Thursday, 25 August 2011
Worcester to Lechlade
We had two options for getting to the most important (for us) wedding – Richard and Diana’s – either back up the Birmingham and Worcester Canal and turn right onto the Stratford on Avon and then the Grand Union, or down the River Severn and back up the River Avon, then onto the Grand Union. As we never like to retrace our steps if possible, we decided on the rather longer rivers’ route. It’s around 40 miles as the crow flies between Worcester and Lechlade – and three weeks by boat!!
So - down the Severn to Tewkesbury (scene of quite recent calamitous flooding) where we did a sharp left into the River Avon (license £50 for a week), moored up for the night (£3) and perused the rather poor Avon booklet we had been persuaded to buy (£6). We had a stroll round Tewkesbury that evening to see if there might be a nice restaurant, and were rather surprised, as we sauntered down the high street, to keep coming across groups of people in sackcloth carrying staves or pikes or such like! We popped into one of the few shops still open at 5.30pm on a Sunday night, an antiques shop, and were informed by the owner that we had just missed Tewkesbury’s amazing Medieval Festival, where one of the largest gatherings of period war re-enactors in the country had staged the Battle of Tewkesbury (1471). Typical!!!!!! We always miss these types of events by a couple of days or so – but in this case by only a matter of minutes!
Needless to say there were no restaurants in the town, only ‘pub grub’ which we didn’t fancy, as we can almost always do better than that on the boat! (Thank you Alex! - Louise)
We stopped for a brief shop and spent the next night at Evesham at the ‘Workman Gardens’ moorings, and then pressed on to Stratford.
At Stratford we managed to find moorings opposite the famous theatre, which of course we looked round. We also went up the ‘new’ tower which had been incorporated in the rebuilding of the theatre, for an excellent bird’s eye view of the town and treated ourselves to a good meal in a restaurant called ‘Lambs’ - a short stroll from the boat moorings.
The next day we were off the Avon River and back onto the British Waterways Stratford on Avon Canal. First stop was one mile up by a bridge where we knew we were close to an Asda and a Tesco for more supplies. That evening we eventually reached Wooton Wewen for the night after a long slog behind a very slow hire boat, so the next morning we started at 8am to get ahead of it, then we did 17 locks up to the junction with the Grand Union, where we had lunch, then we did 17 locks of the Hatton flight down the Grand Union mostly in a pair with another boat – Gemma. (They are double locks here and it’s much better if you can go as a pair). Alex was in fighting form so he did all the locks while Louise manoeuvred the boat. We stopped for the night four locks up from bottom lock and the town of Warwick. Louise had been stung on her foot a day or so before and it had started to swell up quite badly, so we made enquiries of walkers on the towpath as we cruised through Warwick and were told there was a Tesco with a pharmacy at Bridge 46. And sure enough there it was, and they recommended a visit to a doctor’s surgery half a mile up the road. An appointment was available in half an hour. Amazing!! Antibiotics prescribed. They did the trick pretty quickly.
We got soaked to the skin doing the 10 Stockton locks in the morning but by the afternoon it had brightened up for the last 3 locks to Napton Junction. Alex vowed that he would not get wet like that again and we would just stop if it started to rain heavily. Then the next day he FELL INTO THE CANAL trying to lasso a bollard from the side of the boat when it had drifted too far away to step off. So he did get soaked again and cracked a rib into the bargain as he just failed to leap to the shore!
We also had our first dose of canal rage that day when an irate woman in a boat coming the other way accused Louise of ‘stealing’ her lock. Louise had gone ahead to prepare the lock for Alex to bring the boat in, and as it had only about 6”of water leakage in the bottom, she emptied it before opening the gate. This ‘woman’ was convinced the lock had been full and as they were coming the other way they should have had priority. Alex could hear her screaming at Louise from where he was 150m yards away! She was wrong, but would not admit it, of course. But it does leave a sour taste in the mouth for a bit.
In due course we got to Oxford, having spent one pleasurable night on the way in Banbury, where they have done a marvellous job on the canalside and have even retained the historic Tooley’s boatyard in the middle of the new shopping centre! We entered the Thames (£95 for 15 days) and moored close to Osney lock for three nights. This gave us a chance to visit Oxford itself and also to catch a train to London to see Emily and new son Herbie (Alex is a grandpa!!!!!!!!!!) Alice also managed to come along and we all enjoyed a very sociable lunch.
A few days later we were in Lechlade after a lovely trip up the Thames. The river is very picturesque here with low lying water meadows on either side and plenty of places to moor ‘away from it all’ – apart from the local livestock that is.
We had arranged to leave the boat in a boatyard at Lechlade so that we could have power to keep the fridge going and Jamie and Janine arrived to pick us up to give us a lift to the hotel at Cricklade ready for the wedding the following day. With him Jamie had an exchange ‘Calor’ gas bottle (our Yorkshire Energas bottles were the wrong sort to exchange in this area) and two parcels we had had delivered to him: one was an inverter for Louise so that she could use her hairdryer on the boat, and the other an inverter welder so Alex could do a welding repair on the weedhatch cover.
However, as Alex was closing up the boat prior to joining Louise, Jamie and Janine in the car, he was just tidying away a rope that Louise had been drying clothes on, when the end flicked up into the corner of his eye. At first he thought nothing of it, but then as his vision started to blur he wiped his eye with a tissue. Instead of tears on the tissue there was blood!!! The corner of his eye was actually bleeding though it didn’t hurt.
Well, it looked terrible, but the show must go on: the bleeding stopped very quickly and normal vision resumed. An hour’s visit to A & E at the Great Western Hospital the next morning produced the necessary antibiotic ointment and life could return to normal.
Out hotel room for the wedding was excellent: Alex could have as long a hot shower as he wanted and Louise a long hot soak in the bath without worrying about use of precious water. (No room for such luxury on the narrowboat).
We had fish and chips, professionally catered, at the bride Diana’s parents’ home on the Friday evening, where Nigel, her father, made us feel most welcome and we met other members of the wedding entourage.
Louise’s ex-husband Stuart and his wife Tracy didn’t make it to the fish and chip supper but Louise and Alex did manage to bump into them in the hotel just before setting off for the evening so, after 15 years a meeting before the wedding did finally take place.
On the day itself, our close friends Michael and Sylvia and Derran and Angela met up with each other for the first time ever in 25 years (!) and we all had a very jolly lunch together.
The wedding at 4pm went very well in the lovely village church and then we all repaired to Diana’s parents’ home where a marquee had been set up for the occasion. Drinks and canapés first, then an excellent meal and dancing and all the usual paraphernalia of such an event. Altogether a lovely weekend. (Thanks are due to Derran who was responsible for most of the wedding photos attached here – our own were few and pretty poor.)
Poor Jamie was a bit hung over in the morning (!) so Derran and Angela kindly gave us a lift back to our boat where we prepared for the return part of our journey.
Thursday, 4 August 2011
UK adventure – Castleford to Worcester
We needed to return to England for the whole of July for two weddings and Alex suddenly decided to turn this into an 'excellent adventure' by going to the two weddings in the narrowboat! The canal system allows us to get within a few miles of each one. It may take a little longer than going by car, but should be more fun!
