The green expanse extends to the edge of a barrier of trees. Inside, the rustling of leaves accompanies the explorer, ready to lose himself in the labyrinth of plants. At dawn, the air is already charged with heat and the cicadas are chirping. With her cap screwed on her head, her backpack filled with a cold bottle, Magali arrived as soon as she opened it, eager to lose herself in this 2.5 hectare cornfield transformed into a giant labyrinth.
The social worker knows the place well, having been there with her two children and her husband. But her enthusiasm remains intact. “I love it! I followed the progress of the filming and then the development of the maze on social media. This year the theme is insects”he says, before rushing into the opaque, dense labyrinth, with Naël, a small child, in his care. “Should we turn right or left? We’ll try it that way, it’s not possible to be lost already…”
For three years, from the end of June to the end of October, Karine and Nicolas Tonnaire have transformed a twenty-hectare plot of land on their farm into a mini, ephemeral leisure park. In their labyrinth Les Hautes Herbes, located in Entraigues-sur-la-Sorgue (Vaucluse), visitors will not find sophisticated rides or attractions, but the simple pleasure of sinking into the vegetation and finding their way by answering riddles, puzzles and other puzzles, scattered along the route. In 2023, more than four thousand visitors, two-thirds of them from the region, voluntarily played the role of lost people for an hour and a half, the average time to find the way out.
Way to diversify
The farming couple is not the only one who has transformed their farmland into a playground. Corn fields are popping up almost everywhere. Most are managed by farmers, who started alone or with the help of a franchise. Most see it as a way to diversify and provide their farm with new income or outlets.
In the spring of 2022, faced with the difficulties facing the sector, Nicolas Tonnaire, 48 years old, a market gardener for twenty years, decided to switch from growing vegetables to growing cereals (wheat and barley), which is less uncertain, but also to launch into agritourism. “In order to continue in the profession, we had to find a solution.says this farmer’s son. I had heard of numerous plant labyrinths on the Atlantic coast. There were none in our area. Why not give it a try?
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