Camargue Safari

"We booked the late afternoon Camargue safari tour and the light did most of the work, turning the sansouïre copper and bringing a band of white horses down to the water maybe thirty metres from the jeep. Our guide cut the engine so we could hear the wind moving through the reeds. Tie your hair back, the mistral did not let up once."

"The Camargue safari put us alongside thousands of flamingos stacked in the shallows of Étang de Vaccarès, and the sound they make is closer to geese than anything I had imagined. Our driver knew exactly which pans they favour after a dry spell. I wore sandals and regretted it the moment we stepped onto the crusted salt."

"The 4x4 route crossed rice paddies, salt pans and open marsh in under three hours, which covers a lot of the Rhône delta. Wind and salt on your skin the whole way, and the bench seats bounce more than the photos suggest. Carry water in a bottle you can wedge under the rail."

"Of the Camargue safari tours leaving Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, ours went furthest onto private manade land, where we watched gardians move black bulls across a flooded field as the light went. The guide talked about the salt harvest and the birdlife without turning it into a lecture. Long trousers helped once the mosquitoes woke up."

"We collected our Camargue safari tickets the same morning and joined the evening group, which suited the heat far better than the middle of the day. The guide comes from a family of gardians and explained that the horses are born dark and only turn white by about four years old. Vaccarès at that hour is silver and completely flat."

"The delta looks nothing like the postcards up close, just flat salt ground with tamarisk breaking the horizon and egrets standing motionless in the rice fields. Our small group stopped three times and the driver was patient with the photographers among us. I came for the horses and left far more interested in the birds."

"The mosquitoes near the marsh were serious around sunset, so bring something over your ankles. That aside, we saw a working landscape rather than a manicured park, with herds, salt pans and a gardian saddling a horse for us at a farmhouse. The track is rough in places and the vehicle is open, which is half the point."

"A safari en Camargue in the quieter months means fewer vehicles on the tracks and the flamingos more or less have the lagoon to themselves. We watched a herd of white horses cross a channel in single file, water up to their bellies. Cold hands, clear light, nobody else in sight."

"Fine scenery and a driver who clearly knew the birds, though the pace felt rushed and two of the stops lasted barely five minutes. We did see bulls and flamingos, and the pink pans near Salin de Giraud would justify the drive on their own. I would ask about the longer route next time."