The Marguerittes Springs Trail

The hike starts at the car park located north of the Château Praden eco-urban park.

Yellow markings

(S/E) When leaving the car park, turn left (north) towards a hypermarket. At the T-junction, turn left towards a pony club. After about 150 m, turn left onto the tarmac path. Pass the Agarne spring on your right (information board). Walk along the left-hand side of a football stadium and you will reach the Camau Fountain (information board).

(1) Turn left onto the path and go around another football stadium on the right. At a fork, keep left. At the next intersection, turn right and take the footbridge over the Bartadet.

(2) At the end of the footbridge, turn right and walk along the river on your right. Ignore a path on the left, then take a sharp left turn along the path until you reach the crossroads.

(3) Turn right and take the south exit of the park. Continue to the road.

(4) Turn right immediately onto the road. Ignore a street on the left and cross the Bartadet again. At the crossroads just after, turn left. Go straight ahead, cross a railway line at the level crossing and you will immediately come to a fork.

(5) Follow the road on the left. After a right-hand bend, turn left to pass under the D135. On the other side, turn left again. Then turn right and follow the railway line on your left. After about 500 metres, turn right with the road. Note a brown tube in a field on the left-hand side; this is a piezometer. You will soon come to an intersection.

::6 Continue straight on Chemin de Moulès and you will soon arrive at Noria de Moulès.

(7) Then turn around and go back to the previous intersection.

(6) Turn right and continue to a crossroads.

(8) Cross the road and continue straight ahead. At Mas Menan, carefully cross Chemin des Canaux and continue straight ahead until you reach the confluence of two rivers, the Canabou and the Vistre (bridge).

(9) Continue straight ahead on the road, then turn right with it. You will come to a discreet intersection after a concrete wall (look out for the yellow arrow).

(10) Turn left onto a dirt track alongside a field. Go through a pleasant "green tunnel" and you will arrive near the Fontaine de Couloures fountain. Continue straight ahead. Walk alongside the greenhouses on your left and you will come to a crossroads.

(11) Take the^first right, at an acute angle. At the triangular crossroads that immediately follows, take the left branch until the road bends to the right.

(12) Continue straight ahead on a dirt track. At a fork, keep left. Join a tarmac road (elevation 51) and follow it to the left for about 200 metres.

(13) Take a small tarmac road on the left. Walk alongside cultivated fields. Cross the charming hamlet of Mas de Brignon and return to the crossroads you took earlier (greenhouses).

(11) Take the road on the right. Just after the small bridge over the Vieux Vistre, turn left onto a cement road. Stay on this road until you reach the small bridge over the Canabou.

(14) Do not cross the bridge. Turn left and follow the river, whose banks have been "re-meandered" at this point. Cross the river, go through a gate and immediately turn left. You will soon come to an intersection you saw on the way there.

(9) Turn right and follow the road straight ahead, which you took in the other direction. Cross Chemin des Canaux again and you will come to a crossroads.

(8) Then turn right onto Chemin de Trottevieille. After a right-hand bend, follow the railway line. You will come to another road. Cross the railway line by taking either the level crossing on the left or the underpass a little further on. Enter Marguerittes via Avenue de Camargue.

(15) Take the^first left, then the^first right. At the end, make the first turn left then right onto Rue de l'Occitanie. At the T-junction, turn right onto Rue des Rachalans, then left onto Rue de l'Abrivado. At the end of the tarmac road, cross a small park.

(16) At the crossroads, turn right under the plane trees to find a wash house.
The wash house was powered by two windmills that pumped up the water. Right next to it, seven small windows bear witness to the presence of communal showers, which were used until the 1970s. (information panel). Go around the bullring in an anti-clockwise direction to pass the small park again.

(16) Continue right onto Rue Biou lou Rami. Further on, turn right with the street and continue straight ahead. At the end of the tarmac road, take a pedestrian path hidden between the gardens on the left, and follow it to the end.

(17) Carefully cross Rue de la Pastorale to reach a small park opposite. Cross it diagonally and join Impasse des Lucioles. Follow it, and at the T-junction, turn left for 20 metres.

(18) Just before the railway line, turn right onto Rue de Moulès and walk along the railway line on your left. Continue along the road closed to cars, marked "Voie submersible" (flooded road). At the stop sign, turn left onto Rue du Scarabée. Take the tunnel under the D135 and turn right with the street. You will reach the Praden eco-urban park, which you passed on the way there.

(4) Enter the park opposite and walk for 50 metres.

(3) At the crossroads, which you also passed on the way there, follow the cobbled path to the right. Join another path coming from the left and continue straight ahead. Then veer off this other path by turning right. You will come to a footbridge.

(19) Cross it to cross the Bartadet again, then turn right. Continue along a tarmac road and you will find the car park where you started on your left (S/E).

The path is marked in yellow, but it is advisable to use the GPX track.
You can fill up with drinking water at the start (near the children's playground in the park). Please note that there are no other water sources along the route.
Be careful when crossing roads.
This hike is also very enjoyable by bike (mountain bike preferred).

You can download a sheet describing the various points of interest from the Marguerittes Town Hall website.

The Source de l'Agarne is part of the remains of a village near Marguerittes. It was recently restored by a Marguerittes association: the CHAM (Marguerittes History and Archaeology Club).

The Camau Fountain is located on what is probably a prehistoric resurgence and was converted into a wash house, which was previously equipped with a roof. It was abandoned in 1878 in favour of another wash house closer to the village of Marguerittes.

The piezometer provides information on the groundwater table: its quality and quantity. This information is essential for the inhabitants of Marguerittes who live on the plain.

(7) The Moulès waterwheel is a structure that was used to draw up groundwater for irrigation. One can imagine donkeys turning around the axle to bring up the buckets of water.

(9) The Canabou is the stream perpendicular to the bridge. It flows into the Vistre (a stream parallel to the road you are travelling on), which itself flows into the Rhône canal at Sète. The Vistre is therefore a river!

The Fontaine de Couloures fountain is built on a groundwater resurgence and served as a wash house for several years for a hamlet dating back to the Middle Ages.

The BRL (Bas Rhône Languedoc) meters look a bit like small fire hydrants. They are equipped with several outlets and allow farmers to connect to the water of the lower Rhône thanks to a complex underground network.

(13) The Font Divié is another spring that provided water for people and animals, as you are on the Salt Road! It is just an unbuilt water hole. Further on, the Font d'Arquières is located... somewhere (but where?).

The numerous cylindrical structures are also part of the BRL network. Here you can see pressure valves for the underground networks.

The banks of the Canabou, at this point, have been re-meandered (i.e. they have regained their natural zigzag course). This slows down the water in the event of flooding and promotes biodiversity.

This wash house is the most recent one. It was powered by two wind turbines that brought the water up. Right next to it, in the current arena, the seven small windows bear witness to the presence of communal showers, which were used until the 1970s.

Rainwater can be intense, and the network has been designed to drain it as efficiently as possible, but sometimes the road you take is flooded, often as a result of heavy rainfall in the Cévennes!