Peter of Zee Otter very kindly gave us a lift to Aiguillon station and we caught train, airport navette and plane back to Leeds/Bradford airport. The plane was late leaving France so we missed the last airport bus to Harrogate and had to get a taxi. The driver dropped us off in the street where Matt (our car mechanic) had told us he had left our car, but we couldn’t find it! Then we realised we were in the wrong street, and as soon as we got to the right one, there was the car! So a late arrival back at Newton Aycliffe.
We realised that the trip by boat to our first wedding in Worcester was going to be a bit tight so we only spent two days at home, sorting everything out before we set off.
We made good time from our home mooring at Castleford to the start of the New Junction canal getting there about midday. Louise called the lockkeeper at Keadby to book passage for the following morning only to be told that it would be too early for British Waterway’s attendance - 5am – so there would only be an afternoon pen out at 5pm. We were due to arrive in Keadby by early evening anyway so we would have had to wait a whole 24 hours or so until the next evening’s pen out. Alex rang the lockkeeper back to ask what time today’s pen out was – 4 o’clock! Perhaps we could just make it by 5pm and still go. The lockkeeper said OK and booked us in. He had asked where we were and we said at the New Cut – but not at which end! I think he assumed ‘his’ end because he felt sure we could make it in time. But the New Cut alone takes 1.5 hours at the best of times. We opened the throttle wide and went for it.
It’s a commercial waterway, so the speed limit is higher than we can achieve but the first fisherman we passed at about 6 mph complained, ‘Is this a race or summat?’ Actually, yes – a race to catch the tide! We were lucky with the bridges and the lock was in our favour and we managed to shave 10 minutes off our best time for the New Cut! Then we were on the Stainforth and Keadby Canal. As we approached Thorne we came up behind a charity barge going very, very slowly, but they let us overtake – great! So we got first to the lock in Thorne as well. Another boater helped us through and warned that the swing footbridge just beyond was faulty but was about to be fixed open. It was. Excellent! As we arrive another boat was trying to set off through it but had a novice at the tiller, who completely cocked up and her partner waved us through. Phew! We watched for them at the next lift bridge but even after we had got through it and lowered it, they were not in sight so we motored on. The last thing we needed was to be boating with a novice through all the lift and swing bridges to Keadby. Finally we got to the sliding rail bridge just before Keadby and as we arrived it opened as if by magic. (We have waited three quarters of an hour for a long enough break in the trains to let us through at this bridge before now.)
Alex rang the lockkeeper and as we arrived he swung the road bridge and we motored straight in to the lock. 4.30pm!!
When the keeper gave the all clear we shot out onto the tidal Trent with about 4mph of incoming tide to help us and by 7pm we were at Gainsborough. We could have gone on to Torksey but after 11.5 hours non-stop we felt we needed a break and anyway an early start the next morning would get us to Torksey at ‘set off’ time anyway, which it did. We sat at Gainsborough and watched the tide turn at 6am, gave it half an hour to get ahead of us, and then set off. By 4.30pm we were in Newark for our second night. Castleford to Newark in two days – must be a record!
From here on, we thought, we can relax a bit as we have gained a whole day already, but when we got near to Willington on the Trent and Mersey we found they were having an open weekend and there were boats galore queuing at locks, moored boats all over the place to slow down for etc. etc. But finally, the next day, we had the climb up into Birmingham through 24 locks – all against us. Louise’s back was still playing up (over-energetic keep-fit!) so Alex did them all! After a 7am start that morning, we got to Gas Street Basin at 6.30pm – Alex totally knackered. Will and Laura came for supper bringing an Indian takeaway with them and we drank a toast to their recent engagement.
In the morning we stopped just south of Birmingham on the Birmingham and Worcester where Will met us again and we had lunch, and then he took us to see his new house. As we travelled down the B and W canal we learned that the Droitwich arm had just been re-opened the previous weekend, after many years of dereliction, so we decided on a slight detour to Worcester via Droitwich, and the River Severn.
It’s always fun to travel on canals which have just been reopened because all the local inhabitants are so enthusiastic about boats travelling through again they come and chat about how it used to be and how nice it is now etc. Great!
So finally we got to Worcester and into the Diglis Basin where Alex had sweet-talked Jackie into letting us stay for a couple of days with electricity (vital for Louise’s hairdryer for the wedding reception picnic!).
After an afternoon and a following morning discovering Worcester – up the cathedral tower for an eagle’s eye view of the city – the taxi arrived and got us to Spetchley Park Gardens for what turned out to be an excellent post-wedding picnic in the park, followed by dancing and a hog roast – and it didn’t rain! (It threatened to all afternoon but didn’t actually do it). A taxi back to the boat at 11pm completed the first leg of our crazy journey.
Peter of Zee Otter very kindly gave us a lift to Aiguillon station and we caught train, airport navette and plane back to Leeds/Bradford airport. The plane was late leaving France so we missed the last airport bus to Harrogate and had to get a taxi. The driver dropped us off in the street where Matt (our car mechanic) had told us he had left our car, but we couldn’t find it! Then we realised we were in the wrong street, and as soon as we got to the right one, there was the car! So a late arrival back at Newton Aycliffe.
We realised that the trip by boat to our first wedding in Worcester was going to be a bit tight so we only spent two days at home, sorting everything out before we set off.
We made good time from our home mooring at Castleford to the start of the New Junction canal getting there about midday. Louise called the lockkeeper at Keadby to book passage for the following morning only to be told that it would be too early for British Waterway’s attendance - 5am – so there would only be an afternoon pen out at 5pm. We were due to arrive in Keadby by early evening anyway so we would have had to wait a whole 24 hours or so until the next evening’s pen out. Alex rang the lockkeeper back to ask what time today’s pen out was – 4 o’clock! Perhaps we could just make it by 5pm and still go. The lockkeeper said OK and booked us in. He had asked where we were and we said at the New Cut – but not at which end! I think he assumed ‘his’ end because he felt sure we could make it in time. But the New Cut alone takes 1.5 hours at the best of times. We opened the throttle wide and went for it.
It’s a commercial waterway, so the speed limit is higher than we can achieve but the first fisherman we passed at about 6 mph complained, ‘Is this a race or summat?’ Actually, yes – a race to catch the tide! We were lucky with the bridges and the lock was in our favour and we managed to shave 10 minutes off our best time for the New Cut! Then we were on the Stainforth and Keadby Canal. As we approached Thorne we came up behind a charity barge going very, very slowly, but they let us overtake – great! So we got first to the lock in Thorne as well. Another boater helped us through and warned that the swing footbridge just beyond was faulty but was about to be fixed open. It was. Excellent! As we arrive another boat was trying to set off through it but had a novice at the tiller, who completely cocked up and her partner waved us through. Phew! We watched for them at the next lift bridge but even after we had got through it and lowered it, they were not in sight so we motored on. The last thing we needed was to be boating with a novice through all the lift and swing bridges to Keadby. Finally we got to the sliding rail bridge just before Keadby and as we arrived it opened as if by magic. (We have waited three quarters of an hour for a long enough break in the trains to let us through at this bridge before now.)
Alex rang the lockkeeper and as we arrived he swung the road bridge and we motored straight in to the lock. 4.30pm!!
