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Friday, 30th May. Uncharacteristically, I got up earlier than I needed, and went for a short walk round Cocurès village before breakfast. (It was so small, the walk could only have been short.)

Our hotel from the side, La Lozèrette

A parent Black redstart was feeding its youngster, but flew off before I caught get both on camera.

The day before, we had stopped at a point on the road where it might have been possible to see some Przewalski’s horses. There is a project on the Causse Méjean which breeds these wild creatures, which went extinct in the late 1960s, and then releases them in their native Mongolia. Apparently the conditions on the causses, apart from the absence of extreme cold in the winter, are near identical to those of the Mongolian steppes.

We tried again this morning, and, outside the range of the naked eye, but with binoculars, we saw one family group, about, someone suggested, some two kilometres away. I took this uncropped photo with my camera on maximum zoom.

Severely cropped, another photo gives this. As someone said, you can just about tell that they are horses! Never mind, we saw them!

Jean-Pierre then drove us to the spectacular underground cavern that is Aven Armand. I had been there before, in the early 1990s, but had no recollection of it at all – except that my companion then had tripped spectacularly in the car park, and fallen flat on his face! The presentation we saw this time made full use of digital resources that would not have been available 30-odd years ago.

I just managed to snatch this diagram of the cavern as we went to the lift.

We may not have been for an actual walk this day, but there were hundreds of steps to be descended after the lift and then of course remounted, though the guide made strategic stops. His talk was excellent, giving the story of the discovery by one Louis Armand, the exploitation of the site and, explanations of how the various stalactites and stalagmites were formed. The space was vast. There is even a concert platform at one point – the acoustic must be awazing. Fortunately the public is kept well away from the rocks so they cannot be damaged by human hand.

My photos here can do no justice to the place, but the video in this link makes a good start.

Curiously, but perhaps for the same reason as occurred with the Aurora Borealis a few weeks ago, my camera has revealed in these photos colours that I did not see with my eyes (though some were indeed projected artificially).

After a welcome coffee in the Spéleo Café, we set off for our next attraction, the Maison des Vautours, where we could see and find out more about the four species of vultures visible in France. And no, they were not in cages, as one friend feared when I mentioned our visit, but flying free, in their dozens.

Reception

I took this short video extract of their video.

Once through the very informative exhibition, we had the choice of two viewing platforms.

This was the upper, where we ate our lunch.

The telescopes were mainly trained on one particular cliff.

So much easier to see when the sun shone…

… specially when you have one vulture obligingly coming in to land, neck fully outstretched.

Our final scheduled visit for the day was to La Malène, for a boat ride down a small section of the Gorges du Tarn.

Would this hotel count as troglodytic?!

We had some time to kill, so walked on the bridge for a few minutes.

The eight of us were split into two barques, one with a poler who spoke English and one who didn’t.

Grey heron

Apart from the gorge itself, plenty of evidence of water working on the limestone over millennia.

Our poler told us that this was an ‘aigle royal’, a golden eagle. As Richard in front would have said, had he said it in French, ‘mon oeil’. It was a griffon vulture.

These fishers were as pleased as fishers anywhere are at being disturbed, and the look on the face of the nearest one told us so. I refrain from publishing his portrait!

It was fun to watch our barque being craned out of the water to be driven upriver to La Malène again.

There was one final unscheduled stop. Jean-Pierre took us to a vantage point to look at the ruins (?) of a château along the river, of which, says this notice board, there are 19 along the 53 kilometres of the Gorges du Tarn. (Click on image to enlarge it to read the detail.) There were too many people there for me to get a decent picture of Castelbouc on the other side of the Tarn.

Tomorrow: my heart races – and not for a good reason.