Today Ernest took us on a tour of the Atchafalaya Basin, a swamp in Louisiana which was 200 miles long by 25 miles wide making up almost 25% of the state of Louisiana.  Or at least that’s what I think he said!  We decided that we probably understood about 30%, guessed 30% and completely missed the rest of what he said.  Still he was a superb guide and to have him drive us around the swamp in the small boat was really excellent.

The swamp itself was actually beautiful and it was quite interesting to see how much it changes due to the different water levels.  This means that somewhere which was accessible one week isn’t the next and this is all due to the rainfall miles away feeding one of the three rivers into the swamp.

While the weather on the day we went was spectacular, unfortunately it was quite busy so a lot of the wildlife had been frightened off, and although we were assured that the waters were teeming with alligators we only caught brief glimpses of them before they disappeared.  I can sort of understand why, as we were one of the few unarmed vessels out on the Bayou that day.

All in all though a fantastic experience to cruise around the swamps of Louisiana and we definitely could have spent all day out there as the scenery was so great and so very different to anything I have seen before.  You certainly can see why so many people get lost in the swamps as it’s an absolute maze of rivers. T