Mototour 2007 - day 5

---

MOTOTOUR 2007

Day 5: Orleans to Dune du Pilat
Distance: 513 km (of 8,667 km total)

It was good to get a good night's sleep in a decent bed, especially for Zak who would be driving. The only thing missing was a good breakfast. Some dolt at Formule 1 had forgot to buy milk, and Zak who isn't into sweet breakfasts couldn't have any decent cereal or coffee.

We left Orléans for the Bordeaux region, deciding once again to see how far we'd get today. By the afternoon, we thought it a good idea to stop somewhere on the Atlantic coast, on the way to Basque country in Spain. Marion noticed that the Dune du Pilat (Dunes of Pyla) was close by, just south of Arcachon, and we decided to stop there. We followed signs to a camping spot right by the dunes - Camping de la Forêt in Pyla sur Mer.

The view was amazing! A gigantic wall of sand 105 m. (345 ft.) high, measuring 2,700 by 500 m (60 million cubic meters) leans inward from the sea, inching its way inland at the rate of 2-3 m a year - the highest natural dune in Europe. A pine forest once at the edge of the sea is being slowly swallowed and suffocated, engulfed by this giant shifting and expanding mound. Even the camp grounds are not spared - literally losing ground to it every year. But the dune is part of the attraction, reason why the camp grounds are popular.

So what's the big deal about a pile of sand? It's a lot more fun than you'd imagine. Its strange polenta-like grain-sized consistency makes for some strange properties: It's firm enough so you can climb to the top of it, but thin and soft enough so your body weight makes you sink to somewhere between ankle and knee level but no further. This automatic rooting of your feet in the sand anchors you safely, allowing you to find balance in an otherwise scary 45-degree slope going more than 100 m. up, way above tree level. Once you get over the drowning-in-the-sand fear, and figure out that how your body will interact with it, you are so liberated you'll find yourself doing cartwheels. You're never out of control: at any time, you can easily stop yourself from rolling downhill. Apart from swallowing sand or getting some in your eyes, you'll probably never come to another place on earth where you can do the stunts you've always wanted to do.

After erecting the tent, we took the short walk to the dune. There was a ladder on its side leading to the top but we only managed to climb it half way, as Zak was suffering from vertigo. Marion stayed with him out of loyalty and pity, resisting the urge to abandon him for higher ground.

Zak usually gets landsick (like when you been on a rocking boat for days and feel the ground moving when you finally get on land again) after a day of riding, because he often has to use his full body weight to steer our cruiser against 130 kph winds (the speed limit in France). He says it's a bit like windsurfing, trying to make curves at those speeds against crosswinds, or whatever winds, while balancing about 480 kg of total weight on 2 wheels.

After hanging out a bit and jealously watching the antics of others frolicking uninhibitedly in the sand, we went back down, running down the slope. We had sand everywhere in our clothes, and thankfully, nothing in our camera and cell phones. Sand, which has ways of finding it way into inner crevices of your devices, is a sure killer of electronic equipment.

Zak cooked for us that night, some good ol' camping food: pasta and tuna. We figured we could climb the dunes early the next morning before leaving.

---

Photos

Dune du Pilat
Largest sand dune in Europe

ladder to the top
stairway to heaven?