We drove the long way to the Carmargue today. The guide books are offputting as they describe gangs of thieves who target foreign cars. Once we had turned off the main road at Arles, the land immediately became flat with big skies. Almost immediately we came across the white horses that the area is famous for, grazing by the roadside.

Just short of Sts Maries we stopped at the ornithological park. Initially we took the wrong path and ended up walking alongside a dyke. There in the water we saw a creature that we thought was a beaver but turned out to be a coypu, swimming.

Once in the park there was another tame coypu by the entrance. The park is made up of several ponds, with herons, coots and flamingos mainly.

there were also large cages with owls, eagles and vultures. One cage had a solitary stork in it. He looked miserable. But then we spotted that a family of storks were nesting on top of his cage with three babies. That must have made him feel worse!

We drove on to Sts Maries where there were lots of Romany caravans parking up for the annual celebration where statues are carried down to the sea. The markets were selling lots of dresses in luminous colours.

On the way back we drove past some bulls grazing, and rice fields. We had a BBQ in the garden when we got back.