Our campsite did not improve in the light of a new day and so we decided to move on. But before seeking a fresh campsite we decided not to pass up the opportunity to explore the Camargue and its unique landscape. Originally the delta of the River Rhone, mankind has gradually intervened to reclaim much of the marshy land for rice and grain production and as we saw yesterday, salt production. Still a large part of the area is not given over to production of any sort and in addition to birdlife it is also home to a famous breed of white horse and bulls, which have historically been used for bullfighting.
Our decision was to first drive to the protected nature reserve to which I had originally intended to cycle. On the way to our destination we spotted our first Flamingos – Greater Flamingo to be precise and pulled over to marvel at these unlikely looking birds, with their improbably long legs, strange upside down beaks and, of course, their pink colouration.
At the nature reserve, Domaine de La Palissade, which does not allow dogs, I agreed with Sarah to limit my time to two hours and she, in the meantime would take the dogs for a walk. The entrance fee was €3 and the receptionist explained how much of the reserve I could expect to take in within 2 hours. The first section I explored was fresh water lakes which contained many of the species I am familiar with at home. I did however see a Garganey, a type of duck which I had not seen before and a large number of Great Egrets, which do occur in the UK, but only in small numbers. As usual there were numerous small brown jobbies flitting about the tree branches, never staying still enough for me to get my binoculars on them, let alone make an identification!
The second hide I had been directed to also hosted a number of birds common in the UK, but also contained Greater Flamingos, Black Winged Stilts and Yellow Legged Gulls. My morning’s bird watching was topped off by spotting some Black Redstarts in the car park.
When I started to tell Sarah about my exploits it soon became obvious that one of the areas I had explored had also been where Sarah had taken the dogs, where they were not allowed and without paying!
Sarah and I then moved to have lunch overlooking one of the large lagoons containing hundred of Flamingos. Nearby, we could also see a separate body of water containing more Mute Swans than we have ever seen before in one place. As we drove next to the swans, after lunch, we could see that there were several hundred all gathered on a lake perhaps two miles long by two hundred metres wide – quite an impressive site.
We moved further along the road until we reached the sea. There was a large expanse of hard sand behind the beach on which we would both have liked to spend the night. This was popular until a few years ago but apparently the police visit every night now and turf the motorhomes off. Still that didn’t prevent us from taking the dogs for a long walk on the virtually deserted beach.
Piemanson beach must be one of the best in the whole of the Mediterranean, being two or three miles long and because it is in a protected area there is, of course, absolutely no development. The dogs, and Melek in particular, always love a beach and he ran and ran as fast and his very little legs would allow.
Finally it was time to make tracks for our campsite, which was only 30 miles away. Camping Romarins (43.723042, 4.808479) in the lovely village of Mausane les Alpilles, is familiar to us from two years ago. Using the ACSI card the price has increased to €18 a night, but it is everything that our last campsite was not. They only opened three days ago but everything is neat and tidy with lovely large pitches demarcated by hedges. It looks like the ideal place to recharge our batteries and plan our assault on Italy.