Local Harbours

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We are now encamped at St.Martin du Pin where our friends, Mike & Linda, have rented a gîte for this week. We’ve been to this campsite on a few previous occasions but it is now under new ownership so we had been hoping that it wouldn’t have changed too much. Other than one field now being filled with some endearing goats, the main change seems to be that the place has become something of a bébé magnet, or whatever the Dutch for baby might be. The site has always been v. popular with those particular nomadic European neighbours, and they remain by far the most numerous customers (~90% I’d guess) but, for some reason, this year they’ve seen fit to bring three squealing rugrats with them. One can plan to avoid Satan’s Little Disciples by travelling during school term times but pre-school rugrats remain a potential difficulty. At least the adult contingent seems pleasant and peaceful. Maybe the new owners are advertising in Mothercare magazine, or something. 😀

P1010600_Meze_harbour Anyway, our main reasons for returning regularly to this area are the weather together with a couple of picturesque local harbours at Mèze and Marseillan. Both are pleasant places to sit with a beer while watching the world go by. This is exactly what we tried to do at Mèze having cycled to the town from the campsite. We picked a harbour-side table at a harbour-side bar and sat down waiting to order deux pressions [two draught beers]. Shortly afterwards and, mercifully, before anyone had come to our table to take our order, a delivery van screeched to a halt 6ft/2m in front of us thus comprehensively obscuring our view of said world passing by. Not wishing to pay bar prices for a view of the side of a van, we left and cycled back.

P1010627_Marseillan_harbour The other thing these harbours excel in is selling platters of the locally caught/produced coquillages [shellfish], especially oysters. Neither of these harbours opens directly onto the Mediterranean but rather on the Basin de Thau which is home to a very large oyster farming industry. Marseillan harbour is by far our favourite, being particularly attractive and relatively calm, mostly. Happily, our attempt to sample the seafood their after yet another bicycle trip, was considerably more successful and we managed to part with a little of our tourist cash without the view being spoiled – and very good our lunches were, too. Naturally, being aboard bicycles rather than driving, we thought it was de rigeur to wash down our seafood with a bottle of the local dry white wine speciality, Picpoul de Pinet.

Salut!

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Provence Summary

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We moved on from Provence to Montagnac in the Hérault today. Here, we are meeting up with friends Mike & Linda and hoping to celebrate a double birthday in Francine’s favourite birthday lunch spot, Marseillan harbour. It’s a double birthday because Linda’s is the day before Francine’s. In parting, here’s a swift summary of how kind Provence has been to us.

We’ve had six days of this, Franco’s favourite colour:

P1010583_Favourite_sky

In those six days of pretty much unbroken clear blue skies, we’ve braved the heat and managed to hunt down the following entirely new delightful Odonata to add to our growing collection: the Spotted Darter (Sympetrum depressiusculum); the utterly captivating Copper Demoiselle (Calopteryx haemorrhoidalis) and the Southern Skimmer (Orthetrum brunneum).

IMG_1587_Spotted_Darter_male IMG_1668_Copper_Demoiselle_male IMG_1798_Southern_Skimmer_male

Oh, and sometimes you don’t have to go hunting. This also new character, a Lesser Emperor Dragonfly (Anax parthenope) helpfully came and landed on the hedge surrounding our pitch on the campsite:

IMG_2870_Lesser_Emperor

Added to the two new species we spotted in La Brenne, I’d say six new species amounted to a good good trip so far.

Now, time to do something a little different, including, we hope, some cycling to counteract the celebrations. 😀

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Étang des Aulnes

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For our last day in Les Alpilles we thought we’d call into another noted wildlife habitat and Odonata spotting spot in these parts called the Étang des Aulnes. It’s a Sunday and, being a fishermans’ hang out, I was rather afraid it would be busy with French fishermen avoiding the French equivalent of ‘er indoors, rather as fishermen do in the UK. My fears were unfounded; there was but one other car in the car park and nobody from it was in evidence. We had the place to ourselves.

