Etang du Thau to Beziers

Eventually the wind dropped and we set off for Frontignan – the last stop before the Etang du Thau. No-one should cross the Etang (a shallow inland sea) if winds are above Force 3 on the Beaufort Scale, so we had had to wait for several days while very strong winds abated.

Frontignan has a road bridge under which almost nothing can pass (except little open fishing boats) and which lifts twice a day – 8.30am and 4pm, to allow ‘proper’ boats through. We got there at about 12 o’clock thinking we would go through at 4 pm, but when 4pm arrived and we saw the plethora of hire boats etc jostling for position to pass through, we decided that as we had a good mooring where we were, we would wait till 8.30am the next morning and use that as our set-off time for the Etang du Thau.

So the 8.30am morning scrum was not as bad as the 4pm the day before, but it was made more complicated by a commercial vessel coming ‘upstream’ towards us (generally downstream traffic has priority) but commercials take priority over plaisance, so who should go first? The commercial appeared to wave us forward, but at that very moment a hire boat darted in front of the commercial and came through upstream, flouting all the conventions. Obviously it was driven by a French crew for whom not playing the game is ‘de rigeur’. (I have it on good authority that all young French kids are taught how to cheat at all games and it is not only expected of them, but encouraged!)

The 2 hour journey over the Etang was uneventful but interesting as the channel is 150m from the oyster beds which are huge and on the north side. We got to the first lock on the Canal du Midi at about midday and, as there was a lovely place to moor, we stopped there for the day and night. The young student working on the lock was quite happy for us to be there and so were we. We celebrated this first achievement with a bottle of fizz (any excuse!). We had finally reached not the end of our quest, nor the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning. (I think that may be a Churchillian misquote!)

We navigated the round lock of Agde, passed under the first of the many arched bridges typical of the Canal du Midi and found our next mooring at Vias – a good spot with a rather complicated system of acquiring electricity and water.

On our way into the old town the next day we heard a lot of car horns tooting and spotted a group of people up on the raised embankment of the bypass, so we joined them to see what was going on. This turned out to be a Harley Davidson rally consisting of some 650 bikes. We had missed at least half but the remaining 300 or so were quite enough of a spectacle as they motored past waving at us as we waved to them. What a sight! And of course, as usual, we stumble on these things with total ignorance and were glad of an English family who could fill us in with what was going on!

In the Saturday market we bought lovely olives, local wine, tapenade and half price paella. In these local markets there is always a seller of paella who cooks the meal in a HUGE paella pan in front of your very eyes. As we had turned up at the end of the market, he was trying to get rid of the last of his paella at half price. So that did us for two evening meals, and very nice it was too!

This mooring at Vias is taken up by several British boats which have been here for some time and all know each other well. But this has the advantage that they are all really friendly to us newcomers to the Canal du Midi and we have been given lots of useful advice regarding these moorings and others further on down the line. Barry of Balestra has been most helpful in this respect.

We passed through the tightest bridge so far at Villeneuve-les-Béziers: only about 6" to spare on the handrails, and moored up in the shade of the plane trees at the upstream end of a row of long-term péniches. This part of the Canal du Midi from the Etang du Thau was upgraded to take full 40m barges in the 1970s, but only as far as Béziers, so there are still a few around, though almost entirely non-commercial now. When the decrease in commercial barge traffic occurred it meant that it would not be cost effective to upgrade the rest of the Midi. This is a great relief to the pleasure boater, as the original nature of Jean-Paul Riquet’s canal is still maintained for the great majority of the canal’s length. It also means that from here on the maximum length of barges is only 30m.

In Béziers, which I am afraid is a very unappealing town, we did another of our epic rides to an Aldi which we knew was in the north of the town. While there, Alex saw that they still had their ‘retro velos’ for sale and he and Louise had a good look at them. Although Louise’s lovely Dutch bike is great in many respects, the hub brakes hardly work now and it is impossible to get spare parts. Here in the south of France, we find ourselves on far more hilly terrain than we did further north (and of course none at all in Holland) and the lack of brakes is becoming an issue! Alex has been looking out for a replacement bike for some time and these at Aldi looked as though they would do the job.

So we returned to the boat with all the shopping and Alex had a suss of the buses and determined to travel back to Aldi the next day by bus, and ride back on a new bike.

Of course, the next day the French government sector workers were on strike! So – no lock keepers, no refuse collection, no BUSES!! And all because they were going to be asked to retire at 62 instead of 60! I mean, I ask you. In Britain we already work to 65 and know that that may be increased to 67 soon. What’s all the fuss about? I think they should think themselves lucky. No sympathy for them at all, especially as Alex had to walk all the way to Aldi to get the bike (all 5km of it mostly uphill) all the while negotiating his way through and round the hordes of marching demonstrators waving banners, blowing trumpets, letting off bangers etc. He kept muttering quietly in English, “No sympathy! No sympathy!” as he struggled past them.

Still it was an easy ride back! A few adjustments to seat and handlebar height and it looked as if the bike might be OK.

However, a ride round to look at the old locks onto and off the River Orb, now superseded by an aqueduct, demonstrated that this bike was perhaps not for Louise after all. So after a night of cogitation and discussion, we decided to return it for our money back (one of the joys of shopping at Aldi – a no-quibble returns policy) so we cleaned all trace of our test ride off the new bike and carefully rode back up to Aldi with Alex on it and Louise on Alex’s bike. Then leaving the old bike round the corner we pushed the new bike the last 50 yards to the shop (Have we ridden it? Of course not!) But a brief explanation that the bike was too big for Louise was fully accepted and the refund given – in cash, in fact, meaning that Alex got cash without a transaction charge from his bank!

The buses were running again that day, so Louise caught the bus back to the centre of town and walked the rest of the long way, while Alex rode the old bike back to the moorings! And onward goes the search for a replacement bike for Louise, but in the meantime, we have swapped bikes. (Both brakes work well on Alex’s Ricardo bike and he reckons he can manage better with poor brakes than Louise can on her old machine! But Louise is very sad; she loved her old Gazelle Dutch bike.)