August 28, 2019
In Search of Unicorns and Flamingos
Decisions decisions
I”ll come to the decisions later.
We had decided to stay an extra day in Arles to do some housekeeping things, some planning and to take a day ride into the Carmague. The Carmague is the huge area of the Rhone Delta , it is a National Park and is known for its beautiful white horses (they are actually Unicorns but the horn and the wings don’t show up in photos), the flamingos and the mosquitos. We found the mosquitos
The lady in the TI had given me a rather useless map but we set off with great expectations. The via Rhona continues right down to the mouth of the Rhone we would take it, cross over to the other side of the Rhone by ferry then follow small roads back to Arles - simple. Previously we had ridden the Via Rhona from the Rhone Glacier, which gives birth to the river, to Avignon this would mean we would have almost completed the whole length of the river as we had the Danube - from where it bubbles out of the ground to where it goes into the Black Sea (though the Budapest to Black Sea part was by boat). The ride started magnificently the path was perfect, it was flat, the bikes were unloaded, we were really flying. The first thing we came to was the Van Gogh Bridge. There it was exactly as in the painting, even the trees looked the same. We came to a fig tree on the side of the path, the figs were delicious and Ken plucked some - I thought of you Jan and how you would have loved them. We were going through the agricultural area of the delta. On one side of the path was some sort of a canal and on the other vast fields of rice. In April the fields are flooded, then they dry out and the harvest is in September so now the crop looked to my untutored eye to be ripe - it had a kind of yellow colour. It continued like this and dead straight - we were obviously on the wrong side of the Rhône to see wildlife other than mosquitoes. After a little over 20km we came to a tiny village, Mas Thibert and it it had a cafe. we stopped and reconsidered things. It reminded me of the little village, St Georgia, near the mouth of the Danube. It was another 25km of the same until we could cross the river and find Unicorns and flamingos. Change in plan we would ride back to Arles, cross the river there and ride into the National Park.
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Back we flew, under the bridge over the Rhône and we studied our map and took off. The road was busy, there were big trucks and our enthusiasm was waning so we turned round back to Arles to do a big mail back and plan the next stage of the trip. I will just have to dream of Unicorns and flamingos. Actually we had a great day and our usual yummy lunch
Tomorrow we will ride to Avignon. Sounds as if we are going the wrong way but wait and see, we have a cunning plan.
Today's ride: 45 km (28 miles)
Total: 1,556 km (966 miles)
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5 years ago
Having read many blogs about riding the Canal du Midi no one seems to find it a pleasant experience - yes we can use D roads and have appropriate maps for that We have actually walked all of the canal du M from Arles about 14 years ago. What we think we will do is ride to Avignon tomorrow and on Friday take a train to Toulouse and then on great tracks. This has been a great trip, probably more challenging than we had imagined, thank goodness for my ebike, I cant get over how well ken has done on his regular bike
5 years ago
We were looking at so much unicorn junk in Costco today. Neither Costco nor the Chinese manufacturers seem to know that all the real unicorns are in the Camargue!
5 years ago
5 years ago
Tricia
5 years ago