Gardouch to Homps

At last the rain stopped and although there wasn’t much sun at least it was high, unthreatening cloud.  We left Gardouch for an uneventful trip to Port Lauragais.  We nosed into the basin which had been constructed at the same time as the A62 motorway, which runs alongside, and the Aire de Lauragais service area.  The facilities are shared by both boaters and drivers so it’s a busy place.

The gap between a cruiser and a couple of small breasted-up sailing dinghies was about 19m and we are a bit more when the rudder is included so as the wind blew us sideways toward the quay Louise shouted to a couple of lads working on the quay to ask if they would move the dinghies along a bit which they did, thank goodness! giving us just enough space to come alongside.

We cycled up to Ricquet’s Monument again, which is only about 5kms from this mooring, and this time Alex was determined to get inside the surrounding wall and gate.  The spikes on the top of the gate looked more daunting than last time but we did a tour of the perimeter wall and three quarters of the way round discovered a large subsidence crack in the wall where one or two stones had fallen out.  This was climbable, so a break-in by Alex was quickly achieved.  Louise passed the camera through the bars of the gate and sat down to act as lookout while Alex mounted the steps to the monument itself and get some pictures.  Amazingly no tourists came while he was ‘inside’ and we were able to saunter away looking pretty innocent of breaking and entering.

The next day was warm and sunny and we arrived at Castelnaudary, where we discovered Sally and Mike on AILSA, so we invited them for supper – another put-it-together meal, which went down pretty well.  Also in the port was a barge called SIRIUS, which we had not seen since ‘Nervous Nev’ owned her at Methley Bridge in Castleford.  It was now under new ownership.

The other good thing we found was that the lock automation had not got further than the lock before Lock 17 ‘Ocean’ – the last ‘uphill’ lock.

The method by which this automation works is different from any other elsewhere in France.  The system is that you put your crew member off at the lock mooring point (difficult for us because of our depth and height above the pontoon) and he/she goes to the lock and presses the appropriate button on a podium to set the lock the right way for the gates to open and allow the boat to enter.  This means that as the driver you have nobody on board to confirm that you are coming straight into the lock, neither to one side or the other, and that verbal confirmation is very useful.  Then the person on the side of the lock presses the start button and has to control their rope from the shore instead of from the boat. This may be OK for light hire boats but is more difficult, more dangerous, and more likely to snag when dealing with heavy boats like ours.

The automation in the rest of France always allows remote setting up for the lock and usually allows the start of the operation to be done from the boat as well.

So we are glad to be ahead of the installation of this new system in this more easterly area, even if some of the still-employed lock keepers on these ‘downhill’ locks are a bit surly!

We were approaching a double lock after Castelnaudary and some way off Alex decided we really needed to slow down a bit.  Putting the boat into reverse there was a screaming noise from the prop and we were not slowing down much at all.  Lots more throttle in reverse and more noises aft and eventually we did manage to come to a halt more or less, and then line up and enter the lock.  We got through the two locks OK but there was obviously something caught on the prop, so we stopped on the lock mooring and as we often do if we have a problem, had lunch.

After lunch Alex got the boathook and prodding about the prop felt something rather rubbery.  Oh no – a tyre!

So we got the boarding plank and suspended one end just above the water from the back of the boat with the other end on the shore.  With Alex lying flat out on it he could just get his hands down far enough to feel . . . yes, a tyre, well wrapped round the prop.

Alex got the chain winch and hung that from the back of the boat.  Then with Louise pulling on the tyre with the boathook he was able to slip the chain-hook round the tyre and hook it back onto itself.  Then we could operate the winch and get half a ton of tension on the tyre.  THEN Alex could start sawing!  He had to use a ‘hardpoint’ wood saw as we discovered that we don’t have a full-sized hacksaw (can’t believe it) but after much sweat, swearing and a final heave on the block and tackle the type came apart and off the prop.  All in all about 2 hours hard graft and Alex had to lie down on the mooring quay to recover.  He’s not as young as he once was!  By the way, it was an old Michelin X and still had some tread on it, so Louise gave it to the eclusier saying, “Un cadeau pour vous, Monsieur!!”

We were very glad to get to the peaceful mooring at Villepoint which we had noted in our book on the way west and it was thankfully empty.  (Six sturdy posts beside the canal.)  But the next day Alex felt bruised from head to toe after his tyre-ing time.