When the keeper gave the all clear we shot out onto the tidal Trent with about 4mph of incoming tide to help us and by 7pm we were at Gainsborough. We could have gone on to Torksey but after 11.5 hours non-stop we felt we needed a break and anyway an early start the next morning would get us to Torksey at ‘set off’ time anyway, which it did. We sat at Gainsborough and watched the tide turn at 6am, gave it half an hour to get ahead of us, and then set off. By 4.30pm we were in Newark for our second night. Castleford to Newark in two days – must be a record!
From here on, we thought, we can relax a bit as we have gained a whole day already, but when we got near to Willington on the Trent and Mersey we found they were having an open weekend and there were boats galore queuing at locks, moored boats all over the place to slow down for etc. etc. But finally, the next day, we had the climb up into Birmingham through 24 locks – all against us. Louise’s back was still playing up (over-energetic keep-fit!) so Alex did them all! After a 7am start that morning, we got to Gas Street Basin at 6.30pm – Alex totally knackered. Will and Laura came for supper bringing an Indian takeaway with them and we drank a toast to their recent engagement.
In the morning we stopped just south of Birmingham on the Birmingham and Worcester where Will met us again and we had lunch, and then he took us to see his new house. As we travelled down the B and W canal we learned that the Droitwich arm had just been re-opened the previous weekend, after many years of dereliction, so we decided on a slight detour to Worcester via Droitwich, and the River Severn.
It’s always fun to travel on canals which have just been reopened because all the local inhabitants are so enthusiastic about boats travelling through again they come and chat about how it used to be and how nice it is now etc. Great!
So finally we got to Worcester and into the Diglis Basin where Alex had sweet-talked Jackie into letting us stay for a couple of days with electricity (vital for Louise’s hairdryer for the wedding reception picnic!).
After an afternoon and a following morning discovering Worcester – up the cathedral tower for an eagle’s eye view of the city – the taxi arrived and got us to Spetchley Park Gardens for what turned out to be an excellent post-wedding picnic in the park, followed by dancing and a hog roast – and it didn’t rain! (It threatened to all afternoon but didn’t actually do it). A taxi back to the boat at 11pm completed the first leg of our crazy journey.
Friday, 24 June 2011
Moissac to Castets-en-Dorthe and back to Buzet
Eventually, with much regret, we left Moissac and headed off further west again – our second time travelling west on this stretch of canal. We moored in Valance d’Agen on the quay which was vacant yet again. This time we had decided to explore the charming hilltop village of Auvillar which last time when we had been in the area had seemed a hill too far! So we offloaded the trusty bikes and set off. The hill up to the town was a bit of a push (far too steep to pedal – in fact much of it had slipped down the hillside some time during the winter and we had to creep past huge great machines working to stabilise the cliff!) but well worth the effort.
Ken and Rhonda had told us of a good restaurant 6kms further into the countryside and we thought that would be a good place for lunch. An hour later after riding up hill and down dale, we arrived sweaty and tired at the lovely little village of Bardigues. But it was worth it, as the restaurant lived up to every expectation and we even found a less hilly, if longer, road back to Auvillar.
Moving on towards Agen we passed POMME DE MER, who had stopped for lunch at a rather nice-looking canalside restaurant and Nick had a few words with us (between courses) and later that day arrived in Agen where much to Louise’s amazement, we were able to moor in the basin, on the opposite side from all the bustle of the traffic and the hire base. We expected POMME DE MER would join us later, but in the event they moored just before the bridge into the basin, on good bollards which we too had noticed on our way through.
That evening we were approached by a French lady who chatted with us for some time and told us that she was interested in our lifestyle. We invited her back for a longer chat and a drink the following evening.
In the meantime Alex took a trip to Aldi – far away over the aqueduct – chatting to Nick and Sally on the way back who were waiting for the locks. Then, in the afternoon, we both decided to take a trip to Lidl for other supplies (notably gin) and set off in the direction which we had looked up on Lidl’s internet site map.
We were welcomed with open arms by the manager in Lidl who was French, but had spent ten years working in Lidl in Glasgow, and was keen to show us how good his ‘English’ still was. So strange to hear English with a French/Scottish accent! Anyway, we had a good laugh with him, and then set off back to Riccall, hoping to find McDonalds for a wifi connection on the way. However, Louise got a puncture which would NOT stay reflated for more than a few minutes or yards. Alex hightailed it back to the boat for the puncture repair outfit which turned out to be in Louise’s saddle bag on her bike all along! Hey-Ho!
Eventually, after a quick repair, we got back to Riccall and had supper. ‘Elisabeth’ then appeared with her little French poodle ‘Mimi’ and her camera to ‘interview’ us, as it turned out, on our way of life. It appeared that she was running a sort of ‘get a life’ (Alex’s term) internet site where she was counselling people on how they could improve their lot.
She spent an hour or so with us chatting, and snapping and eventually sent us a link to her website where words like ‘relationship’, ‘romantic’ and ‘lifestyle’ were highlighted in the text of her description of us and our life on Riccall! We felt a bit non-plussed reading it!
The following day we pressed on and arrived back at Serignac, where we chatted with BODY AND SOUL’s owners Lucie and Malcolm who were already moored up. Nicky and Peter of AURIGNY had told us about Lucie and Malcolm, with whom they had spent much of the winter in their moorings at Meilhan and so we were pleased to meet them face to face at last. And of course they were great fun and we immediately clicked, as you do with some people you meet on the canals. Lucie is the most amazing cook and Malcolm plays a very competent piano (he has a keyboard installed on board their wide beam and plays regularly for private parties or for dinner and music cruises they hold from time to time).
After a couple of days, we regretfully moved on to Buzet where we were to spend a few days replenishing our stocks before the arrival of Richard and Robert.
However, on the day after we arrived ‘home’ Sara asked us to join everyone later for drinks at the restaurant. We later noticed a great deal of activity around the restaurant kitchen, involving Americans Walt and Gail and their visitors on LES VIEUX PAPILLONS. When we went to see what was going on we discovered that the evening ‘drinks’ to which Sara had invited us was actually going to be a full-blown Cajun feast which they were preparing as a surprise engagement/
early wedding party for Sara and Kevin, but that of course we were very welcome too. So we had a great evening together with all the other boaters plus several of Sara and Kevin’s friends from the locale and we got to try all sorts of unknown-to-us Cajun style dishes and somehow managed to come 2nd in the Louisiana-based quiz that Walt had devised. (I guess we knew as few of the answers as almost anyone else!)
Our journey to Meilhan was enlivened by two episodes of going hard aground while trying to moor up and it took 10-15 minutes in each case to extract ourselves. We also came across an established mooring where we had hoped to moor where the existing boats were so badly moored that the gap for us to get in was about 4m too small. This happens quite a lot on the canals and there is regularly much comment in our Dutch Barge Association magazine on ‘economy of mooring’. Either boat could have moved to let us in but neither captain was willing to trouble himself to do so. We hung about in Riccall for a good 5 minutes discussing the problem but to no avail and moved on towards Meilhan. We moored outside a canalside restaurant where we cycled into Marmande to book our rail tickets and finished off the evening with a nice meal.
