We may have been thwarted by fossils once this week but we won’t be thwarted twice. A short drive from Castellane holds the promise of an extraordinary display of sirenias fossils embedded into the mountainside.
It’s a beautiful hike up through the forest. Steep of course and warmer than average. Striking butterflies and bugs appear here and there.
We pass a couple hiking up with kids – what a great experience for them to see fossils in situ. I would have loved that experience as a child. And then would have plundered the library to read everything I could get my hands on. The library was always my happy place.
This area is geologically interesting. Just before we arrive at the fossil site we find an information board that explains that the upper half of the valley dates back some 35 million years, whilst the lower half dates back 150 million years, the “missing” period having been eroded over time. The region was created in the tectonic plate collision that created these and the Italian Alps. Oh for a bird’s eye view to those events.
We learn that sirenias were marine mammals that swam the earth some 35 million years ago when this area was underwater. An artistic representation shows them extraordinarly akin to modern day dugongs and manatees. I’m hard pressed to find a difference and indeed they are their mammal ancestors. I guess that’s nature’s application of the theory “if it ain’t broke…” It’s one thing to hear documentary film makers speak about how ancient dugongs are, but it’s another thing altogether to look at evolutionary proof that they really haven’t changed in millennia.
The site has been excavated and then preserved under glass. It reveals a series of skeletons incredibly well preserved – ribs, jaw bones, skulls, teeth all intact. Molars that wouldn’t look out of place in a modern marine herbivore. The fossils are an inexplicable red tone, a mystery that will no doubt be revealed with time. It’s here we see the artist’s impression of the Sirenias and realised how close they they appear to their modern counterparts, the gentle grazing “cows of the sea”. Not even that different in size it seems.
The walk back is easier, mostly downhill. We see the work of cheeky woodpeckers, heard often at their headache inducing task, but yet to be spotted in the act.
A military chopper decends on exercise as we leave, helmeted soldiers emerging from the forest towards it. Himself suggests that they’re taking a shortcut to lunch at the restaurant nearby.
The afternoon sees the start of our trek north. Summer has crept in, quite unnoticed. Having experienced its heat once too often, we’re heading for gentler climes before the heat bites.
The afternoon sees us pass another magnificent, seemingly endless mountain lake at St Julien du Verdon. We’re following a “green path” north, set out in our map as one of great natural beauty. It doesn’t disappoint as a happy afternoon passes surrounded by breaking scenery. An occasional tunnel keeps it interesting, especially when they’re poorly lit. It certainly wakes one to full attention, whiskers on full point.
We eventually settle at the lake’s far northern end, at the river’s outflow. I’d hoped to swim but access is tricky. Luckily the campsite has a pool. Himself can’t be coaxed in but the water’s delightful and I spend a happy hour or two porpoising about before drip drying well into the night.
Miss Baci Travels 