a particular butterfly in large numbers. It was a species we’d encountered just two years ago in France, the False Ilex Hairstreak (Satyrium esculi). There were, though, a few other lighter but similar looking butterflies mixed into the darker swarms. These, we later discovered, were the Blue-spot Hairstreak (Satyrium spini), a new species for us. New identified species are always a thrill and, for once, the underside view is critical.

One instinctively knows when it’s time to move on. We’d had a good time at Millau, helped by an interesting riverside pitch and reasonable weather for orchid hunting but now it felt like time to move. We bad farewell to our compatriot friends across our intervening pitch, hitched up and headed for Maussane-les-Alpilles in … yes, Les Alpilles, a few kilometres south of St-Rémy-de-Provence. I don’t know if the name Les Alpilles is some form of diminutive of Les Alps but they are a series of modest rolling hills – I’ve seen them described as waves – on what is an otherwise quite flat landscape.

The prevailing wind for our stay at Millau has been largely from the north. Its continuation now put the wind up Guillaume’s skirts and helped him south down the remaining stretch of the A75 before he hung a left towards Montpellier and on past Nîmes to our destination. Descending off les causses to the Mediterranean plain took us down a 7.5kms/5mls 7.5%/1-in-12 hill with a tedious 50kmh speed limit for towing vehicles. Quite sensible really – the sight of a jack-knifed Guillaume can be very upsetting, especially if one is in the car attached to hte front of him. At least you can enjoy the views. 😉

The temperature rose steadily as we descended southwards. Clouds were thinning and the skies were clearing as we neared Provence. 18°C/60°F became 28°C/77°F. That’s more like it, that’s why we’re here!

Our campsite at Maussane-les-Alpilles can best be described as “not us”. It is a municipal with excellent security, hedged pitches and inclusive wi-fi. It sounds fine but it’s a bit too urban and feels quite crowded. Still, it’s the most convenient we’ve found in the area and we are here for a reason, namely the Peau de Meau, but more of that later.

After pitching Guillaume in the most secluded corner we could find, we set off to investigate what I fondly refer to as the Maussane Ditch, what appears to be a drainage channel running into a small stream. Our late summer trip here produced about 11 species of Odos here. I was intrigued to see what spring species might be around to add to the list. We added a couple I think, from memory, but the most enchanting inhabitant is still the stunning Copper Demoiselle, which I’ would never tiring of watching. I offer this as proof that there is no God, since any god could never be this artistic. [Prepares to dodge the thunderbolt!]