Europe's Highest.......Sand Dune!

Les Landes is that sandy sweep of land between Bordeaux in the West and Biarritz in the South-West of France. It is a land of pine forests, sand dunes and lakes and is criss-crossed with cycle lanes and dead straight, empty roads. The air is heavy with the smell of pine, the pine cones are huge (I have half an eye on the tree branches above me when walking and try and avoid the branches with lots of cones. They would hurt from that height!) and my tent is sticky with pine sap. At one point I thought I could hear electricity crackling overhead, but it turns out to be the sound of the cones opening in the strong sunlight. The weather has turned at last and it is 25C here today, with 37C forecast for later in the week (in fact it reaches 39C according to the car temperature indicator) and I can feel my head burning even through the bandanna. The forest stretches for over 100 miles and the beach on the Atlantic coast is 70 miles long. I stay at St Eulalie en Born, on the side of a lake, in a Camping Municipal site which is cheap and has fantastic facilities. Each day I travel lazily along the coast, towards Mimizan, or North towards Biscarrose and Arcachon, stopping randomly at quiet beaches along the way although the most impressive spot has to be the Grande Dune de Pilat.

The dunes here are the highest in Europe, over 100 metres high, with pine forest on one side and the Atlantic on the other. It’s a calf-wrenching upward climb at a 45-degree angle, where each step of about a foot in distance means your foot sinks into the sand and travels backwards to about 3 inches from where you started. It’s really hard going, like walking in quick sand. It is impossible to climb with footwear, as they simply fill full of sand, making the going even harder, so it has to be done in bare feet. When I stop for breath, often, resting my walking shoes on the sand in front of me, they slide past and behind me on the shifting sand. Eventually I get to the summit and the views are spectacular. I sit and catch my breath, watching the para-gliders struggling to get their craft under control in the wind, or, when they do manage to gather their craft and catch the wind, gliding effortlessly over the sand and then ocean in the clear blue skies. Just an amazing sight and it’s rare, I think, to be able to watch para-gliders flying below you rather than above! It is certainly very beautiful here. The descent from the dunes is fantastic though and what took around 20 minutes to climb takes about 25 seconds to descend, in great running leaps and bounds as though on a gigantic, sloping trampoline. Brilliant fun!

St Eulalie en Bord

Les Landes landscape

Plage La Salie Du Nord

Grande Dune De Pilat

The Summit

Mimizan Plage

Vieux Boucau des Bains

Perfect!