pointe-aux-chenes wildlife refuge

Do you want to see Cajun Louisiana as it still exists today? Program your smart phone for Pointe-Aux-Chenes Wildlife Refuge and drive all the way to the very end of driveable Louisiana. One of the local residents in this isolated area told us there are even more isolated settlements on some low lying areas only accessible by boat, but we were happy just having driven to the end of the road. When you start this drive, you are driving by charming houses along a bayou/canal, and at some point you find that it has turned into Gulf waters on both sides of the tiny little spit you are on, and the houses are built high on stilts. Take a side drive into Point-Aux-Chiens tribal area, where subsistence fishing, oystering, shrimping and hunting are still major occupations, then back to 665 to drive all the way to the little pier at the end of the road where you can watch eagles soaring, egrets hunting, mullet jumping, porpoises frolicking and some small marsh ponies cropping across the bayou. If you can get there around sunset (have your insect repellant handy), the light is gorgeous and all this activity is happening at once. It is a feast for the eyes and for the senses, one of the most beautiful places on earth.