Where's Bertie? He's at an Aire on the edge of Etang (lake) Biscarrosse et de Parentis, just outside of Gastes, at a cost of €4.50 for 24 hours. (Exact location: 44.32902, -1.15112).
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine.
Only a few kilometres down the road from where we spent the last two nights sits La Dune du Pyla, which, as its name suggests, is a sand dune. This is not just any old sand dune, though. This is the tallest in Europe, standing between 100 and 125m high, and extending to 2.7km long.
We arrived reasonably early and, abandoning Bertie in a busy parking area just down the road from the most northerly access point (rather than paying for the car park about a three-minute walk closer), we walked though a bit of the vast forest which covers this area. We had seen pictures of what we were going to find the other side, but even so it was bizarrre to pop out of a forest to find a huge towering hill of sand in front of us:
To make life easier for the hoards of tourists, a staircase has been installed
Up the stairs we went, to spend the next hour or so walking through ankle-shaping soft sand, along the ridge, so as to get to the high point, as marked with the arrow.
Looking back the way we've come - towards the entrance to the Bassin d'Arcachon
My intention had been to drop down off the dune from the high point, to make our way through the forest back to the road (saving us the effort of retracing our steps through the shifting sand). Dropping off the side would have either been fun or scary, as the inland side sits at an angle of up to 40 degrees (which looked mighty steep when viewed from above), but we weren't completely sure that the forest track we wanted to follow was a public right of way, and we didn't much fancy having to clamber back up onto the dune if the route didn't go. Steps were thus retraced along the ridge and by the time we got back to the north end there were hoards of people around (although probably only a small fraction of the number there would have been on a similarly sunny day in August). Almost none of them strayed more than 50m from the top of the stairs.
Elevenses, a quick stop at a Lidl and a couple of magical mystery tours when the SatNav decided to take us 'interesting' routes (we ignored it two days ago when it told us to go along an overgrown rough track through a forest!) brought us another 40km down the road, to the sizeable inland lake of Etang de Biscarrosse et de Parentis.
It was a bit of an initiative test to work out how to get into the Aire here (it's an electronic pre-payment system we've come across before, but not often) and, once in, we settled into a front row slot with this view:
I had been a little concerned that, in taking this slot, we were approaching being inappropriately close to the neighbouring vans. My concept of personal space obviously errs on the conservative side, as half an hour later another van squeezed in next to us. Quite why it didn't go in one of the three front row spaces which had become available to the other side of the entrance, I don't know. The same goes for the van that initially parked so close behind us that we wouldn't have been able to manoeuvre out.
The original intention had been to stay here just the one night, but it's a rather pleasant spot, so if we can work out how to extend our ticket, then we may well stay for two. We've already investigated the cycle route (on foot, in the absence of bikes) in one direction, so there's still scope for more ambling around tomorrow, and it will be nice to do some more crochet during daylight hours (as I did today), as it gets trickier under artificial light in the evening when the colours take on hues that prevent me from recognising them.
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine.
Only a few kilometres down the road from where we spent the last two nights sits La Dune du Pyla, which, as its name suggests, is a sand dune. This is not just any old sand dune, though. This is the tallest in Europe, standing between 100 and 125m high, and extending to 2.7km long.
We arrived reasonably early and, abandoning Bertie in a busy parking area just down the road from the most northerly access point (rather than paying for the car park about a three-minute walk closer), we walked though a bit of the vast forest which covers this area. We had seen pictures of what we were going to find the other side, but even so it was bizarrre to pop out of a forest to find a huge towering hill of sand in front of us:
To make life easier for the hoards of tourists, a staircase has been installed
Up the stairs we went, to spend the next hour or so walking through ankle-shaping soft sand, along the ridge, so as to get to the high point, as marked with the arrow.
Looking back the way we've come - towards the entrance to the Bassin d'Arcachon
My intention had been to drop down off the dune from the high point, to make our way through the forest back to the road (saving us the effort of retracing our steps through the shifting sand). Dropping off the side would have either been fun or scary, as the inland side sits at an angle of up to 40 degrees (which looked mighty steep when viewed from above), but we weren't completely sure that the forest track we wanted to follow was a public right of way, and we didn't much fancy having to clamber back up onto the dune if the route didn't go. Steps were thus retraced along the ridge and by the time we got back to the north end there were hoards of people around (although probably only a small fraction of the number there would have been on a similarly sunny day in August). Almost none of them strayed more than 50m from the top of the stairs.
Elevenses, a quick stop at a Lidl and a couple of magical mystery tours when the SatNav decided to take us 'interesting' routes (we ignored it two days ago when it told us to go along an overgrown rough track through a forest!) brought us another 40km down the road, to the sizeable inland lake of Etang de Biscarrosse et de Parentis.
It was a bit of an initiative test to work out how to get into the Aire here (it's an electronic pre-payment system we've come across before, but not often) and, once in, we settled into a front row slot with this view:
I had been a little concerned that, in taking this slot, we were approaching being inappropriately close to the neighbouring vans. My concept of personal space obviously errs on the conservative side, as half an hour later another van squeezed in next to us. Quite why it didn't go in one of the three front row spaces which had become available to the other side of the entrance, I don't know. The same goes for the van that initially parked so close behind us that we wouldn't have been able to manoeuvre out.
The original intention had been to stay here just the one night, but it's a rather pleasant spot, so if we can work out how to extend our ticket, then we may well stay for two. We've already investigated the cycle route (on foot, in the absence of bikes) in one direction, so there's still scope for more ambling around tomorrow, and it will be nice to do some more crochet during daylight hours (as I did today), as it gets trickier under artificial light in the evening when the colours take on hues that prevent me from recognising them.
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