P1010584_Etang_des_Aulnes P1010589_Etang_des_Aulnes The main étang is pretty big, nothing even approaching the Étang de Vaccarès in that you can see the other side of it, but big nonetheless. Much better for Odo-spotting are smaller bodies of water. This area came with a series of three small, straight (clearly man-made) “finger-lakes” which is where we concentrated our efforts.

IMG_1798_Southern_Skimmer_male Most of what we saw were the now familiar usual suspects in these parts … until we focussed on what I first assumed to be a Black-tailed Skimmer (Orthetrum cancellatum). It didn’t look quite right, though, in that the abdomen appeared to have gone pruinose, a feature I didn’t think I’d seen before. Looking at the photos later, I noticed that the eyes and frons are also blue-ish. Enter our sixth new species: a suspected Southern Skimmer (Orthetrum brunneum). (I say suspected because, never having seen one before, I need more expert confirmation.) The book shows no black tip to the tail but I’m pretty sure this is just down to wear and tear after a hard season’s reproduction together with territorial disputes.

Whose a happy camper, then? 🙂

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Pay the Ferryman

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One really shouldn’t visit this area without getting a feel for the Camargue itself and to see some of the things for which it is noted.

P1010561_VaccaresP1010564_FlamingosThe Camargue is a large wetland formed by the complex and widespread delta of the river Rhône. The largest water body within the area, sandwiched between the Petit Rhone to the west and the Grand Rhône to the east, is the Étang de Vaccarès where we began our search for one of the Camargue’s more colourful inhabitants, flamingos. This lake is large (6,500 hectares) and is apparently the winter home to 80,000 ducks and 60,000 coots – but no flamingos, it seemed. We eventually found the elusive pinkish critters in the smaller Étang du Fournelet. Distant though they are, here’s a spot of photographic evidence.

P1010573_Camargue_rice There’s a lot of rice grown in the Camargue which must form good natural rice paddies. Camargue red rice is well known to those of us with a culinary leaning. We’ve bumped into rice harvest time and were intrigued to see it growing but it took us a while to find a field of the stuff growing and which provided anything like decent photographic access. Hmm, pink flamingos, red rice – I’m beginning to see a pattern emerging. 🙂

P1010572_Bac_de_Barcarin Our plan was to finish our day with a visit to the Marais de Vigueirat, a wildlife sanctuary including, of course, Odos. Since we were now on the wrong side of the Grand Rhône, we opted for a short ferry crossing on the Bac de Bacarin, very efficient, good fun. Paying the French ferryman the €5 for the crossing caused a laugh as I had to call Francine back for the cash; he reacted to that with suitable amusement.

P1010576_Camargue_horses Enjoyable ferry ride over we arrived at the wildlife sanctuary where the reception was, of course, closed for lunch until 2:30 PM. How very French. Nonetheless, we seemed to be able to get in and wander around the public access paths (there are also private areas) to our hearts’ content. Our hearts’ content soon expired as we found no shortage of one the Camargue’s other famous inhabitants, the mosquito. Francine felt she was being eaten alive and we soon tired of spotting dragonflies which, as it turned out, didn’t seem that exciting after all. The Marais de Vigueirat would be very interesting, I’m sure, if you could pause long enough to study it with out getting bitten. The golden rule, however, seemed to be: keep walking briskly to provide the mosquitoes a more difficult moving target. We did, at least, have an opportunity to grab a few swift shots of another of the Camargue’s celebrities, the white horses.

As an Odonata nutter, I would not bother with the Marais de Vigueirat again, even if I’d had a bath in Autan (mosquito repellent); it was quite a relief to get out of it. The rest of the day was fun, though.

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Peau de Meau

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There are many so-called flat areas in the world. In the UK, the county of Norfolk is generally, somewhat disparagingly referred to as being flat: “Oh, Norfolk, yes, it’s terribly flat”. From an alcohol-dulled memory, I seem to recall that the highest point in Norfolk is about 365ft/110mtrs above sea level. The whole of the Netherlands is called flat and it may well be, until you climb aboard a bicycle.

