"To the South of France, where the Rhone is thrown in the sea,
 it is an almost desert country, called the Camargue, where still live wild herds of horses "
 - Crin Blanc of Rene Guillot 
  On the track of Gardians

The sun rises on the pond of Vacarès, nimbant of gold plain water of the lagoon. Hats, ponchos and boots, the riders progress slowly through the “sansouires” (marshes). Between the green tufts of the salicornes (ingredient essential to the manufacture of the household soap), the ground is cracked, and one sees that and there effleurer layers of salt. Of a tumble of reeds, on the wet banks, takes off an ashy héron which planes a long moment on the motionless étendeus. In the already hot air of the morning, the horses bran themselves - camarguais of pure souce, with their dress clear gray, their insane cinière and their broad shoes, perfectly adapted to the marshy grounds. In column, they skirt banks of Vacarrès, follow the dam of Five-George, go up to the ponds of Méjanes. Soon the horizon seems to disappear, drowned in this immense liquid landscape which formed, while mixing, water of the Rhone and the Mediterranean.
 
Savage, the Camargue?
During centuries, the man however deeply modified his landscapes, preventing the incursions of the sea and channeling the risings of the river. Here, the level of water permanently is controlled. Vaccarès is the centre piece of all the hydraulic system of the delta: this vast lagoon of 6.000 hectares, where water does not exceed 2 meters of depth, makes it possible from now on to irrigate “to measure” the rice plantations of the Camargue. But nature also took again its rights there. Thanks to the creation of the Regional Natural reserve of the Camargue, in 1972, thousands of birds come to nest on the small islands of the lagoon: foulques and plunger ducks, grèbes, will hérons…
 
To explore this territory with dubious banks, nothing is worth the excursion with horse. On kilometers of sentirs prohibited with the cars, sansouires, tamaris, falls (ponds with estival draining) and lagoons alternate. With their couchers of sosleil magic, when the ponds clarify reds in releasing pink flamingos. To horse and with a good guide, one can pass everywhere, including on the herds, these immense private properties devoted to the breeding of the bulls. It is enough to push the gates which delimit the fields. Thus, one approaches with more close to the life of the breedings camarguais. An old stone farmhouse directed full south, back with the mistral, a treillised vineyard where the vine is rolled up, of the stables to shelter the horses: in the north of Vaccarès, in the flat landscapes of the Small-Camargue, the herd of the Large-Huts is located by far.