Dune du Pilat
Picture this: the Atlantic ocean to the west, an expansive forest to east, and smack dab in the middle is a mountain of sand. That's the Dune du Pilat.
Standing 106 meters tall It's the tallest sand dune in all of Europe.
It's also about a half a kilometer wide and close to 3km long, basically one massive, tall sandy beach.
You wouldn't think that something so big could move, but each year the dune pushes further inland at a rate of roughly 5 meters per year.
It's slowly overtaking the trees of the forest and any roads and buildings that happen to get in its way.
Just a few dozen meters from its base is a large campsite. Eventually it too will be buried in sand by the moving Dune.
Dune du Pilat is located in the southwestern part of France about a six and a half hour drive from Paris and an hour drive from the city of Bordeaux.
We traveled to Bordeaux about a month ago and decided to make a stop at the dune before heading to the city.
We got our heart rates pumping just walking up the massive pile of sand.
Do you know how hard it is to walk uphill in sand?
There are stairs to assist you normally, but only during the warmer months. They were already taken down by the time we got there in the late fall.
At the top of the mountain the dog looked up at us like:
"I hate this place. Why are we even here?"
His little legs weren't designed to walk in loose sand. But he is a dog and dogs need to walk, soooo:
"You're on your own buddy. I'm not carrying you up this mountain."
I had just driven through the better part of the night to get there and I was too tired to be lugging excess weight on my back and shoulders.
Activities to do on the dune include:
Sunbathing and paragliding in the summer, frisbee and ball sports, building sandcastles, and for the young and young at heart, running down the hill as fast as you can and/or jumping off the steep slope to see how far you make it.
We just walked it though.
We walked the top portion then headed down to the beach to get a little closer to the ocean.
There we saw a massive jellyfish by the water. It was about the size of a basketball. I couldn't tell if it was alive or dead though.
Walking on flat terrain in loose sand is challenging, but walking back up the dune was even more so given that we were already tired.
My wife taking a picture of me taking a picture again.
We had great weather that day. It seemed like one of the few times that the weather actually cooperated for us.
We were on the ocean and it was windy on the dune as you would expect, but it was sunny out so we weren't complaining at all.
Eventually had enough walking in the sand though and headed back to our car. It was time to go to the city of Bordeaux.