Robert and Richard duly arrived at Meilhan in their hire car from Bordeaux airport and we set off for Castets-en-Dorthe. Rob steered for a while and then Richard but as we approached one of the bridges Alex took over to guide Riccall through, then as we got closer and closer doubts suddenly appeared in his mind. This one is lower than the rest! Full reverse and we pulled up with 6” to spare before the wheelhouse roof would have hit the bridge. Not another ROFF? Ah well – by the time we got to Castets an hour or so later, every single bridge on the Canal des Deux Mers (Midi and Garonne) had been noted as a ROFF (roof off) or a RON (roof on) so no more surprises we hope on the way back next year.
Castets-en-Dorthe is a rather grand name for a tired little village whose only claim to fame seems to be its position at the junction of the Canal Lateral a la Garonne and the river Garonne itself which at this point some 50kms inland is still tidal. The Garonne just now is very low after months of near drought as in the UK and all the farmers extracting water along its banks, but in the winter the level can come up dangerously high. In fact in the most famous flood of 1875 the waters came up as high as 11.75m - to the second floor of the lock house, and as recently as 1930 and 1950 over 10m was recorded! We had taken heed of the advice of several boaters to give the rather dull 5 hours down to Bordeaux on the river a miss (even though we are quite used to tidal work on the Trent and Ouse in the UK) and will visit Bordeaux by train or car later.
The hotel boat St Louis had preceded us to Castets and was already moored up on the first bit of available quay when we arrived so we had to go forward onto the next section. We knew that the pontoons were being replaced/extended as the port has been acquired by Veolia, a huge water and waterways enterprise in France, and we had seen a work boat operating as we arrived constructing further stretches of wooden quay. Another boater told us that though the work boat moored up on this bit of quay at the end of the day he thought we had left plenty of room for it to moor. The operator didn’t agree however, and made us move 20 metres right out of ‘his’ space. In fact he had us move so far and then only needed 3 extra metres. (The French, the French!!). The plus side though was that because the quays were still being worked on, mooring was ‘gratuit’ - one of the few words of French we have been glad to learn! (Normally €25 for one night, which is a bit steep by anyone’s standards).
We got back to Meilhan with Rob and Richard for their 6am start the next morning back to the airport. Sadly, the weather for the whole of their visit was very iffy, though it didn’t actually rain until the last day, and then, did it rain?!! We had managed to have a good barbeque in the sun the night we were in Castets though, so all was not lost.
The ST LOUIS moored the next day and Alex was able to commend Alistair on an excellent back-in moor-up – pretty difficult with a 30m boat, no bow thruster, and 6 guests all eating supper on deck! Alex had a chat with one of the crew members Lucinda, who runs wine tastings from her home base in Cahors and is one level below that of a ‘Grand Master of Wine’.
Unfortunately, we blotted our copybook that night when a group of us, including the two crew from the ST LOUIS congregated on BODY AND SOUL for after dinner drinks, and we had a hilarious evening until midnight when we all retired. On their return poor Lucinda and Cheryl got into terrible trouble for making too much noise! We felt a bit bad about that because we had all had a hand in it!!
On our way back to Buzet from Meilhan we stopped on the mooring at Mas d’Agenais and were helped to moor up by one of the boat captains already moored there. We thanked him and off he went, only to return shortly with an invitation to drinks a little later. We accepted gratefully and at the appointed hour wandered along. As we reached his boat we realised that this was one of the boats which hadn’t moved to make space for us several days previously. Oh dear! As we climbed on board the husband said to his wife, “Oh these are the people who were complaining about how we had moored without leaving enough space for them to get in”! Ah! So they had been within earshot, and had known that we wanted to moor and had done nothing about it! Some people are like that at the moorings. We just have to get used to it, take a deep breath and smile!
In fact, Bob of LA CHOUETTE was telling us that when he had tried recently to moor at Serignac and politely asked a cruiser if he could move along the quay a bit to allow him to get in the owner had been extremely rude, ‘f’ing and blinding about the size of LA CHOUETTE (30m). What he obviously failed to grasp is that the bigger the boat, the more we pay for our licence, therefore the more we contribute to VNF to keep the canals alive. But, fortunately, boaters as nasty as this are relatively rare.
We had an excellent meal for lunch on our final day back to Buzet at a new restaurant at Lock 42 – La Chope et Le Pichet (the tankard and the jug) – which we have passed a couple of times so far during its renovation. It had only just opened and mine hosts (Belgian) were very hospitable and the meal was excellent.
Back in Buzet after a few days it was Friday night, and Friday night is fish, chips and quiz night ‘a l’Anglais’ at the little restaurant in the port, run by the port capitaines Kevin and Sara. Twenty people in all and ten of us in our party – Ken and Rhonda from SOMEWHERE, Sam and Claire from NOORDSTER, Bob and Bobbie from LA CHOUETTE, Terry and Sandra from FELIX and ourselves. Well done to Kevin and Sara for a very nice meal, but we only managed third in the quiz this time!
Ken and Rhonda had told us of a good restaurant 6kms further into the countryside and we thought that would be a good place for lunch. An hour later after riding up hill and down dale, we arrived sweaty and tired at the lovely little village of Bardigues. But it was worth it, as the restaurant lived up to every expectation and we even found a less hilly, if longer, road back to Auvillar.
Moving on towards Agen we passed POMME DE MER, who had stopped for lunch at a rather nice-looking canalside restaurant and Nick had a few words with us (between courses) and later that day arrived in Agen where much to Louise’s amazement, we were able to moor in the basin, on the opposite side from all the bustle of the traffic and the hire base. We expected POMME DE MER would join us later, but in the event they moored just before the bridge into the basin, on good bollards which we too had noticed on our way through.
That evening we were approached by a French lady who chatted with us for some time and told us that she was interested in our lifestyle. We invited her back for a longer chat and a drink the following evening.
In the meantime Alex took a trip to Aldi – far away over the aqueduct – chatting to Nick and Sally on the way back who were waiting for the locks. Then, in the afternoon, we both decided to take a trip to Lidl for other supplies (notably gin) and set off in the direction which we had looked up on Lidl’s internet site map.
We were welcomed with open arms by the manager in Lidl who was French, but had spent ten years working in Lidl in Glasgow, and was keen to show us how good his ‘English’ still was. So strange to hear English with a French/Scottish accent! Anyway, we had a good laugh with him, and then set off back to Riccall, hoping to find McDonalds for a wifi connection on the way. However, Louise got a puncture which would NOT stay reflated for more than a few minutes or yards. Alex hightailed it back to the boat for the puncture repair outfit which turned out to be in Louise’s saddle bag on her bike all along! Hey-Ho!
Eventually, after a quick repair, we got back to Riccall and had supper. ‘Elisabeth’ then appeared with her little French poodle ‘Mimi’ and her camera to ‘interview’ us, as it turned out, on our way of life. It appeared that she was running a sort of ‘get a life’ (Alex’s term) internet site where she was counselling people on how they could improve their lot.
She spent an hour or so with us chatting, and snapping and eventually sent us a link to her website where words like ‘relationship’, ‘romantic’ and ‘lifestyle’ were highlighted in the text of her description of us and our life on Riccall! We felt a bit non-plussed reading it!
