Louisiana Part 2

After leaving New Orleans we headed further south into Louisiana and followed the coast for a bit.  I found this part of the country really fascinating....calm waters,

 lovely holiday homes,

trailer homes on stilts,

 and prawn trawlers parked up in little waterways next to homes...

We stayed the night in a little town with the plan being to visit some plantation homes and hopefully getting on a fan boat tour of the swamps.  The first plantation home we pulled into was under construction, so we decided to leave on the "roundabout" road we thought we were supposed to be on.  We stopped to take some photos of some old buildings...

when a car came towards us, with headlights flashing...we waved and called out to come on through but she wound her window down and gave us a blast...said we were on private property and would have to pay for any photos we took!! So not sure what the above 2 photos would be worth! We thought we were on the land of the plantation which is open to the public, but apparently not!
Next stop was Oak Alley Plantation and Antebellum Mansion in Vacherie, Louisiana, on the Mississippi River, which was recommended to us by Robert in Alabama..wow, wow and wow!! It was built around 1837-39.  The oak trees were planted about 300 years ago and were absolutely magnificent. It was steamy, steamy hot and they offered some welcome relief.

We visited a reconstruction of the slaves quarters, which was very sobering

the whole place gave me mixed emotions.....

After a few hours wandering through the grounds

we made our way to Atchafalaya Basin Landing and Marina in Henderson, Louisiana where we had booked an airboat/fanboat tour of the swamplands. It was hot and steamy weather and as soon as I saw the boat I knew if was going to be good...

Our guide was a guy called Tucker, who had a great Louisianan drawl.... he asked us where we were from and were we familiar with Crocodile Dundee and the famous line from the movie...'that's not a knife". After we had been riding for a few minutes he stopped and said to us..."that's not a knife...This is a knife" and pulled out a HUGE knife from his pants....which he said was a Louisianan pocket knife! A great character!

The boat ride was bloody fantastic! We loved the scenery....it was another world and all you imagined it would be.
This is a duck hunting hut, which had a kitchen at the end.  Tucker would drive his boat into it and park up and then they would blow their duck whistles and wait for the ducks.  Truly another world for us, as we had watched Duck Dynasty and thought it wasn't real!  It is!! I asked him if they camped in the hut and he said the mozzies were too unbearable...so no.

 The cypress trees were my favourite..

and driving up between the two parallel bridges of the I 10 was amazing as we had been driving on it earlier and it was so chaotically busy...a 40 km bridge!!...so when we were underneath it, it was peaceful, serene...such a contrast!

 Fortunately Tucker got to sit next to Stuart, so Stu was able to offer advice on how to drive the boat....I think Tucker really appreciated it!!!

It was a fantastic afternoon..2 hrs in the boat....$38 each...money well spent!

Here is a link to a video of the boat tour...LOUISIANAN SWAMP TOUR...it was loud, fast, quiet, slow, scenic, relaxing, exhilarating....the best...and we were on a high leaving there on our way to Texas!!!

Mississippi and New Orleans, Lousisana...

After leaving Robert's place we made our way up to Jackson, Mississippi

to check out the capitol.  We arrived too late to visit that day, so instead spent the night in a dodgy hotel and the next morning we did a tour of the building.  Other than that, we didn't see much of Mississippi!

Next stop was Louisiana

where we had booked a couple of nights in New Orleans.  We drove across a 40km bridge to get to the city....so impressive

and found our hotel which was 2 blocks from all the "local attractions", so a great location.  The weather was pretty awful...lots of rain, but it didn't seem to stop anyone. We walked through the French Quarter checking out some of the lovely homes/apartments people live in.

made our way down to the Mississippi River...

before finding ourselves on Bourbon St.....

Bourbon St wasn't for me...during the day it wasn't so crowded, but come evening, the place was heaving with people,  there were people "inviting" you into their sleazy clubs, beads being dropped from balconies to women below in the hope they'd lift their shirts and show their boobs, loads of street drinking, drunks ...it didn't appeal to me, but was fascinating none the less.

Stu enjoyed some local food...

and some local beer...

and we did find a spot to listen to a bit of live jazz....which was great.

The next day was torrential rain

and we were wading through streets that were ankle deep in water, absolutely bucketing down, with little shelter...other than the local church!

In between showers, we did manage to get out and see some of the beautiful buildings....it is a really interesting city and once we were away from Bourbon St,

it's history shone through.

The night before we left we were walking around the streets and came across a wedding procession.  They had just left the church and we could hear the church bells ringing, and see police car lights flashing and could hear a jazz band.  So we raced towards it all in time to see the bride and groom being followed by the band and their guests, making their way down the street....dancing to the fabulous music.  they were on their way to the reception and the entire street stopped for them.  It was fantastic....the way to do a wedding!! Here is a link to a video of our time in New Orleans..NEW ORLEANS

The next day after we had checked out of our hotel we found a beautiful cemetery that we had passed on our way into the city.  It was such a peaceful place and we were able to drive around and see the very old, elaborate gravestones.

So we were really glad we spent a few days in New Orleans...there is really so much to see there and so much history. A fascinating place!