Our stay in Carcassonne had to be for a few days because Louise’s son Robert was arriving on a surprise visit for his mother (an early birthday present). Maintaining secrecy for this had almost led to harsh words between us as Louise began to wonder if the series of unexplained texts between Alex and a-n-other were in fact Alex carrying out a clandestine text-affaire!
In the meantime we had been in touch with Alan and Gina Redhouse who live at Quillan, an hour by car or train south of Carcassonne, and who have been following our progress south for two and a half years! They had invited us to stay (in their impressive house above the village) so we caught the train up through the gorge and were treated to excellent food, wine and company. The following day they drove us back to Carcassonne taking in a detour to Rennes-le-Chateau perched high on top of a hill (Dan Brown took part of the strange legend of this place as his inspiration for one of his books) and we all had lunch on Riccall.
Robert duly arrived to great excitement from Louise and he and Louise set off after lunch to show Rob the Cité – the medieval walled town which is Carcassonne’s principal claim to fame, while Alex did other things on Riccall and sussed out train times for Rob’s return journey.
While we were moored in Carcassonne that evening we were treated to an hour or so of classic bumper boat mayhem. We had heard of this of course, but hadn’t experienced much of it thus far. So, while we relaxed under a warm sun in the well deck with our evening drinks, it was a bit like watching the dodgems at the fair! One boat tried to turn round and ended up travelling the full length of Riccall sideways. The lady crew apologised, explaining that her captain was an airline pilot and the boat had no wings, hence the problem! Another boat, travelling with another hire boat seemed to be having propulsion problems, and they tried roping the two together. Then the power appeared to be working again, so they took the ropes off and the next thing we knew the vessel was heading straight for us across the canal being driven by a ten year old. Alex gesticulated to put the thing into reverse but to no avail. The look of horror on the boy’s face when he realised what was about to happen was classic – a joy to behold – as was the sound of crashing plates, glasses, and other delicate objects from the shelves and table of the hire boat when it made contact with Riccall! Riccall brushed it off as though it was a fly, while pandemonium broke out between the parents! I mean, how stupid to give a ten-year-old control of a boat that is mis-behaving. They never even apologised, just asked if our boat was OK. Alex just shrugged. They were Mexican of course, we learned later, so what can you expect?!!!!
We were also rammed a couple of times in the locks but we don’t mind, we can take it. What we found hard to take was a Canadian foursome, who insisted on coming into the locks with us, with the most loudmouthed, no, foulmouthed ‘captain’ screaming and swearing at all his crew as they secured the ropes. It was so unpleasant that when we all stopped for lunch we let them go ahead of us to get rid of them, and waited till another set of bumper boats went through the lock and we went up alone.
We hoped Robert would be able to come with us to Castlelnaudary – kms and locks further on. We thought it would be three easy days, but Alex discovered that the third day was going to be another strike day about the wretched retirement age, so we decided to push on and with Robert’s assistance, we could do it in two: which, thanks to him and his efforts leaping off the boat at locks and taking ropes, we did.
So we were moored in Castelnaudary for the day of the strike and it obviously was not as well supported as the last one. Trains and buses were running and the Tourist Information Office was open. The French Foreign Legion (yes, it still exists) was organising the running of a half marathon and a 10K run round the town area, so we had a bird’s-eye view from the Riccall wheelhouse as they ran past – with the refreshment tables on one side of the canal and the final leg on the other. It was very windy indeed and so was the next day when Robert caught the train back for his flight home, so we stayed put until it died down.
The next day dawned with little wind and a wan sun trying to break through the light cloud, so we lowered the roof and set off. As the morning wore on the clouds thickened and the wind started to blow up. At Ecluse Mediterranée (the last UP lock before the summit level) it started to rain, so we entered the lock and asked the éclusier if we could have 5 minutes to replace the roof, as we knew there were no bridges before our next moorings. ‘No problem’ he said and dashed into his house out of the rain. Louise was on the lock side manning the ropes and couldn’t get back on board, so the ‘lift on’ had to be down to Alex. The éclusier re-appeared with his CAMERA!!! (he must have known) and Alex lifted the roof back on. But as it was raining hard by now he was in more of a hurry than usual and when he disconnected the lifting wires, he failed to fully disengage one of them (Louise always does that side – his excuse) so when he tried to return the lifting arms there was a loud twang and the cross bar was forced out, shearing the bolts holding it in and bending it and various other bits and pieces! Not a very good demo for the lockkeeper (or us) and so when we emerged from the lock, we moored up and had lunch!
Alex surveyed the damage - then a tweak here, a forced re-arrangement there, a bend back to shape, a drill and easy-out device to remove the sheared-off bolts and reassemble the whole kit and caboodle, thankfully as good as new. We travelled a couple or three more kilometres to Le Ségala in a howling wind and flurries of rain and moored up in textbook style between two plastics with only one metre at each end to spare. But a free mooring and only €2 for electricity and €3 for water seemed like a good deal. The other good thing about this mooring is that we were within a few kilometres of the monument erected in memory of Paul-Pierre Riquet (the originator of the Canal du Midi) by his descendants: the site was specifically chosen as it was on the summit level and very close to the water source of the whole of the Canal du Midi.
We cycled off to look at the monument. Well signposted and impressive though it was, the gates to the inner sanctum were firmly locked and looked as though they had remained that way for some considerable time. Alex contemplated climbing over the gate (indeed as the photo shows, he contemplated it from some 4 feet up on the gate!) but chickened out at the top suddenly doubting his own ability to climb BACK over, should he take the plunge. (At 61 he is obviously feeling his age – damn it he never thought such a thing would ever happen!) We were very disappointed that we couldn’t actually get in to see the monument at close quarters, or even read the inscription, so badly mossed and dirty it was. But when our friends came a few days later, they said they had seen loads of men in orange high-viz jackets all round the monument and could only conclude that something was going to be done. We do hope so.
So we have had four visits within a few days – Alan and Gina first, then Robert, then Brian dropped by again when passing, and our boating friends Nick and Gail came over from their house and had lunch with us. We had such a good time chatting, that they didn’t leave till after 6!!
Lots of pictures this time, including some lovely ones from Robert, showing views of Riccall we can rarely get ourselves.
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