The following day we pressed on and arrived back at Serignac, where we chatted with BODY AND SOUL’s owners Lucie and Malcolm who were already moored up. Nicky and Peter of AURIGNY had told us about Lucie and Malcolm, with whom they had spent much of the winter in their moorings at Meilhan and so we were pleased to meet them face to face at last. And of course they were great fun and we immediately clicked, as you do with some people you meet on the canals. Lucie is the most amazing cook and Malcolm plays a very competent piano (he has a keyboard installed on board their wide beam and plays regularly for private parties or for dinner and music cruises they hold from time to time).
After a couple of days, we regretfully moved on to Buzet where we were to spend a few days replenishing our stocks before the arrival of Richard and Robert.
However, on the day after we arrived ‘home’ Sara asked us to join everyone later for drinks at the restaurant. We later noticed a great deal of activity around the restaurant kitchen, involving Americans Walt and Gail and their visitors on LES VIEUX PAPILLONS. When we went to see what was going on we discovered that the evening ‘drinks’ to which Sara had invited us was actually going to be a full-blown Cajun feast which they were preparing as a surprise engagement/
early wedding party for Sara and Kevin, but that of course we were very welcome too. So we had a great evening together with all the other boaters plus several of Sara and Kevin’s friends from the locale and we got to try all sorts of unknown-to-us Cajun style dishes and somehow managed to come 2nd in the Louisiana-based quiz that Walt had devised. (I guess we knew as few of the answers as almost anyone else!)
Our journey to Meilhan was enlivened by two episodes of going hard aground while trying to moor up and it took 10-15 minutes in each case to extract ourselves. We also came across an established mooring where we had hoped to moor where the existing boats were so badly moored that the gap for us to get in was about 4m too small. This happens quite a lot on the canals and there is regularly much comment in our Dutch Barge Association magazine on ‘economy of mooring’. Either boat could have moved to let us in but neither captain was willing to trouble himself to do so. We hung about in Riccall for a good 5 minutes discussing the problem but to no avail and moved on towards Meilhan. We moored outside a canalside restaurant where we cycled into Marmande to book our rail tickets and finished off the evening with a nice meal.
Robert and Richard duly arrived at Meilhan in their hire car from Bordeaux airport and we set off for Castets-en-Dorthe. Rob steered for a while and then Richard but as we approached one of the bridges Alex took over to guide Riccall through, then as we got closer and closer doubts suddenly appeared in his mind. This one is lower than the rest! Full reverse and we pulled up with 6” to spare before the wheelhouse roof would have hit the bridge. Not another ROFF? Ah well – by the time we got to Castets an hour or so later, every single bridge on the Canal des Deux Mers (Midi and Garonne) had been noted as a ROFF (roof off) or a RON (roof on) so no more surprises we hope on the way back next year.
Castets-en-Dorthe is a rather grand name for a tired little village whose only claim to fame seems to be its position at the junction of the Canal Lateral a la Garonne and the river Garonne itself which at this point some 50kms inland is still tidal. The Garonne just now is very low after months of near drought as in the UK and all the farmers extracting water along its banks, but in the winter the level can come up dangerously high. In fact in the most famous flood of 1875 the waters came up as high as 11.75m - to the second floor of the lock house, and as recently as 1930 and 1950 over 10m was recorded! We had taken heed of the advice of several boaters to give the rather dull 5 hours down to Bordeaux on the river a miss (even though we are quite used to tidal work on the Trent and Ouse in the UK) and will visit Bordeaux by train or car later.
The hotel boat St Louis had preceded us to Castets and was already moored up on the first bit of available quay when we arrived so we had to go forward onto the next section. We knew that the pontoons were being replaced/extended as the port has been acquired by Veolia, a huge water and waterways enterprise in France, and we had seen a work boat operating as we arrived constructing further stretches of wooden quay. Another boater told us that though the work boat moored up on this bit of quay at the end of the day he thought we had left plenty of room for it to moor. The operator didn’t agree however, and made us move 20 metres right out of ‘his’ space. In fact he had us move so far and then only needed 3 extra metres. (The French, the French!!). The plus side though was that because the quays were still being worked on, mooring was ‘gratuit’ - one of the few words of French we have been glad to learn! (Normally €25 for one night, which is a bit steep by anyone’s standards).
We got back to Meilhan with Rob and Richard for their 6am start the next morning back to the airport. Sadly, the weather for the whole of their visit was very iffy, though it didn’t actually rain until the last day, and then, did it rain?!! We had managed to have a good barbeque in the sun the night we were in Castets though, so all was not lost.
The ST LOUIS moored the next day and Alex was able to commend Alistair on an excellent back-in moor-up – pretty difficult with a 30m boat, no bow thruster, and 6 guests all eating supper on deck! Alex had a chat with one of the crew members Lucinda, who runs wine tastings from her home base in Cahors and is one level below that of a ‘Grand Master of Wine’.
Unfortunately, we blotted our copybook that night when a group of us, including the two crew from the ST LOUIS congregated on BODY AND SOUL for after dinner drinks, and we had a hilarious evening until midnight when we all retired. On their return poor Lucinda and Cheryl got into terrible trouble for making too much noise! We felt a bit bad about that because we had all had a hand in it!!
On our way back to Buzet from Meilhan we stopped on the mooring at Mas d’Agenais and were helped to moor up by one of the boat captains already moored there. We thanked him and off he went, only to return shortly with an invitation to drinks a little later. We accepted gratefully and at the appointed hour wandered along. As we reached his boat we realised that this was one of the boats which hadn’t moved to make space for us several days previously. Oh dear! As we climbed on board the husband said to his wife, “Oh these are the people who were complaining about how we had moored without leaving enough space for them to get in”! Ah! So they had been within earshot, and had known that we wanted to moor and had done nothing about it! Some people are like that at the moorings. We just have to get used to it, take a deep breath and smile!
In fact, Bob of LA CHOUETTE was telling us that when he had tried recently to moor at Serignac and politely asked a cruiser if he could move along the quay a bit to allow him to get in the owner had been extremely rude, ‘f’ing and blinding about the size of LA CHOUETTE (30m). What he obviously failed to grasp is that the bigger the boat, the more we pay for our licence, therefore the more we contribute to VNF to keep the canals alive. But, fortunately, boaters as nasty as this are relatively rare.
We had an excellent meal for lunch on our final day back to Buzet at a new restaurant at Lock 42 – La Chope et Le Pichet (the tankard and the jug) – which we have passed a couple of times so far during its renovation. It had only just opened and mine hosts (Belgian) were very hospitable and the meal was excellent.
Back in Buzet after a few days it was Friday night, and Friday night is fish, chips and quiz night ‘a l’Anglais’ at the little restaurant in the port, run by the port capitaines Kevin and Sara. Twenty people in all and ten of us in our party – Ken and Rhonda from SOMEWHERE, Sam and Claire from NOORDSTER, Bob and Bobbie from LA CHOUETTE, Terry and Sandra from FELIX and ourselves. Well done to Kevin and Sara for a very nice meal, but we only managed third in the quiz this time!
