#6: [12-Feb-23]

#5: [23-Dec-17]

#3: [21-Nov-10]

#2: [01-May-07]

#1: [03-Sep-01]

24-Jul-2014 -- Life is Good: Eating, Drinking, and Line Hunting

The 4^th leg of our grand tour of France took us to Notre-Dame-de-Monts on the Atlantic coast to spend a few days with the Vincent family in their charming county home.

Like our previous stops staying with friends, good eating and fine wine became a daily routine. What makes this place extra special is a little fishing harbor nearby – Port-des-Borches, also known as the China Harbour where we can feast on oysters to our heart’s content.

After a few good days of indulgence of wonderful country living, we managed to mobilize everybody for some outdoor fun including a hunt for this point about 20 km north. Luc who makes a living teaching geography was particularly keen on this endeavor.

We started the day by going to an interesting island – Île de Noirmoutier nearby for clam digging at the mud flats between the mainland and the island. The 5 km roadway leading to the island became flooded with incoming tide within an hour after we started digging. By the time we had our picnic lunch around noon at higher ground, the entire roadway was under one and half meters of water. Quite a phenomenon!

After the picnic, we took the round-about way to get off the island via a bridge, and started heading toward Bouin, the nearest town south of the confluence point. The GPS of the rental car brought us within 250 meters to the point, and we could tell it was located in the middle of a cow pasture.

As it turned out, the last couple hundred meters were a bit complicated. First we followed a road and cut into the field from the north after crawling under barbed wire fence, we were blocked by a canal with 150 meters left to go. After back tracking to where we parked, we approached from the west, and again a large pond kept us from reaching our objective. Finally, we made it from the south through the farm house, after Luc got the permission from the dairy farmer who owns the confluence field.

For the four members of the Vincent family, this was the first hunt and everybody enjoyed it. Clearly, Luc is the one who is ready for more hunts. After the hunt, we headed home for more good food and wine.

Rating of this hunt

Degree of Challenge:

2 – easy drive by following a navigation GPS but took 3 tries to reach the point (1= very easy - drive to the point; to 5= a death march – glad it is over)

Scenery:

2– costal farmland of France (Scale: 1= not interesting at all; 5= take your breath away)

Culture-social factors:

3 – A place people knows how to live! (Scale: 1=dull; 5= most stimulating)