Just south of us and on the east side of the Camargue is an area called La Plaine de la Crau (we suspect, pronounced “crow”). The main town, the gateway to la Crau, is St-Martin-de-Crau. There are many sites of interest to naturalists in la Crau including one called the Peau de Meau requires which is a noted site for birders but also for Odo-nutters. Whilst most areas of la Crau are freely accessible, the Peau de Meau requires a permit (€3 each per day at the time of writing), obtainable from the Ecomusée de la Crau at the western end of the main street in St-Martin-de-Crau. I know it’s at the west end now but, of course, we parked at the east end to begin our search for our permits.  No matter, it’s a pleasant-looking town. Permits in hand – well, more accurately, Francine’s handbag – we set off the 10kms/6mls or so in search of the highly regarded Peau de Meau.

P1010534_Peau_de_Meau P1010536_Peau_de_Meau We found it and it’s definitely not what I expected. I don’t know exactly what I expected but an ironing-board flat stony desert landscape wasn’t it. This is flat; Norfolk and the Netherlands are positively mountainous by comparison. Here are two views looking in almost opposite directions to show you what we’re talking about.

Neither does it immediately look like a stunning place for wildlife. We pulled into the car park, where there was nobody to care whether we had a permit or not, and began to stare around. Soon, Francine began spotting flitting Odos, all of which seemed to having some difficulty either flying or hanging onto perches in the strong wind that was whipping across the plain completely unobstructed.

The car park is immediately across a small but fast flowing stream/river on the northern side of the Peau de Meau. We did set off on the supposedly 2hrs walk along a stony track around the Peau de Meau but, as you can see from the pictures, life wasn’t going to change much so we soon returned to the most likely Odo habitat, the stream, and I’m very glad we did. Incidentally, given the flat landscape, we’re very confused about how the river managed to flow quite so swiftly. Curious!

IMG_1658_Copper_Demoiselle_male IMG_1675_Copper_Demoiselle_female The first thing we spotted over the stream itself was a Copper Demoiselle (Calopteryx hæmorrhoidalis). What a catch, our fourth completely new species and what a stunningly attractive creature the male is. The female is interesting, too, in that she has a darker see-through patch at the tip of one of her pairs of wings. Fortunately I was wearing my Salomon river-guide shoes and was able to clamber into the stream itself to get some reasonably close shots. These Calopteryx chaps and chapesses do tend to make photography difficult by sitting on the sunny side of rivers right over the water.

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Roman Relics

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The Romans knew a thing or two about living in a decent climate. All teh more surprising, therefore, that they eventually chose to cross the Channel and invade the British Isles. There were benefits, however; it is because the Romans were stupid enough to invade a country with a climate as crappy as Britain that we have central heating. Every cloud, etc. … and there is certainly no shortage of clouds in the British Isles.

In these parts, around Arles and Nîmes, there are several notable Roman architectural relics. one of the most famous is the Pont du Gard, an impressive three-tiered Roman aqueduct that carried fresh water into Roman Nîmes, where there is an equally impressive Roman arena similar the Colosseum in Rome.

P1010543_Roman_aqueduct Scattered here in and around les Alpilles  are more Roman relics, perhaps not as grand as those more famous relics aforementioned but quite impressive nonetheless. A little south of us is a another Roman aqueduct, much less imposing than the Pont du Gard but it served a similar life-giving purpose to someone in these arid parts 2000 years ago. It’s in the middle of nowhere, really, and there’s nowhere to park so we had to leave our car with fashionable abandon at a very rakish angle on a road verge nearby.