Wednesday, 1 June 2011
Toulouse to Moissac
We left Toulouse heading north for Montech and the Montech canal to Montauban. We spent a night at the marvellously named ‘Grisolles’ high quay, where we have stayed a couple of times before, then turned into the Montech Canal. Shortly before the first lock we moored on a good wooden, if rather shallow quay at Lacourt St Pierre, in front of a boat called ‘Careless Love’. We did think it a strange name for a boat. Did it mean making love without taking precautions? or perhaps loving somebody or something without caring for them? We didn’t like to ask the boaters themselves when they came over for drinks with us!! We had morning coffee with them the next day while we waited to see if the locks were going to operate that day, as there were no lock lights visible. As it turned out, there was an electricity outage so the locks were not operational until after lunch, but never mind, we set off down the flight at 2 o’clock passing the Rick Stein barge Rosa on her way up, and arrived in Montauban shortly after 4pm. We knew Aurigny was already there and had arranged for them to come to us for supper, so we moored up on the grassy bank just behind them.
Nicki and Peter and their daughter Laura came for a jolly supper during which, at one point, it rained so hard that we could barely hear each other speak above the noise of rain on the wheelhouse roof. France is not always sunny!
Aurigny left the next day and we moved forward onto the (only) quay mooring which they had vacated. Brian and Gill, with their daughter Sophie and her boyfriend Sandy were due to come for a day’s cruise in two days, so we did a whistle-stop tour of Montauban old town, noting as we crossed the bridge over the Tarn the level which the infamous 1930 inundation had reached. It had completely devastated the part of the town on the west bank which had had to be totally re-built, along with flood levees to prevent another such devastation. The River Tarn is now accessible here via a double lock down from the mooring basin and you can cruise for 7 kilometres up the river. But the round ring down through the 4 locks to Moissac is far from possible. The locks were abandoned years ago and need massive expenditure to bring them back into use, although this is said to be on the cards. It would make a magnificent cruising ring if it were to happen.
When we got back to the boat, we prepared for a quiet lunch and afternoon sitting on the back deck, only to see two enormous flat back trailers arrive loaded up with all the makings of what were clearly floating pontoons. (We had been told that this was going to happen ‘some day’ but clearly today was the day!) In fact they were about to install these precisely where we had moored the previous night. Had AURIGNY not left when she did, we would have had to breast up alongside her in order to give the workmen space to work.
So although we didn’t have the quiet afternoon we had planned, we did have a grandstand view of the whole operation of off-loading the trailers with a telescopic Manitou, then the lowering of the pontoons themselves into the basin and then the putting together of the whole set-up over the next day or two. Also while we were there a total of 15 Sapeurs Pompiers (firemen) arrived to conduct an exercise in the mooring basin – extracting an accident or illness ‘victim’ from a boat, complete with stretcher!
Gill and Brian et al arrived on Thursday morning and we set off up the flight of locks, stopping halfway for lunch. There was a space for us again at Lacourt St Pierre which was great as this was where Brian had parked their second car, and where we could get a good TV signal for Louise (and Alex) to watch the royal wedding the next day! After the wedding, we rode to Montech to warn the lock-keeper that we would be going down the Montech flight on the Garonne Canal towards Moissac the next day.
While in Montech we saw SOMEWHERE arrive, so we helped them moor up. Ken and Rhonda insisted we go aboard to celebrate the royal wedding and catch up on any other gossip, and sometime later we wobbled away on our bikes back to Riccall.
The next day we left our mooring just as SOMEWHERE arrived to take our place, and later moored up at a lovely little spot - also surprisingly vacant - at St Porquier. ANNA had been moored there when we travelled this way last month. While sitting on the back deck quietly reading in the afternoon sun, we suddenly became aware of a man cycling slowly past making a ‘Krrrroook, Krrrroook’ sound in a faintly pigeon-like voice! Alex did his pigeon imitation in reply to which he got a smile, but the guy carried on krrrooooking. Then out of the trees flew a pigeon which landed right on this man’s head! As he cycled on the pigeon flew off, then, when he called, it flew back to his head again, balancing as he cycled along. Bizarre!!
So, eventually, we arrived in Moissac and went straight down the two locks onto the River Tarn mooring which we love. We had promised ourselves a few days on this lovely mooring but as it turned out we were there for two weeks! SOMEWHERE joined us after a few days and we had lots of chats, drinks and the usual coffees etc both with them and with Dean and Karine, a Canadian and an American respectively who were working on a Dutch boat called THETIS. THETIS, it transpired, is owned and used by an American who employs Dean and Karine to prepare the boat each season before he and his guests arrive, then to winterise the boat at the end of the season. This year they are also going to take the boat back up north for the owner, then spend the winter at their own boat, moored in Leiden, living in their campervan while they continue to work on her.
Eric and Polly of AMAROK also joined us down on the Tarn, but sadly they were in the process of selling their boat to an American syndicate, so were rather busy negotiating with the potential buyers and then later removing all their goods and chattels. The good side is that the sale of their boat was relatively quick and straightforward: the downside is that they have loved boating and we have lost a couple of good friends from the canal network.
However while in Moissac there was the usual excellent twice-weekly market, a brocante on the quayside (car-boot or second-hand sale), a huge boules competition right beside the boat, which ran from 8am to 11.45pm for two days and a car rally which was a two-day affair using the area beside the quay for its set off and finish.
The mooring on the Tarn is just lovely, as the pictures show. Each year, all the boats have to vacate the mooring at the end of October and are not allowed back on the river until some time in April when the threat of flooding is over. When the floodwaters subside of course, the concrete quayside is left covered in mud. The local council are supposed to come down to re-fit the electric points and bring a water truck and power washing equipment to clean off all the mud, preferably before the boats come down again. This year, however, they did the re-fit of the electricity points but were delayed by some weeks with the washing. The boats had been down on the moorings for some time with the owners paddling along through the mud and then later the dust. Several boaters had taken matters into their own hands and washed the quay down or in one case, hoovered it to minimise the wind-blown dust! Having suffered a couple of days of being sand-blasted, and the whole boat covered in dust inside and out, we too did the decent thing and washed down our stretch of quay. By the time the washing truck came along – a week after we had left – pretty much the whole quay was already clean!!
Nicki and Peter and their daughter Laura came for a jolly supper during which, at one point, it rained so hard that we could barely hear each other speak above the noise of rain on the wheelhouse roof. France is not always sunny!
Aurigny left the next day and we moved forward onto the (only) quay mooring which they had vacated. Brian and Gill, with their daughter Sophie and her boyfriend Sandy were due to come for a day’s cruise in two days, so we did a whistle-stop tour of Montauban old town, noting as we crossed the bridge over the Tarn the level which the infamous 1930 inundation had reached. It had completely devastated the part of the town on the west bank which had had to be totally re-built, along with flood levees to prevent another such devastation. The River Tarn is now accessible here via a double lock down from the mooring basin and you can cruise for 7 kilometres up the river. But the round ring down through the 4 locks to Moissac is far from possible. The locks were abandoned years ago and need massive expenditure to bring them back into use, although this is said to be on the cards. It would make a magnificent cruising ring if it were to happen.
