An original way to de-stress and open your mind in the Fontainebleau range: go hiking with donkeys! They will carry your luggage and motivate you in your discovery of the forest, with family, friends, and others.
Hiking with donkeys in the forest of Fontainebleau
It is a real pleasure and an original way to de-stress and open the mind in the peaceful greenery of our region.
The donkey provides the rhythm, and motivates even the youngest to walk. It carries your bags and picnic in a protected area.
The activity is based on enhancing the donkey as part of leisure and tourism activities, but also for sustainable development approaches (waste collection, market gardening).
Hiking
The donkey becomes the hiker's companion.
Every day, all year round, you can hike with a donkey with family, groups, and centres.
You will have 1 donkey for 4-5 people equipped with panniers on the packsaddle, a halter and the map.
You will choose your route for the half day, full day, or longer.
Interview de l'éco-acteur
Michel et Monika Brun
Located in the Paris region on the edge of the Fontainebleau Forest, the nerie Bacotte was created in 2008 by Michel and Monika Brun. They offer hiking with donkeys and many other things, which we will discover.
How was the nerie Bacotte born ?
In July 2008, we went hiking with our daughter Léa, who was 5 years old at the time, in the Alps near Chamonix, and we tried hiking with a donkey. "We were well in the alpine pastures! ". But it is our desire to make donkeys better known, and that is what pushed us to build this facility. There was no or little offering around Paris. It was an opportunity to enhance the donkey by bringing nature to the city in ways that improve human relationships.
We started with 2 donkeys and did many training to learn how to work with them. It requires real expertise and a lot of knowledge. Monika specialises in asino-mediation, an alternative therapy that uses the donkey's proximity to a person - a child with a mental or physical condition - to reduce stress, or the consequences of medical treatments or post-operative problems. Michel recently completed a training at the Bec Hellouin Organic Farm to perfect working animal techniques for market gardening.
What activities do you offer ?
We have been able to diversify our activities and offers to date. In addition to hiking with donkeys, a number of services have also been put into place for local and regional authorities, such as the donkey book bus, the asino-footbus on the principle of the footbus but with a donkey that carries children's school bags, market gardening to maintain the communal kitchen gardens of a castle, eco-grazing and waste sorting.
