We seen us some gators

Meandering our way through Louisiana's Creole Nature Trail, we've certainly encountered the gators and birdlife this scenic drive promised.

We thought it was cool when we saw the first (single) alligator on the Wetland Walkway of the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge.

But the next day we saw the mother lode when about 20 showed themselves on the Pintail Drive section of the Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge.

Sunning themselves beside the brackish waters, these gators were far from threatening, and the larger ones (still small by Aussie salty standards) were fairly ambivalent to our presence.

The calls of thousands of birds who make these refuges home made for a refreshing soundscape after having spent a couple of days in Houston.

Perhaps the most startling aspect of driving through this part of Louisiana, fronting on the Gulf of Mexico, was the devastation left by Hurricane Rita in 2005, still evident in towns such as Holly Beach.

Homes, where they've been rebuilt at all, sit perched up high on pylons, themselves two storeys high.

Mostly though you see blocks of land with perhaps a caravan or two, where the original house footings are visible but there's no house to hold up any more.

Purely by chance we camped our first night in Louisiana beside the Intracoastal Waterway.

We now know it's a system of waterways 4,800 kilometres long stretching from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to Texas.

The tugboats and barges passing directly behind Bessie made for an interesting night's viewing from the campfire.