When we got back to the boat, we prepared for a quiet lunch and afternoon sitting on the back deck, only to see two enormous flat back trailers arrive loaded up with all the makings of what were clearly floating pontoons. (We had been told that this was going to happen ‘some day’ but clearly today was the day!) In fact they were about to install these precisely where we had moored the previous night. Had AURIGNY not left when she did, we would have had to breast up alongside her in order to give the workmen space to work.
So although we didn’t have the quiet afternoon we had planned, we did have a grandstand view of the whole operation of off-loading the trailers with a telescopic Manitou, then the lowering of the pontoons themselves into the basin and then the putting together of the whole set-up over the next day or two. Also while we were there a total of 15 Sapeurs Pompiers (firemen) arrived to conduct an exercise in the mooring basin – extracting an accident or illness ‘victim’ from a boat, complete with stretcher!
Gill and Brian et al arrived on Thursday morning and we set off up the flight of locks, stopping halfway for lunch. There was a space for us again at Lacourt St Pierre which was great as this was where Brian had parked their second car, and where we could get a good TV signal for Louise (and Alex) to watch the royal wedding the next day! After the wedding, we rode to Montech to warn the lock-keeper that we would be going down the Montech flight on the Garonne Canal towards Moissac the next day.
While in Montech we saw SOMEWHERE arrive, so we helped them moor up. Ken and Rhonda insisted we go aboard to celebrate the royal wedding and catch up on any other gossip, and sometime later we wobbled away on our bikes back to Riccall.
The next day we left our mooring just as SOMEWHERE arrived to take our place, and later moored up at a lovely little spot - also surprisingly vacant - at St Porquier. ANNA had been moored there when we travelled this way last month. While sitting on the back deck quietly reading in the afternoon sun, we suddenly became aware of a man cycling slowly past making a ‘Krrrroook, Krrrroook’ sound in a faintly pigeon-like voice! Alex did his pigeon imitation in reply to which he got a smile, but the guy carried on krrrooooking. Then out of the trees flew a pigeon which landed right on this man’s head! As he cycled on the pigeon flew off, then, when he called, it flew back to his head again, balancing as he cycled along. Bizarre!!
So, eventually, we arrived in Moissac and went straight down the two locks onto the River Tarn mooring which we love. We had promised ourselves a few days on this lovely mooring but as it turned out we were there for two weeks! SOMEWHERE joined us after a few days and we had lots of chats, drinks and the usual coffees etc both with them and with Dean and Karine, a Canadian and an American respectively who were working on a Dutch boat called THETIS. THETIS, it transpired, is owned and used by an American who employs Dean and Karine to prepare the boat each season before he and his guests arrive, then to winterise the boat at the end of the season. This year they are also going to take the boat back up north for the owner, then spend the winter at their own boat, moored in Leiden, living in their campervan while they continue to work on her.
Eric and Polly of AMAROK also joined us down on the Tarn, but sadly they were in the process of selling their boat to an American syndicate, so were rather busy negotiating with the potential buyers and then later removing all their goods and chattels. The good side is that the sale of their boat was relatively quick and straightforward: the downside is that they have loved boating and we have lost a couple of good friends from the canal network.
However while in Moissac there was the usual excellent twice-weekly market, a brocante on the quayside (car-boot or second-hand sale), a huge boules competition right beside the boat, which ran from 8am to 11.45pm for two days and a car rally which was a two-day affair using the area beside the quay for its set off and finish.
The mooring on the Tarn is just lovely, as the pictures show. Each year, all the boats have to vacate the mooring at the end of October and are not allowed back on the river until some time in April when the threat of flooding is over. When the floodwaters subside of course, the concrete quayside is left covered in mud. The local council are supposed to come down to re-fit the electric points and bring a water truck and power washing equipment to clean off all the mud, preferably before the boats come down again. This year, however, they did the re-fit of the electricity points but were delayed by some weeks with the washing. The boats had been down on the moorings for some time with the owners paddling along through the mud and then later the dust. Several boaters had taken matters into their own hands and washed the quay down or in one case, hoovered it to minimise the wind-blown dust! Having suffered a couple of days of being sand-blasted, and the whole boat covered in dust inside and out, we too did the decent thing and washed down our stretch of quay. By the time the washing truck came along – a week after we had left – pretty much the whole quay was already clean!!
Sunday, 8 May 2011
Spring Cruise: Buzet – Toulouse
Spring Cruise: Buzet – Toulouse
We are now back on Riccall at last for the new season. As usual we have changed our plans radically several times but the final version now appears to be fairly well set. We had been going to return across the Midi and back up the Rhone this year, leaving the boat at Avignon during July while we returned to the UK for friend and family weddings.
But, we have decided that while we have our ‘home’ here in the south of France, we should make use of it as a base from which to explore the region by car. So we will return to Riccall in the car after the weddings.
While we were in the UK we took up the present which Alex had given to Louise for her special birthday in October 2010 - two tickets for an early morning hot air balloon flight with Virgin Balloons. Louise has long held an ambition to go up in a balloon so this was a great excitement. Luckily for us, our very first booking went ahead: many of the other people were on their third or fourth booking, the previous ones having been cancelled because of poor weather conditions.
We left home in Newton Aycliffe at 5 am and flew at 7 from Ripley Castle, just north of Harrogate, in good weather, and the wind took us perfectly between Harrogate and Knaresborough, so we knew the local area well as we flew over it. The other 14 passengers had arrived from all round the country, Wigan, Hull, York etc and must have got a bit pissed off as we pointed out all the landmarks to each other as we flew over them!
We had a good landing, despite clipping the top of a dead tree as we came down near Wetherby, and were all treated to a glass of bubbly after we had helped pack away the balloon. Back in Harrogate by 9 am for coffee and croissants!! Well it was a (late) birthday day out, after all!
But now the cruising season has begun and we are about to leave for a trip to Toulouse where we hope to suss out the VNF (Voies Navigables de France - France’s equivalent of our British Waterways) dry dock and hopefully book a place for spring 2012. We hope that Ken and Rhonda of ‘SOMEWHERE’ are going to be still in the dry dock when we get there, which will mean we can have a close look at arrangements for docking though we have a niggling feeling that Riccall may be too deep for this dock, but everyone we ask has a different view!
In the meantime, we have had a short cruise with our friends Mike and Jean who are keen narrowboaters in the UK. They also very kindly brought some boxes of UK goods with them when they drove down here. We enjoyed two days and nights in beautiful weather and good company before they returned home.
We set off from Buzet a couple of days later and saw that AURIGNY was already at our first proposed mooring at Sérignac. We completed our mooring behind them before Nicci, who was reading or computing in the wheelhouse, realised we were there! Half an hour later, New Zealand friends of Peter and Nicci turned up in their shared cruiser PAPRIKA and we all had a jolly tea party on the quay.
A short time later a small French yacht turned up trying to find a mooring space. Alex took pity on them, assuming they had a deep keel and couldn’t just wild moor at the edge of the canal, and said they could moor on Riccall which they gratefully did. (It did transpire later however, that their depth was in fact only about one metre!) Just after our supper the French crew appeared with half a bottle of sweet white wine by way of thanks. They said they had drunk the other half at lunchtime and it had been very good. As the wine really needed a pudding to go with it, this inspired Louise to knock up her famous Eton Mess pudding and we took pudding and wine along to Aurigny to share with the others before the convivial evening’s drinking and chat.
