Day 58: Arcachon to Andernos-les-Bains

April 4, 2024

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When we arrive in a town in the late afternoon, we will typically be tired, and anxious about how our accommodation will work out. Meanwhile, the public and the tourists are in full swing, getting ready for some evening fun. We may look around a bit, but our main motive is to write the blog and collapse. That's why I am usually curious to see what things look like in the cold light of morning. The crowds are gone, and you can see the bones of the place.

With Arcachon, I rather expected it to look great in the morning. A little Basque maybe, and a little Belle Epoque. But for some reason it failed to do anything for me. It was nice, alright, but it still felt meh. And I deny this was me. I was totally normal!

It's pretty nice, but is it great? (I also lightened this photo a touch, to limit any effect of a dim morning.)

I went for another look at the unique Monoprix building.

One of the things in looking at a town in the early morning, is maybe seeing merchants preparing their stores, or taking deliveries. Then there is also the garbage pickup and other municipal services going on. One "service" was the act of hosing down the entire street. Dodie was on the sidewalk loading the bikes when this came along. She asked the man not spray her or the bikes, but got a snarky reply. Something about we can't leave the street dirty.

On the other hand, its hard to stay in conflict with people when you are all going to be in la mie Caline together, buying croissants, five minutes later.

We started by going along the beach, where we had been yesterday. Past the not so pink hotel, and now down all the way to the Ferris wheel we had seen yesterday. From close up, it was apparent the wheel was not in operation. In fact work was ongoing to install the gondolas.

There were some Belle Epoque style houses, and a really huge harbour with first pleasure boats and then fishing boats, in their hundreds.

We next passed through some salt meadows, near the town of La Teste. They sounded kind of exciting, like maybe for birds, but all we saw was water and grass.

An this interesting basin, with the tide totally out.

There was this block long strip of Spring flowers.

Our next possibly exciting thing was a 6 km long linear park, surrounding a canal. Extensive signage touted all sorts of birds, mammals, insects, and plants that could be seen along the way. It all sounded great, but really, the place was too narrow - with housing on either side - to support all that stuff. It was a pleasant ride, though.

The signage was bright and clear, but way too optimistic. One like this, though, does give the chance to learn the French names of some animals.

On leaving the linear park, we soon got onto yet another, very similar trail, leading to what we had planned as our really big party trick for the day. This has to do with the river Eyre, which enters the bay near the town of Le Teich. Dodie had found from the notes of our Birds of France identification brochure that there is a major bird sanctuary/observatory thing at Le Teich. Further reading revealed that for 9.50 euros one can have access to a system of trails and hides, taking you around about a 6 km circuit, stopping at 20 hides. Wow, we were into it!

Before even arriving, we got to see a horse and his Egret.

We were not 100% sure about how to reach the Reserve, and we took some advice from a local, who pointed us to a "Sentier Littorale" (seaside trail) that they claimed was "the thing". We bumped down a dirt road in the direction indicated, and came to this:

But see the sign beyond the heavy equipment? That surely is what we were after. So we made the shovel operator quit swinging the thing around, and pushed through to the sign. The sign showed a moderately encouraging map of the sentier, circling the Reserve area. So we pushed on a bit further.

Pushing through the sand for a bit gave us time to think, that this surely could not be the Reserve we had read about. So we turned around, and told the heavy equipment guys - remember us? now you have to quit work yet again!

We then made our way another few km into Le Teich, and there we had good signage showing the way to the Reserve.

The Reserve, when we got there, had the gratifying infrastructure we had been hoping for - like a ticket office, gift shop, bar, washrooms, and maps.

In fact, to us, this was the Disneyland of bird spotting. Here is their basic map:

Look, we are on a major bird migration route.

and here are their claims about all the birds that one can see here:

We bought our tickets and stashed the bikes in a hole somewhere. Then we were off!

I immediately liked their solid cedar constructions.

There were also a lot of educational materials, like these panels discussing birds' means of locomotion, grabbing things, and so on. This was good stuff, but a bit child oriented, something that quickly turned out to be a bad sign.

The trail then set off through the islands and channels, and to the various hides.

The Reserve pamphlet properly emphasized the need to not make noise. We were super dismayed to almost immediately hear the gabbling of children. Children in a group (especially at a swimming pool) just quack, scream, and chitter continuously. So it turned out there were a number of school groups on the trail. We were ready to strangle them, or at least their teachers.

Kids in a lookout tower. At least they are using the binoculars.

Well, we did manage to see one swan, that was not afraid of kids.

Things turned around for us though, because it turned out that the kids had limited range. That is, they were not being trotted around the whole reserve, but only the initial short circuit. We soon found ourselves no longer in their company, but in the company of serious birders. By serious, I mean they were carrying extremely heavy camouflaged long lenses on costly camera bodies. One guy had a sort of custom golf cart, needed to truck his giant rig,

One of the hides. This was a two story affair, with long rows of benches facing slits from which to view the water.

Common Shelducks (correction-these are Northern Shovelers, thanks Scott)

Little Egret - even with preening, always looks untidy

By the time we made it around the circuit, temperature had risen into the 30's, and we were beat. That limited our turn through the gift shop, though we did get a couple of postcards. All were bird pictures. I would have like to find at least a card of the Fisher Martin, which we have been looking to spot. But no luck any which way. There was the guide to 100 local species (below) that would have been nice, but there is no way to carry that back to Canada on the bikes.

Our legs were somehow very sore from the walking, and we felt stiff at first getting back on the bikes. But we had dawdled away a lot of the day, and still had 40 km to pedal, so we got on with it. We were lucky to immediately be on another rail trail, that took us all the way to Andernos. I am surprised that I have no photos documenting this passage. Must have been more hot and tired than I thought. Just before reaching our hotel we stopped at a Carrefour Express and picked up some treats. We have been trying to not buy potato chips, but as a symptom of how tired we felt, a bag hit the shopping cart. Well, at least they were "organic" chips.

The hotel, the Oceane, looked rather expansive, from the lobby anyway, but true to form for France, the room was cramped, and also lacked outlets by the bed. I went to reception and got them to dig up two power bars, which mostly solved the outlet problem, when combined with our own one. Also at French hotels, the breakfast - whether extra charge at about 9-11 euros each, or included, is basically worthless, being orange juice, coffee, and croissant. But here, the 9.50 breakfast is claiming to include meat and cheese and even cake. So in our weakened state, we are going for it. We are looking forward to charging on up the coast, powered by all that potential meat and cheese and cake!

Today's ride: 53 km (33 miles)
Total: 2,696 km (1,674 miles)

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