Toulouse to Moissac

We made an unscheduled stop two locks and 10kms before Toulouse, much to the indignation of the lockkeeper who had just prepared his lock for us, because we saw a perfect space to moor up - with two bollards. It was away from the autoroute, which follows the Canal du Midi with its monotonous roar throughout this section, and it looked like a nice quiet spot between two live-aboards. All this turned out to be true and that afternoon, in a very strong wind, we were blown in to Toulouse itself on our bicycles for a preliminary look at the town and the moorings. We inspected the latter at Port St Saveur and determined that the (free?) quay opposite the official port was the best place for us. We dropped into Lidl and picked up some stock then headed back against the now ferocious wind, to our mooring, in the quiet of the countryside. By the time we had battled the return 10k we were completely knackered!

In the evening as Alex fought with SFR to allow him to connect to a strong Neuf wi-fi signal (no luck as usual – lying sods!) he suddenly noticed that the power from the generator, which was on at that time, had dropped to zero. After much investigation, he had to conclude that now not only were the batteries on their last legs, but the generator had packed in as well – oh great!

After two days of continuous wind and/or torrential rain, both seemed to have subsided so we set off for Toulouse itself. Apart from anything it was imperative to run the engine to try and put a breath of life back into the dying batteries.

At Toulouse Port St Saveur, Sylvianne the Capitanière of the moorings soon told us that the official port was full but to moor opposite still incurred a charge, albeit with no water or electricity, and kindly suggested we move up in front of her own peniche, out of the charging zone. This we did, but it was much closer to a very noisy road, and we still had no electricity.

Alex’s daughter Alice and her boyfriend Mark were coming to visit us for a couple of days, flying into Toulouse, so we spent some considerable time trying to work out the best mix of trains and cruising (not to mention another French strike) which would tie in with their flights. That meant a two-night stay in Toulouse for us, with no shore power, meaning this blog was written by candlelight to conserve the batteries! (No lights, so no jigsaw-doing, no internet of course, no dishwasher, etc etc.)

On the plus side, however, Toulouse is a city which we have visited a couple of times by train or car for short visits, and it could definitely do with a longer perusal.

After a couple of days in Toulouse we lowered the roof for what we hoped would be the last time this year, and set off for the last few locks of the Canal du Midi and thence the Canal Lateral à la Garonne.

The bridge before the first lock (dwelt under by the itinerant population of Toulouse) proved to be one that definitely needed the roof down (ROFF). We have been marking all the bridge on the Canal du Midi in our book as either RONs or ROFFs ever since we started this canal. This will let us know how far we can go if it is pouring with rain on our return trip, before we need to lower the top. It was a nice day with high cloud and some sunshine so no problem to travel converted (as it were).

We moored up below a lock and cycled ahead to the local station where we had suggested Alice and Mark might meet us from the train, at a place fascinatingly and impossibly named Castlenau d’Estrétefonds!

The mooring opposite the station itself existed all right, but had no mooring bollards or rings but we thought we could ‘make do’. What we didn’t realise then was that there was simply no depth, so we had an interesting time when we moved down to this mooring attaching wire hawsers round bits of wooden edging to effect a reasonable mooring, albeit one metre away from the shore due to the shallowness of the water.

Alice and Mark duly arrived and a jolly evening was had by all. In the morning Alex and Louise were surprised to see a good sized barge coming upstream towards us. ANNA - a 27 metre Dutch barge - was the first ‘proper’ boat we had seen for ages. They stopped in midstream for a chat and we promised to look them up in Castelnaudary (some many kms behind us) where they are wintering, when we come back in the car!

So we had a lovely couple of days with Alice and Mark but a slight worry at the back of the mind was the continuing bloody industrial action grumbling on in the background. And sure enough, when we got to Castelsarrasin the trains, which we had been assured by Toulouse ticket office would be running, had been cancelled. Alex additionally managed to misread the revised bus timetable, and so we all arrived at the bus stop to see them off, 20 minutes after the bus has left!

In desperation to try to find an alternative means of getting them to their flight, we called into the first commercial enterprise we found, which happened to be a flower shop, to try to get the number of a local taxi firm. The number was provided, but Louise’s attempt to order said taxi failed through lack of understanding of the rapid gun-fire French which came down the line, so Alex sweet-talked the proprietor of the flower shop into ringing the taxi firm and arranging a taxi to catch the bus up at a bus station further down the line but by a more direct route, for €30. As it happened when they got to the station and checked for the bus, they discovered that it didn't exist at all for that day! so the taxi had to take them on to Toulouse and so, for an extra cost of about €20 or so, Alice and Mark finally managed to catch the Navette to the airport in time for their return flight. PHEW!

One interesting event while they were with us was when Alex handed over control of Riccall to Mark, and as we approached one of the many arched bridges, Mark asked Alex to help direct him under the bridge. But as the bridge got nearer it became apparent that it was lower than all the rest, so a quick re-taking of control was called for and a judicious slowing down, and in the event we got under the arch in the middle with barely inches to spare. Afterwards we noticed that the book highlighted this bridge as a low one: we just hadn’t noticed! Keeps you on your toes though!!

We were sorry that the weather hadn’t been so good for our visitors but the day after they left dawned bright and sunny, though cold. Then as we approached the arched bridge at the downstream end of the 3rd lock of the day, we suddenly realised that it was too was too low for the roof. Wot? Again?

Yes, the water level was up by about 20 cms and that just made the difference. So poor Alice and Mark not only missed the best of the sunshine, but also an emergency ROFF which we had to do before exiting the lock, expecting at any minute that the gates would close and trap us. We took consolation from the still shining sun which continued all the way to Moissac.

We decided to stay for a few days at Moissac and possibly meet up with friends Ken and Rhonda of SOMEWHERE who are due back in Moissac for their winter mooring some time soon. In the meantime however, we are luxuriating in ample water, electricity and wifi access!