We stopped at Port de Bram and cycled to the nearby village to see if we could do a little shopping.  Riding right through the village on the main road we saw a rather appealing little café/restaurant offering lunch and decided to declare a holiday and treat ourselves!  The ‘formule’ menu of three courses was salad, moules frites and dessert, to include a quarter litre each of local wine for €12.50.  The patronne was quite happy to serve just the moules frites and wine plus coffee at the end and it was the best moules frites we’ve ever had.  Just enough for a light lunch and the total bill €19.  Marvellous.  We have rarely come upon this kind of offering that people talk so much about in France so it was lovely to have such a delicious lunch.

But when she came to lay the table the patronne put out paper table mats which had an aerial photograph of the village on them and we saw that the village was built in a perfect circle round its church.  We had just ridden a tangent on our bikes and completely missed Bram’s main claim to fame!

So after lunch we started at the church in the middle and rode three concentric ring round the village, each one a circular ring of houses bigger than the one before.  Fascinating.

When we got to Carcassonne at 3pm Stephanie the capitaine came running out to say the mooring below the lock which we had booked, had been taken by a couple of hire boats, despite her RESERVÉ signs, and we should moor temporarily on the trip boat mooring pontoon above the lock. So we did that and 45 minutes later we noticed the hire boat people coming back to their boats and making to set off.

Louise telephoned Stephanie just to let her know that we would be able to move onto the reserved mooring now. And then she was out of the office and running across to the hire boats like a gazelle.  The reserved sign was quite clear and she had put notices on both boats asking their crew to report to the office when they returned.  They were just trying to do a runner, but we learned afterwards that Stephanie had got to them in time and made them pay.  Good for her!

So we spent three nights on the mooring, met one set of the new owners of AMAROK, lent them a portable fridge because they had broken theirs defrosting it (don’t ask!), met the owners Peter and Marie-Michelle of a beautiful looking barge called PHOENICIAN and watched the antics of a tramp who has taken up residence during the day on the benches near the mooring.

And another excitement with divers!  Phoenician had picked up something on the prop which was causing vibration and poor performance.  Marie-Michelle, French Canadian so fluent in French, had chatted to one of the female lockkeepers a day or two before and had invited her and her partner (also employed by VNF) for supper on PHOENICIAN.    This turned out to be a good move because the boyfriend organised the Sapeurs Pompiers (firemen) to provide a diver to investigate their prop problem.

The diver duly arrived and came up after a fairly short time with some old bits of rag which were on the prop and part of the problem, but also with the bad news that one of the blades was bent out of line.  It’s a rather special 5-bladed prop which Peter had specially designed for his boat and as he is hoping to return up the Rhone this year, he will have to find a dry dock and get it sorted.

At Trèbes, where we spent a peaceful night just before the town, Alex managed to find the local wine cave and get some good red and rosé wine in his 5-litre containers from the pistolet supply at €1 and €1.15 per litre!

But when we arrived at the first set of locks in the morning (a triple) there was quite a queue.  We were 5th in line, behind 4 hire boats.  The first three went down after an hour, by which time there was a hire boat behind us and behind that David appeared with CARMEN.

We helped him moor up – no easy task in the strong wind - and then discussed the wait.  Nobody else was going got get down the locks before the 12.30 – 1.30 lunch break.  At that moment a French woman from yet another hire boat, behind CARMEN, appeared and said she was a Le Boat employee delivering a boat.  Alex and David tried to explain to her that Alex was minded to let the 3 hire boats go down together and forfeit his place in the queue.  But she was so full of hell because of the delay that she refused to listen and stalked off.  So we thought, “Sod you! We will take our place in the queue anyway” and at 1.25 she was back trying to persuade the lockkeeper to let her through ahead but David, bless his socks, was there too, arguing against her.  So I’m afraid she ended up with her just desserts.

We were making our way towards Homps when suddenly we spied a tortoise on a floating log, also making its way towards Homps!  For once we managed to overtake something!

We are now at Homps where we arrived on Saturday afternoon after the Capitainerie had shut.  (High season, Saturday lunchtime and what do they do?  Shut down till Monday morning!!!)  The down side is that you need a special 32 amp plug adapter which we don’t have, to plug in for electricity, which normally you borrow on deposit from the Capitainerie, but the upside is that the mooring will be free till Monday.

And Alex, never one to be daunted, has managed to make a 32 amp adapter out of three of the pins from a 5-pin 3-phase plug which he had in stock, some circles of 1/2" MDF which he machined with the router and the blue plastic cap from an aerosol can.  At a brief glance, it looks pretty authentic, and works beautifully, so free electricity too!