TRAVEL

'Cajun swamp tour' is everything it claims to be

Leigh Guidry
lguidry@gannett.com

Note: This story was originally published in November.

BREAUX BRIDGE — Get up close and personal with the swamps and bayous of Lake Martin and their many residents — from the baby gators to the big, grey herons — with a tour.

Champagne's Cajun Swamp Tours in Breaux Bridge delivers exactly what its name promises. It was quite a tour of the swamp and every bit Cajun. And that's coming from a Guidry from southwest Louisiana, so you can trust it.

Shane Eddy (standing in back) with Champagne's Cajun Swamp Tours leads a group through the swamps and bayous of Lake Martin on Saturday.

I joined a coworker and about 18 strangers Saturday in an extra-long aluminum boat. Most of them were on the tour for free as winners in The Daily Advertiser Insider program that allows subscribers to enter contests for cool prizes like this.

Together with our illustrious and very Cajun tour guide, Shane Eddy, we went into the crooks and crannies of Lake Martin's bayous and swamp. He gives three two-hour tours a day.

"This is like my backyard," he said. And he means it. The Henderson native is all about the water. "I crawfish; I shrimp — that's my life."

Champagne's Cajun Swamp Tours takes you by boat through the swamps and bayous of Lake Martin.

And it was beautiful. It was everything Louisiana is to me. There were the giant cypress trees — one that is 500 years old, gigantic and in such good health it is expected to live another 1,000. The light orange of some of their leaves coupled with the cooler temps Saturday morning made you think fall might have come to Louisiana, finally. (By the 11:30 a.m. tour that feeling was gone, but it was nice outside at 9:30 a.m.)

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Here are some things I learned from "Mr. Eddy" and some of my companions on our tour:

An egret sits atop a floating log in Lake Martin.


  • Are you a bird-watcher? Then you want to check out this swamp. As a protected bird conservatory, it's home to 205 species of birds and is one of the largest nesting areas of wading birds. Mr. Eddy said the birds will be "flying in" in about a month, so a tour from December to February is probably your best bet to see the many species. No boats are allowed in from Feb. 15 through July, which is nesting and laying time, so be sure to get in before then. You can book a private bird-watching boat tour, but birds probably won't be all you see. Mr. Eddy said the gators come out at the same time for what's like a "free buffet" when eggs or baby birds fall into the water.
     
  • There were no mosquitoes! How could that be in the stagnant waters of the swamps? The answer: black tupelo gum trees. Mr. Eddy said the leaves fall into the water and create an "antacid" or oil that repels the bugs. And with no flowing water entering the lake other than rainwater, there's no current to wash away the magic that blocks Louisiana's "state bird."
     
  • You can estimate how long an alligator is even if you can see only its head above water. (Sounds terrifying, right?) "From the nose to the eyes, every inch is one foot," Mr. Eddy said.
     
  • Anybody can build a duck blind in the middle of Lake Martin, and anyone can use them. Mr. Eddy says it's first-come, first-served. The big ones that boats can fit in are easy to spot in the middle of the lake, but he also pointed out the really old ones that are rusted old metal drums in trees. The hunter would climb into the drum and wait with a gun. It didn't look too comfortable.
     
  • "The only thing a Cajun won't eat" is an egret, according to one of our tour companions. We saw several of the white, majestic birds. Some were digging around for a snack, and others looked like they were posing for our cameras.
     
  • Black willow trees, which we saw among the cypress in Lake Martin, can be used to make pain medicine. Mr. Eddy explained that "in the old days, people boiled the bark" to make the medicine and that Bayer still uses it to make aspirin.

So it was more than just a gorgeous glimpse of south Louisiana. As my neighbor in the boat, Natalie Vied of Lafayette, described the tour, "It was quite an education and a beautiful day."

John Benz, 11, of Lafayette helps The Daily Advertiser out by wearing a Go Pro and filming his view of Saturday's swamp tour on Lake Martin.

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Where else should we visit? What's your favorite place in Louisiana? Let travel and tourism reporter Leigh Guidry know at lguidry@gannett.com or on Twitter at @LeighGGuidry.