Helen and Geoff's Amazing Adventures

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I am a Luberon hill-village

I am a Luberon hill-village

by | Feb 22, 2013 | France, Road trips

I am a Luberon hill-village

Villages in Provence were often built nestled into the hillsides or on top of hills.  Houses were built around the château, and crops and vineyards were planted alongside or in the plains.  Time-worn stone, shady squares, fountains flowing with clear water, and seemingly eternal sunshine come together in these lovely hilltop villages which have fashioned the landscapes in Vaucluse.

Gordes - Luberon Hilltop Village

Gordes – Luberon Hilltop Village

There are villages which cover the entire hilltop, winding like snail shells around the castle or church.  There are villages which lie along a single slope, streets built into the hillside on a parallel. And others which have grown up on the highlands like Gordes village, spread across the rocky outcrop which was clearly conducive to settlement and expansion.  The cool, narrow streets, the shady squares and graceful fountains all beckon visitors to relax and drink in the beauty, discover the talents at work in these villages, and sense the history and activity that have shaped both the architecture and the people.

Gordes.
Gordes is a spectacular village with winding cobblestone streets perched on the side of the Vaucluse mountains across from the Luberon mountain range.  It is ranked as one of the ‘Most Beautiful Villages in France’.

Roussillon
The village of Roussillon is the second most visited village in the Luberon, after Gordes.  Roussillon has been ranked one of the “Most beautiful villages in France”.  Roussillon is noted for its large ochre deposits found in the clay surrounding the village.  During the 18th century the demand rose for pigments to be used in the textile industry and mining of ochres in Roussillon intensified.  Numerous quarries and ochre factories, some of which can still be seen today, were situated near the village.  One example of an ochre factory, the ‘Usine Mathieu’, is named for the family that owned it from 1870 to 1901.  It has been formed into a ‘Conservatoire’: a workshop serving as a museum.  The large quarries of Roussillon were mined from the end of the eighteenth century until 1930.  Thousands of people found work in the quarries and factories. Nowadays the mining of ochre is prohibited here, in order to protect the sites from degradation or even complete destruction.

Shield Shrimp

When it rains across Australia’s vast inland region, temporary pools crop up all over the arid ground, giving life to a strange desert crustacean known as the shield shrimp (Triops australiensis).

Named after the formidable carapace that shields its head and upper body, T. australiensis can grow up to 7.6 cm long, and it uses its long, segmented tail and mass of 60 or so legs to propel itself through shallow water.

It also breathes through these legs – its sub-class Branchiopoda means ‘gill-legged’ – and in the females these legs bear ovisacs for carrying their tiny eggs.

Several pix in the Photo Gallery and a movie.

Acacia peuce

A rare and endangered plant. The tree grows up to 15 to 18 metres (49 to 59 ft) high, with short horizontal branches and pendulous branchlets covered in needle-like phyllodes adapted for the arid dry climate. It has a distinctive habit more similar to a sheoak or a conifer.

Although speculated to have been widespread across central Australia during wetter climates 400,000 years ago, the population is now mostly restricted to three sites, separated by the encroaching Simpson Desert. In the Northern Territory, the species is restricted to the Mac Clark (Acacia peuce) Conservation Reserve which is surrounded by a pastoral lease, Andado Station. The other two sites are near Boulia and Birdsville in Queensland. The tree is found in open arid plains that usually receive less than 150 millimetres (5.9 in) of rain per annum. They grow on shallow sand aprons overlaying gibber or clay slopes and plains and between longitudinal dunes or on alluvial flats between ephemeral watercourses.

 

Owen Springs Reserve on Hugh River

Owen Springs was a station on the Hugh River. The Hugh River flows into the Finke (when it actually flows). Both cut through the Western MacDonnell Ranges. The image above shows Owen Springs Reserve as a dot at lower right. The river it is next to is the Hugh. Hermannsburg, our next town, is near middle left edge. Hermannsburg is almost on the Finke River. You can see both Hugh and Finke Rivers cutting through sections of MacDonnell Ranges.

Palm Valley

Palm Valley is within the Finke Gorge National Park southwest of Alice Springs. Palm Valley has a smallish population of Red Cabbage Palms (Livistona mariae). The nearest related species is 850 kilometres away in Katherine NT. The average rainfall for Palm Valley is just 200 mm per year. Small pockets of semi-permanent spring-fed pools allow the unique flora and fauna (desert fish, shield shrimps tadpoles and frogs) to survive.

It had been assumed that the cabbage palms were remnants of a prehistoric time when the climate supported tropical rainforest in what is now the arid inland of Australia. Genetic analysis published in 2012 determined that Livistona mariae at Palm Valley is actually the same species as Livistona rigida from samples collected near Katherine and Mount Isa, both around 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) away. It is now thought that aboriginal people brought the palms to here from Mataranka.

Mound Springs

Mound Springs occur around the Western edge of the Great Artesian Basin and represent a natural discharge of Artesian water that was captured many hundreds of kilometers away from rain falling along the Great Dividing Range and New Guinea. This article provides details. Dalhousie is an excellent example of a mound spring.

Great Artesian Basin map Great Artesian Basin diagram