P1010555_Triumphal_arch P1010558_Mausoleum Slightly to the north of us on the outskirts of the well-known tourist trap of St-Remy-de-Provence, lies the Roman settlement of Glanum where there is another more money-spinning archaeological site. Here, there is parking and plenty of it at €2.50. beside the car park are two quite impressive Roman relics: a triumphal arch (triumphant of what, I’m not entirely sure) and a mausoleum.

Having shelled out your €2.50 to park, across the road there is the archaeological site of Glanum itself, at a further €7.00 each to get in. Knowing us, you’ll just have to be satisfied with the triumphal arch and the mausoleum on the outside and be glad that we paid the parking fee. 😀

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Aux Alpilles

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This morning we hitched up early and headed for our next port of call, Les Alpilles. Les Alpilles, themselves a parc naturel régional, are an attractive series of rocky hills in the middle of an otherwise flat plain just north-east of the Camargue national park. We’re here for the wetlands around the Camargue. This area is definitely an Odo-nutter destination, if one can find the dragonflies in between all the mosquitoes for which the Camargue is famous. 😀

Our first decision was where to stay. We’d previously visited a pleasant, rural campsite near Mouriès. It was in a typically Provencal setting of arid scrubland and seemed to be run by the Gestapo, which is a good thing; you don’t any more thoughtless campers being given the freedom to spoil your own peace and quiet. However, a couple of kilometres west lies Maussane-les-Alpilles with a seemingly highly regarded camping municipal. It, of course, is more of a town site. We vacillated but eventually plumped for rural scrubland and the Gestapo – much more us.

We timed our departure so that the three hour drive would get us in just before lunchtime (12 noon). The French don’t care to have their lunch two-hours disturbed and often close receptions at noon for a couple of hours. We pulled into Mouriès at 11:30 AM and swung off the main road into the side road leading to Stalag 99, passing, as we did so, a camping sign appended with “fermé” [closed]. Bugger, it’s supposed to be open until September 15th!

The Gestapo clearly got fed up with tourists. I did a nifty three point turn with Guillaume still hitched and we headed for the site in Maussane-les-Alpilles after all.

Maybe it’s Provence but this site seems to be run by the same branch of the forces. An extract from the site rules:

NOISE: do not bother your neighbours with the sound of televisions or radios, with loud voices or musical instruments and this EVEN DURING THE DAY.

(Their phraseology, not mine.) Excellent! What with this and the free wifi, it makes the higher than usual (for us) charges something of a pleasure. This is how all sites should be run.

Now, if they could just take a leaf out of the book at the étang de Bellbouche where dogs aren’t permitted …

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Le Viaduc de Millau

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IMG_1574_Millau_viaduc A burst of early morning sun convinced us – it didn’t have to try very hard – to stay in Millau for one more day and see if we could get at least a reasonable picture of its attractive viaduct spanning the valley. There’s a viewing belvédère 3mls/5kms up a twisting hairpin road that provides a decent vantage point if there’s some morning sun. We made the climb just in time; as you will see from the picture, the sun almost didn’t last long enough, though the gathering clouds lend a little drama to the scene, I suppose. This subject would seem a complete natural for the Fuji 6×17 format, so here goes.

P1010493_Pays_de_Roquefort_700 About 25kms/15mls beyond the viaduct is Roquefort, home of the esteemed blue cheese made from sheeps’ milk. As usual we will be ending up on our favourite dairy sheep farm in Fanjeaux and, since the milk from those sheep goes to make Roquefort cheese, we thought we’d go and visit the end product as well as the producers of the raw material. Having visited a couple of the caves, we are now the proud owners of a quarter of a Roquefort. I’ve also invested in a bottle of Floc de Gascogne which, being a sweet, fortified concoction similar to Pineau des Charentes, should accompany it very well.

IMG_1577_Flocing_Roquefort So, yes readers, I’m afraid it’s true … we’ve bought some Floc ‘n’ Roquefort! 😀

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Barn Doors

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It’s been a funny ol’ day. I need to back up a little, though.

