If you ever feel like you haven’t had enough adventure in your life, and your thoughts turn to that trip down the Amazon that you wish you’d done in your twenties, it could still be within your grasp, and a lot nearer than you think.
Lac de Leon, a fairly unimpressive lake, in the Landes department of Nouvelle Aquitaine, France, feeds one of the marvels of France, a small but much more impressive river called the Courant d’Huchet.
Joining Lac de Leon to the Atlantic and around 9km in length, this really is your opportunity to experience that Amazon adventure, without the poison darts and the very poisonous ‘Machaco Parrot’ snakes.
The Courant d’Huchet river is the Disney version of the Amazon: sun filtered through the overhanging trees, Orchids & Hibiscus everywhere you look and a river boatman like an intellectual Crocodile Dundee; ours spoke English and was on a sabbatical from Montpelier University. Sitting perched on the sharp end of a very unsteady boat, his deep knowledge of the fauna and flora did nothing to deter him from some pretty deft moves to avoid calamity; the river is littered with roots that look remarkably like the Machaco Parrots mentioned earlier.
Departing, in true French style, from a shed in a car park near Moliets (I’ll put a Google map link at the bottom), boats leave at 10.00 am and 14.30 pm. When we were there at Easter 2023, there were about ten boats, called ‘Galups’, available for each trip down the river; you can do a 2, 3 or 4-hour trip. The boats are owner-operated, and the guy in the shed allocates boat spaces; they sit either 8 or 10 people, on a first-come, first-served basis.
We were lucky enough to travel with Michael, an English guy who had been living in the Landes for 10 years and was studying at Montpellier University. He had rented the boat from the owner, as he’d done a number of times before and explained that you have to take an official tour guide test and put in a specific number of hours to operate a boat on the river.
Departing from one of the single plank, hand made jetties (I think the boatmen do everything themselves whilst the guy that takes the money in the shed, just takes the money) the trip down the river is spectacular with overhanging trees, wonderful flowers and boatmen calling out to each other in what seemed to be a special ‘boatmen’s secret language’ and seeing quite a lot of the 43 different types of ‘Libellules’ (dragonflies). What’s also surprising is that there were no biting insects. I travelled out and back in the boat, a total of 24 km, in a t-shirt, and didn’t get one single bite. If there’s a bite to be had, I’ll get it; my mother always used to say I had ‘sweet blood’.
At the end of your Amazon experience, you break out into an open area with marshes on the left and typical Atlantic coast dunes (typically between 50 and 100 metres high and stretching, in the case of the Dune du Pilat, 2.7km long and 500 metres deep) on your right. You don’t get to see the ocean; I suspect that adverse currents and the style of the boats, flat-bottomed punts powered by a single oar, wouldn’t be safe in the sea, but what you do get is great crowds of sea birds, including Oyster catchers, several types of Tern, and we saw a few Spoonbills, which was very exciting.
This open area was also a little bit like a railway terminal with about twenty boats jostling for position, trying to gain an advantage for the trip back. We scraped sides with a couple of sinister-looking boatmen as we headed back up the river.
A wonderful afternoon journey on a spring day in one of those rare times when people and nature seem at one with each other.
I highly recommend this trip for people of any age. We went with some young children and some older people. The boatmen were super helpful and courteous, and couldn’t do enough to help us. At an average price per trip of €20 (you’d pay that for parking in the UK), it’s also tremendous value for money.
Courant d’Huchet trip data
Google Maps link to the departure point:
- Chalet de Pichelèbe, departmental road 328, 40660 Moliets et Mâa
The information below is directly from the website at http://bateliers-courant-huchet.fr/tarifs.php
The “little stroll”:
Departure from the pier at the “Pichelèbe” bridge, climb through the gallery forest to the river arm called
“La Hountine”, then descend to the “Marais de la Pipe” to finish along the dune.
Return to the pier after about 1h30 to 2h00 of discovery on our 8 kilometer route. Our great classic, which gives a very complete overview of the site with its ideal format for children!
The “great walk” (ONLY AFTERNOONS IN JULY AND AUGUST):
Departure from the pier at the “Pichelèbe” bridge, climb through the gallery forest to the steep tuc of
“Pas du Loup”, then descend to the “Marais de la Pipe” to finish along the dune.
Return to the pier after about 2h30 to 3h00 of discovery on our 12-kilometer route.
Explore the entire navigable area of the Courant d’Huchet, between forest and ocean!
APRIL, MAY, JUNE, SEPTEMBER:
departures at 10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.: “ the little stroll ”
JULY and AUGUST:
departure at 10 a.m.: “ the little stroll ”
departure at 2:30 p.m.: “ the big walk ”
Image credit: all images copyright author/ Nick Garnett
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