Pilat owes its fame to having the highest sand dune (120 m) in Europe, and probably the most commercialised one too. From the tourist centre on the inland side it looks like a heap of bare sand, being too high to support vegetation such as maritime pines like all the other dunes did. The tourist centre ‑ in summer you have to pay for the car parks etc ‑ is closed and there are no information boards.
Other people are climbing the dune and we do likewise, partly to get warmed up. It is quite a steep climb on soft sand, but only from the top can the dune be properly appreciated. It is massive, being broader than it is high. From the top more dunes can be seen to the north and south; they are threatening to engulf the edge of the forest as their ancestors have engulfed the marshes previously.
From our vantage point we see red-breasted mergansers, guillemots, and three sorts of divers, all little more than dots on the ocean way below. There are some offshore sandbars well populated with roosting gulls and waders.
Around the tourist centre and in the pines we find a variety of small birds including a crested tit feeding on the ground. The scrub includes strawberry tree, a sign that we are in striking distance of Mediterranean winters.
We decide to push on to Spain, as there doesn't seem to be anything else to see in this part of France in winter that we won't see in Spain.
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