Tour: Camargue

We remember with pleasure the Kamarg; the flat marshy lands of black bulls, pink flamingos and white horses.  The home of Count Brass in the stories of the most accessible of the incarnations of the Eternal Champion, Dorian Hawkmoon.  A heavy-metal country, in imagination and our memories.

So it was with some excitement that we drove down from the Pont to the Camargue - the equivalent of Count Brass's domain in our world.

Lying between the Grande Rhône and the Petit Rhône  south of Arles.  Low-lying and very flat; an internationally-recognised wetland, but also  a managed landscape of canals and pumping stations.

The plan below explains one feature of this land management - how fresh ('douce') water from the Rhône is pumped under the canal and roadway to irrigate the fields beyond.  We are back in the world of advanced hydroengineering.  More advanced than the Romans, perhaps, but smaller scale and perhaps less audacious.

Here is the pumping station:

The canals cut long, straight lines across the landscape.  Fringed by reeds and trees.

The whole land is only a few metres at most above see level.

We eventually saw some of the bulls, and Count Brass's horses.  But, sadly, no flamingos.

And then, finally, we stopped for a long look at the Étang de Vaccarès - one of several huge brine lagoons at the heart of the Camargue. Finally, marvellous.