So before I start today's stories, I wanted to mention one more thing about yesterday's that I forgot. Nick was dying to drive the Grand Prix circuit in Monaco, because I guess it's one of the few street circuits in the world. So we specifically took the car there rather than doing a train or anything from Nice. Unfortunately, though, it appears as though part of the circuit was off-limits to normal traffic, possibly because some streets were closed off for an upcoming yacht show. So he was kind of disappointed. But there was just tons of traffic in Monaco -- it would have taken hours to get around the two mile circuit.
So anyways, we woke up at the Formule 1 hotel on the morning of the 17th, and continued on our adventures. The plan was to take a scenic route up to Orpierre during the day today, arriving back at the Orpierre campsite in the evening. So, during the day, we would go first to the Camargues, and then to the Pont du Gard.
The Camargues are known for having wetland wildlife, including things like wild horses wandering around through the marshes, which I did see some of (but got no pictures of). However, the thing that they're most well-known for and that I really wanted to see was flamingos. So we drove into the preserve along tiny roads with a 70mph speed limit.
Interestingly, everywhere we stopped in the Camargues seemed to have English tourists. The cars all had steering wheels on the righthand side. I didn't see any American tourists there at all (although there were tons at the Pont du Gard later on), so I've decided that the Camargues, for whatever reason, only attract Brits.
It took us a little while to find the main lake, but when we did, the flamingo situation was disappointing. I had been hoping that there would be flamingos running all around and that they would come up to me and let me pet them. Apparently, they had all pretty much migrated a few weeks before to Spain and North Africa. I was a little chilly, too, and made some comments about what we should be doing too. Nick put the long lens on his camera and set about trying to take some pictures of lumps way out on the lake that we're pretty sure were the leftover flamingos.
If you look at the high-res versions of these you might be able to see a few of the flamingo-lumps:
On the bright side, though, while we were eating our lunch a flamingo actually did fly directly over our heads. I think it was trying to catch up to all its buddies in Spain. That was pretty cool (very long legs and neck) but we didn't have the camera. So that was really quite exciting. Oh, also, I did see a lizard on the tourist info building there.
So, after lunch, we continued on in our generally Northeasterly direction towards the Pont du Gard.
So the Pont is an old Roman aqueduct built about 2000 years ago. It's still standing quite happily though. It has three levels, but unfortunately only the bottom tier was open for walking across today. During the summer, though, they open up parts of the other tiers, too.
Looking across the top tier:
Also, note that I dressed like a flamingo for the day. Definitely on purpose. Nick was, shall we say, well chuffed when that twigged.
Notice the back of the five Euro note:
So we left the Pont around 5 or so in the afternoon to do the last 3 hours-or-so of driving up to Orpierre. It was pretty, but a little nerve-wracking because this time we approached Orpierre from the west, meaning that there was more mountain-driving to do.
When we rolled into the Orpierre campsite it was about 8pm, so Nick and I anticipated that the campground office might be closed. I wrote a wonderful note in perfect French (by this point I was feeling quite fluent) explaining that we got there too late, identifying where we were camping and what our tent looked like, and that we would come up and pay first thing in the morning. Unfortunately, while I was posting my brilliant note, the woman in charge of the office came up from the campground snackbar which was nearby, and so I got flustered and explained the whole thing (including the note) to her in English -- which I knew she spoke perfectly well anyway. So the plan was just to pay in the morning. Also, apparently everyone found the note funny -- the next morning, when Nick did go up to pay, a different person was working in the office and when Nick did the whole thing in English (doesn't know a word of French) they both found the note quite amusing, according to Nick. (I think the gist of it was that I over-explained our situation in the note.)
So on the night we arrived, we cooked a fairly quick dinner, set up the tent in the dark (I got to do the poles) and went to bed. It was definitely chilly, but not completely miserable like it was when we arrived in Orpierre the first time around, which boded well.
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