With perfect blue sky again, after breakfast on the terrace, our friends took us out across the Petite Camargue to visit the Parc Ornithologique, close to the Etang de Gines. They'd told us that we would see plenty of flamingos and various other birds and maybe coypu if we were lucky. We walked along the first path in the park to the first stretch of water - and there were several coypu right in front of us!
We had arrived too late to see the flamingos flying in for feeding time - they were all busy with their heads in the water, but some of the food was still on the surface. The coypu were swimming around using their little 'hands' scooping up the food - fascinating watching their white whiskers twitching as they ate.
The flamingos, of course, were beautiful - especially when they took off, but I didn't manage to get a photo of one in flight.
We saw so many other birds on our walk around the park too, but we didn't do the whole area because of the increasing heat.
Our next stop was to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer - well for quite a while we wondered if we were going to be able to stop at all. It seemed that tout le monde had already taken up all the 3,500 parking spaces! But eventually we found a space along the road that ran behind the start of the extensive beach and we walked back into the town - just in time for lunch. There are countless restaurants but we headed for one that Tessa and Keith know well and we all enjoyed something fishy.
We had a good look around the shops too, and we are bringing home a provencal water jug and a tablecloth.
After a quick paddle in the sea, we returned via a 'surprise' - a 2-minute ride on a small car ferry over the Petit Rhone at Bac due Sauvage. Our friends have shared this ferry with 10 horses in the past, but today we were on our own.
This evening, we walked along the beach at le Grau and into the very busy town - quite a good 'exercise' day as we totalled over 22,000 steps
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