Our Blog - Summer 2024 Trip - Baie d'Authie near Fort Mahon Beach, France

We headed out towards the coast one morning for a guided tour of the Bay of Authie, which I found on the website of the Tourist Office of Fort Mahon Plage (the nearest town). We thought it would be interesting and they allowed dogs, so we booked our places and off we went.

The Bay of Authie sits on the border between two French departments: Pas-de-Calais to the North and Somme to the South. It is also part of what is called the Opal Coast, which has a variety of landscapes, including beaches, dunes, marshes, estuaries, and cliffs. While it is called a Bay, it is, in fact, an Estuary (which our tour guide was quick to explain) and has a rich and diverse ecosystem with various birds, plants, and fish species.

The tour (thankfully) took place during low tide, so we could walk a lot further than if it was high tide. Here you can get an idea of the sand and low-scrubby vegetation.

These ducks are not actually ducks but decoys for hunting. All around the bay are "hunting hides", which are nestled low to the ground and covered in camouflage. The decoys attract the migrating birds for hunters. If you look closely at the 2nd picture, right in the middle (left-to-right) and just above the water line, you can see a dark rectangular-shaped box ... that is the hunting hide. You can tell how low it is, designed to look just like a little hill. It is dug out down into the ground so that just the head (and gun) is above ground level.

It was a bit late in the season for these this year, but the bay is normally quite "purple" in the early summer with the sea lavender covering the salt meadows. You are actually allowed to pick a small bunch for your individual use, but resale is not allowed. Despite its name, its NOT a lavender at all, so it doesn't smell like lavender.

Lucy found a great place to roll around in the longer grasses and try to catch the little insects underneath.

Then we got to the waters edge and you can see how low it is during low tide, with sand banks throughout the estuary. The other side of the Bay has a few more cliffs than the side we were walking on.