Blogs from Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, United States, North America

FINALLY, A BOAT RIDE We decided to spend two nights here at Atchafalaya Landing, at Henderson, Louisiana, seeing as there were two double beds for us all to use. We are enclosing a short clip of today's highlight. Our skipper and guide is the local Crocodile Dundee, aka Alligator Tucker. He is the proprietor of Atchafalaya Landing, the cabins, and the small pub on site, Turtle Bar, and what an extraordinary character he is. His airboat swamp tour was absolutely fantastic. He's been feeding some of the alligators in the Atchafalaya basin bayou for many years, and they all come swimming when he is in the area and calls to them, sometimes in French, and splashes the surface of the water. Raw chicken also entices them of course. All of his "friends" are named, and while ... read more

Turtles, birds, and alligators oh my! So one of our bucket list things has been to ride on an air boat and now we can check that off the list. The gals in the office here at the RV park hooked us up with a guide, Captain Jude at Mequet Swamp Tours, who actually is a relative, that took us on a tour of the swamp here in Henderson. Where we are staying is surrounded by the Atchafalaya Basin which is the nation's largest swamp wilderness. It is nearly 595,000 acres containing nationally significant expanses of bottomland hardwoods, swamplands, bayous, and back-water lakes not to mention home to 200 species of birds, many of which we saw. We also saw turtles and of course alligators! The air boat had a HUGE Chevy engine on it so ... read more

BREAUX BRIDGE: We spent almost three days in the Bayou, staying about 15 minutes outside of the tiny town of Breaux Bridge. Breaux bridge is like something straight out of the 50's or 60's. Tiny. Humble. Quiet. One stop light- and only a blinking red light at that. There are a few restaurants right in town: a pizza joint, the "famous" Cafe Des Amis serving Southern specialties, a coffee shop, a french restaurant that was closed on a tuesday afternoon, and a burger place that looked like a diner. We, of course, chose Cafe Des Amis. Cafe Des Amis was empty- it was 3 pm on tuesday- although I could see it getting busy. It was a historical restaurant, with writing on the walls and an old brick bar. The food was amazing, traditional southern louisiana ... read more

7 people, 2 from Korea (1 who spoke no English - how he ended up in a Louisiana swamp outside of Breaux Bridge is anyones guess), and 1 Cajun, took off in our swamp mobile at 3:30, pushing off the side of the banks of the Cypress Island/Lake Martin Swamp. The boat is a dinged up but still sturdy looking crawfish skiff, which, according to the Cajun, can glide along in very shallow water, even mucky mud, without worry. MY biggest worry, in the first 1 or 2 minutes, was that here we were, in the swamp, and everyone in the boat wanted to see a ton of 'grandpapa' alligators, the really big ones. For me, it seems much scarier to see them in the boat, where your escape options are a)throw in the elderly lady ... read more

Poppytz and melanies adventure begins today. We plan some great times down where the alligators still swim free and the folks still speak their kind of french. We know you just cant wait, but stay tuned!... read more