Yesterday we trotted off to McD’s for a dose of McWiFi to post some blog entries, all of which were lurking in Windows Live Writer on my Dell Inspiron laptop. I switched on said laptop and … nothing, nada, nichts, not a single wireless network showed as being available. Meanwhile, Francine was tapping away happily on her Sony Vaio laptop with not a care in the world. We both tried everything we could think of, all to no avail. Mr. Grumpy’s blog entries remained unposted.

Back chez le camping, Francine fiddled again, apparently with magic digits and lo, a couple of very weak wireless networks appeared, though none to which I could connect because of security. We left the settings exactly as they were overnight and, heartened, this morning returned to McD’s expecting success. Expectations, sadly, were short-lived; I switched on and … nothing, nada, nichts, not a single … well, you know. Wisely, as an erstwhile seasoned professional, I had taken the precaution of copying my blog entries from my recalcitrant heap of crap Dell machine to Francine’s much more reliable Sony, courtesy of which blog entries were posted and spam emails deleted.

IMG_2693_Barn_Doors We’ve had some heavy overcast all day so photography wasn’t featuring high on our menu. We did, however, toddle up to a high point to see if any paragliders were going to glide past photogenically – paragliding is a popular form of entertainment in these vertiginous parts. Alas, no paragliders were present. This, however, did drift past below our vantage point on a pair of those barn doors I mentioned in a previous post and, furthermore, Francine had her camera out with the correct lens mounted as it did so. This is one of the local population of Griffon Vultures (Gyps fulvus) captured on pixels and, though there isn’t a handy size comparison in shot, believe me, it’s BIG. Well done Francine! [Maybe Francine is a professional?]

It began raining shortly afterwards. We returned to Guillaume for the afternoon.

I may have to drive over this piece of Dell rubbish, accidentally, of course, or trip and fall into the Dourbie river with it. Maybe I could stumble and fall on it on my way out of an abortive McWiFi trip to McD’s? It’s only 6 months old; I’ve had to re-install it three times already, Windows keeps saying the hard drive is about to fail and the wireless is now playing up. Maybe I should use it as a portable wheel chock. It would certainly do a better job than it does as a portable computer.

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Up La Dourbie

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The sun was out but there was what would most generously be described as “a stiff breeze” blowing down our little valley. At times, it felt like a gale. Nonetheless, we’d lugged our bicycles with us about 700 miles down France so we thought we should be brave little campers and use the poor things. Since we are not actually French and in no way inclined to cycle up steep inclines such as those which head up the mountains surrounding Millau, we thought we’d head up the Dourbie valley, straight into the aforementioned stiff breeze. Hmmm!

P1010474_St_Veran I have to say it wasn’t a lot of fun; it was damned hard work. Being a river valley, the road went slightly uphill anyway and, with the added resistance offered by a strong wind blowing down the valley, the effective gradient was greater. The faces of those cyclists we passed being blown back down the valley were noticeably much more relaxed than ours. We were rather looking forward to the return trip with the wind but we stuck it out for 10 miles/16kms before spinning around. The French tourist board had thoughtfully placed St. Véran at our chosen turning point to enable a natural breather while the little snappy camera did its work.

P1010482_Franco_and_Francine You do have to be careful about nasty telephone and power cables thoughtlessly strung across otherwise picturesque views in France, though. Here’s an example of what I mean: Franco and Francine or, at least, their shadows, staring wistfully off a bridge across La Dourbie. About one third of the way down the shot you can see the obligatory ugly cables, though Francine has done a good job positioning them to lessen their distraction value. (I think it was intentional.)

P1010475_Tir_de_canard Finally, here’s a sign we’ve seen little of in France. Well, it’s two signs screwed to a tree but the left-most reads, “Tir du Canard Interdit” [Shooting of Ducks Prohibited]. Maybe we should call back into La Brenne on our journey back north and let the poor ducks there know that there is at least a little safety for them 300 miles south down here – if there’s any ducks left, that is!

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