2005/03 Deep South trip - Atchafalya Swamp |
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We had a long drive south through Arkansas and Louisiana, and a brief journey into Texas when we missed a turn in Texarkana. By now it was over 70 degrees, warm and humid, and we were into bayou country, with herons and egrets in the fields and ditches. Our campsite was in the Atchafalaya wildlife refuge. “Hunter’s refuge” would be a better name, as their main concern is that you accurately report how many deer, squirrels, and fish you caught!
The campsite was free and nicely positioned on the edge of the bayou, but the shooting range was just across the road, with intermittent gun fire all day. Our neighbour to the right had at least four dogs wandering around, and the one to the left had three teenagers roaring around with swamp buggies and motorcycles. An interesting spot! After talking with the manager and the refuge ranger I’m starting to understand Louisianan but they still can’t understand me. Nobody except the French and the BBC actually say “Louisiana”. Everybody else pronounces it “WheezyAnna”.
The ranger was very interested in our camper. He was coming up to retirement (at 74!) and looking for 
a camper for one person. He also told us a story about his daughter. She has a house with a pond and had spent a lot of money to buy some special cypress trees that don’t grow “knees”. The knees are aerial roots that grow above water level and they can make a real mess of your pond. He’d cut off some knees from wild trees and attached then to pipes and mounted the knees in her pond. He said she’d called him and she was really mad about being sold the wrong kind of tree. He said he was going to let her stew over this until the water level dropped and she saw the mounting pipes. Then he thought he might have to get out of town in a hurry!
We were still looking for propane. On the way into the Atchafalaya, we’d actually spotted a propane tank in the town of Port Barre, but it was attached to a tyre repair depot and was closed for the weekend. Oh, by the way, just to make us feel like it’s spring, we have mosquitoes and ticks!
Sunday March 6th
The area looked really interesting so we decided to stay another day. I took an early morning run beside the Atchafalaya River, along the top of the levee. The levee is a massive earth dam along the river banks, intended to protect the surrounding area when the river floods. Occasionally, the Mississippi’s floods come down the Atchafalaya so the levees are important. There’s a dirt road along the top of the levee, but driving it is forbidden to the public, so we weren’t able to “take our Chevy to the levee” like in the song.
Instead, we drove the few tracks that go out into the swamp. We were looking for birds, but found yellow daisies, a massive bamboo tree, and lots of armadillos. Armadillos spend their lives in the forest’s undergrowth, digging up stuff. They don’t seem to see or hear very well, but when they finally 
spot you they take off like rabbits. So it’s easy to get rear shots, but hard to photograph the face. I found the best technique was to stand in the forest and wait for one to find me. It got to my toes, looked up, and took off like Bugs Bunny racing into THE END.
We’d noticed a few signs telling us we were entering St John Parish or St James Parish. Apparently, Louisiana has parishes rather than counties, a legacy of the original French government. The parishes, of course, relate to the Catholic churches, but there are plenty of southern Baptist churches now. Don’t know what they think about being in Catholic parishes. We took a quick trip up to Krotz Springs, looking for propane again, but the guy that knew how to dispense it wasn’t working on a Sunday.
Monday March 7th
Monday dawned sunny, but soon turned dark as rain clouds moved in from the west. We were totally out of propane, so we headed back up to Krotz Springs again and met “the guy”, who told us that he could only fill bottles, not motorhomes. Aargh! But he thought there was a place somewhere back in Port Barre that could do motorhomes. The tyre place? Yes! We were desperate so we took the 40 mile round trip and at last filled up and could make tea again.
We went back into the refuge to walk the “nature trail”. It didn’t have anything we hadn’t seen already, but it did have signs that named the trees, “water this” and “swamp that”. The picture shows a good example of cypress knees.