Just over an hour from New Orleans hides this pre-civil war fort, Fort Proctor. Construction began in 1856, but a combination of hurricanes delaying construction, war, and advances in technology made this fort obsolete before it saw any action. Leaving us with this rather fascinating relic out in truly the middle of nowhere. It’s an experience in itself getting there, driving through the small flood ready towns, seeing all the houses built up on stilts, ready for the next hurricane Katrina.
We had already had a pretty exciting morning, where I had snuck in and explored the abandoned six flags theme park. We wanted to keep this abandoned exploration theme going. We stopped for a sandwich after the theme park, and drove out to where we had planned to launch our kayak. I’ve got one of those inflatable kayaks that I had stuffed in the backseat of our overloaded little car. I love that kayak. Highly recommend them.
En route in our inflatable kayak
We parked up, prepared the kayak and launched. It was about a half hour paddle in the blistering heat. It really was brutally. hot. When we got there we had to lift the kayak over the moat wall, and then paddle again for the last 25 meters up to the entrance. Being really really fricken careful not to puncture the kayak on any of the sharp rocks. It would be a reallllly long swim back.
So here it is, Fort Proctor! Photos courtesy of El Drono, my little drone.
Having a little fort dance. See us?
The grass was just weed, you couldn’t walk on that. We crossed over the stone section on the left side.
Much like the theme park, nature has also gone about it’s business taking the fort back. You should check out this theme park if you’re not already aware, one of my favorite places for sure:
Abandoned theme park – New Orleans
So I did have some trouble with the drone here… I was a little bit too confident with flying it through the fort. On my third fly through I somehow crashed it into the wall and it fell from the top of the fort into the sea below… CRAP! I clambered down in record time and retrieved it from the waist deep water. I removed the battery and set about hating on myself.
When back on land, we stopped at a store and we purchased an insane amount of cold water. We were so thirsty. There was some borderline heat stroke setting in on the paddle back. I flushed the drone with clean water a number of times and bagged it in a bag of rice, along with the battery that was removed and still flashing. That little battery was still flashing eight days later! I had read some horror stories online about these batteries catching fire. I was quite concerned so I was taking it into restaurants with me, just so it couldn’t torch my car.
I waited three days before braving it and turning my drone on again, with my spare battery. It worked!!! So stoked, and very impressed with this little guy. I just needed to replace my spare battery. $50 later and back to normal. Not bad.
If you want to check this fort out, grab a kayak, loads of water, and head to this carpark for launching:
So that concludes the end of this little adventure. After a wild night on Bourbon street, we set off on a very long drive towards Dallas, Texas. Onward!
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