CAMARGUE: HORSES FOR COURSES

RIPPLING ACROSS SOUTHERN FRANCE, THE MARSHLANDS OF THE CAMARGUE OFFER THE CHANCE TO FULFIL A DECADES-OLD DREAM OF A HORSEBACK ADVENTURE. WORDS: ISABEL EATON

The Camargue, at last: a long-awaited ride through France’s marshlands. Hooves sink deep into the mud and saltwater splashes our thighs, transforming grey-coated Camargue ponies into freckled Appaloosas. On reaching firmer ground, we break into a canter, sending startled flamingos and my happy heart soaring.

On a muggy morning in early May, I’m following in the hoofprints of a dream born 20 years earlier. As a pony-mad teenager, I was captivated by a documentary exploring the wild marshlands of the Camargue on horseback. Daydreams of saddlebags filled with fresh baguettes and sun-drenched gallops among exotic wildlife formed a seed of longing that took root on bleakly-brown hacks through wintry Fenlands.

Expectation further thickens the humid air, therefore, when Valérie and I finally set out from her stables on the edge of the Étang de l’Or two decades later. The wettest spring that locals can remember, where rain burst from swollen purple clouds in violent torrents seemingly intent on washing out the old landscape and starting afresh, has painted the countryside an exuberant green, and the air vibrates with the chattering of thousands of birds, frogs and insects.

Winding through the thicket that borders the reserve, ducking low to avoid branches shot with vivid spring growth, my eye is caught by the electric-blue flash of a European roller bird taking flight, the first glimpse of foreign fauna. The ponies, however, are focused on the jangling bells of nearby sheep and skitter nervously as we approach the clearing where they graze. Passing the summer months in a traditional wooden cabin among the marshes, without running water or electricity and far from the nearest village, Bernard, the grizzled shepherd we find guarding the animals, talks of nights that resound with the calls of bats, birds and mosquitoes and days that revolve around his flock.

Finally in company, he’s keen to chat but, impatient to explore, we canter on until firm ground finally gives way to salty marshland. Slowing to a walk, our ponies pick their way through the reeds to shallower waters. I breathe in the salted air and as a family of flamingos fly overhead, twig legs trailing, there’s no doubting that I’m in the Camargue at last. At the edge of the marsh, we trot past a field of umber-coated Camargue bulls, the ponies notably less perturbed by these fleet-footed beasts with their cruelly chiselled horns than by Bernard’s harmless flock.

Destined for the Course Camarguaise, the area’s bullfighting spectacle, the black bull is as much a symbol of the region as its white horses. READ THE FULL VERSION ONLINE AT

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