Mark 
“Crossing Unseen Lines – A Dérive Through the Dunes of Ouistreham”
I didn’t plan to end up here, wedged between a collapsed fence and a ferry terminal. But that’s the truth of the dérive. It pulls you where the psyche and landscape meet in quiet resistance.
There’s a place just outside Ouistreham’s polished promenade where the dunes begin. Most pass it without notice, driving to the ferry or along the tourist track. But I followed the rustle of wild grass and the hiss of the wind. I found this broken fence, futile line drawn against time and tide. Barbed wire meant to warn, but nature has other plans. A makeshift path leads through, barely trodden, as if only those listening closely are permitted passage.
Beyond the fence, I felt the shift, where structure ends and memory breathes. This land once knew boots, bunkers, and blood. Now, it’s just thistle and silence. And yet, that ferry in the distance… It’s a whisper of movement, of crossing over, of leaving things behind. Or bringing them back.
A single white flower nodded at my feet, delicate against the wire. I imagined it growing through wartime rubble, untouched by narrative. There’s no plaque here, no curated memory. Just the wind. Just time.
That’s the dérive: trusting your feet, reading the land, accepting that sometimes a broken fence is not a boundary, but an invitation to remember differently.
Join me on my Next trip to Ouistreham
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Image Details
A broken wooden fence snakes through the windswept grasses of the Ouistreham dunes. Sand clings to the base, where wildflowers grow defiantly. In the distance, towering ferry lights line the horizon, and the edge of a white ferry peeks into view, ghostly and distant. Above, the sky is dramatic, full of tension: a dialogue between blue clarity and brooding grey clouds.
© Mark Stothard MA ARPS