A night’s mooring in both Agen and Moissac and then we stopped in Castelsarrasin and had coffee with Claude and Rose-Marie of GERMINAL whom we had last seen on the Petit Rhone in August. Then when we stopped for the night we saw ANNA up ahead and Mark and Annie came for drinks in the evening sun! It sometimes seems as if we have as many friends down here in the south of France as we have in England! And very nice it is too!
We eventually arrived on the outskirts of Toulouse and moored in the ‘Embouchure’ port. This wide port area some 4 kms out of the centre of the city, used to be a gathering area for barges waiting to go down onto, or just arrived from, the Garonne river, in the days when the river was the only way to travel between Toulouse and Bordeaux, i.e. before the Canal Lateral a la Garonne was constructed. Now it houses only a trip boat and a boat we had noticed last September when we passed through - a peniche called Sanctanox. Then, having clearly been a restaurant boat, it was undergoing lots of work, which as it turned out was to convert it into an advertising company’s offices.
One of the employees, Camilla, was clearly interested in us and came along to chat during one of her many ‘cigarette breaks’! We were painting our handrails at the time but she asked us if we would like to look around the peniche/office. We accepted readily but we said we would need to finish the painting first if that was OK. As it turned out, they all four left for an extended lunch break shortly after that and a little later, we took in a delivery of stationery for them while they were away. When they returned (at 3 o’clock!) we handed over the delivery and then went for a coffee and a look round the ‘office’, which was very typically modern: all black and silver and minimalistic – very impressive. Of course, we invited them back for a look round Riccall and they were pretty amazed at the accommodation we have and very complimentary, saying it is just like an English house.
The Embouchure port has, in fact three bridges out of it leading to three separate canals. The first is to/from the Canal du Midi which starts its 240 kilometres and 65 locks here in Toulouse. The second bridge is onto the Canal de Brienne which forms a short 1 km connection between the Garonne River and the Embouchure port. The third entrance/exit from the port is the Canal Lateral de la Garonne. Between the Midi and the Brienne is a world-famous bas relief in marble which depicts the Atlantic and Mediterranean seas. The two bridges which take the road over these two canals are known as the Ponts Jumeaux – the twin bridges. One early evening as we were sitting in the wheelhouse, a young couple arrived: she dressed in a long black coat and carrying a case of some kind. In the event they turned out to be a photographer and his ‘model’ come to the bas-relief to take some sort of publicity photos. She produced a violin and he a camera and they proceeded to spend the next hour or so taking pictures of her - with violin at rest, playing said violin, resting against the sculpture, with short skirt, with long skirt etc etc. Whether she actually WAS the violinist who knows? but Alex was certainly interested in the changes of costume!!
The next day and despite ferocious winds, we cycled to visit Ken and Rhonda in dry dock and spoke to Serge the boat engineer, who confirmed that we are indeed too deep-drafted for the VNF dry dock but he was able to offer an alternative where he could still do any work we needed, and booked us into the Ramonville dry dock for April 2012, also in Toulouse but a little further south. Serge comes with great recommendations from many people who have employed him to do work on their barges so we feel in safe hands – and he speaks good English: so important when trying to discuss technical matters.
The very next day Mike and Sally of ‘AILSA’ came for a coffee at 11 o’clock, having noticed us moored in the Embouchure as they travelled past in the navette from the airport. By the time we had finished we had had lunch and it was 5.30 in the evening! They invited us for dinner the following day and mentioned that there was a good bus service between our mooring and theirs in the central port St Saveur. So, as it was still very, very windy we caught the No 16 instead of cycling as we normally do, which got us to them in good time. But when we came to leave at 10.30 the last bus had already left at 9pm! The walk back took an hour and a half but, Hey! What the hell - it was a lovely warm and now windless evening.
Earlier in the day we had also been to see Ken and Rhonda again (to pick up the camera we had inadvertently left behind on our first visit) and we also took a trip on the trip boat from the Garonne River down through the lock onto the Brienne Canal to the Embouchure port and back again. This was the only way for us to do this short canal section as it is closed to private boats. The Garonne is said to be far too dangerous for ‘plaisanciers’. Wot! Worse than the Trent? I think not: we have travelled that many times.
Anyway, the staff of Sanctanox saw us get back from our day and as we had already told them of our intention to leave the next day, they popped across to say goodbye and give us a bottle of wine, as they were closing for the long Easter weekend. How nice!
We are now back on Riccall at last for the new season. As usual we have changed our plans radically several times but the final version now appears to be fairly well set. We had been going to return across the Midi and back up the Rhone this year, leaving the boat at Avignon during July while we returned to the UK for friend and family weddings.
But, we have decided that while we have our ‘home’ here in the south of France, we should make use of it as a base from which to explore the region by car. So we will return to Riccall in the car after the weddings.
While we were in the UK we took up the present which Alex had given to Louise for her special birthday in October 2010 - two tickets for an early morning hot air balloon flight with Virgin Balloons. Louise has long held an ambition to go up in a balloon so this was a great excitement. Luckily for us, our very first booking went ahead: many of the other people were on their third or fourth booking, the previous ones having been cancelled because of poor weather conditions.
We left home in Newton Aycliffe at 5 am and flew at 7 from Ripley Castle, just north of Harrogate, in good weather, and the wind took us perfectly between Harrogate and Knaresborough, so we knew the local area well as we flew over it. The other 14 passengers had arrived from all round the country, Wigan, Hull, York etc and must have got a bit pissed off as we pointed out all the landmarks to each other as we flew over them!
We had a good landing, despite clipping the top of a dead tree as we came down near Wetherby, and were all treated to a glass of bubbly after we had helped pack away the balloon. Back in Harrogate by 9 am for coffee and croissants!! Well it was a (late) birthday day out, after all!
But now the cruising season has begun and we are about to leave for a trip to Toulouse where we hope to suss out the VNF (Voies Navigables de France - France’s equivalent of our British Waterways) dry dock and hopefully book a place for spring 2012. We hope that Ken and Rhonda of ‘SOMEWHERE’ are going to be still in the dry dock when we get there, which will mean we can have a close look at arrangements for docking though we have a niggling feeling that Riccall may be too deep for this dock, but everyone we ask has a different view!
In the meantime, we have had a short cruise with our friends Mike and Jean who are keen narrowboaters in the UK. They also very kindly brought some boxes of UK goods with them when they drove down here. We enjoyed two days and nights in beautiful weather and good company before they returned home.
We set off from Buzet a couple of days later and saw that AURIGNY was already at our first proposed mooring at Sérignac. We completed our mooring behind them before Nicci, who was reading or computing in the wheelhouse, realised we were there! Half an hour later, New Zealand friends of Peter and Nicci turned up in their shared cruiser PAPRIKA and we all had a jolly tea party on the quay.
A short time later a small French yacht turned up trying to find a mooring space. Alex took pity on them, assuming they had a deep keel and couldn’t just wild moor at the edge of the canal, and said they could moor on Riccall which they gratefully did. (It did transpire later however, that their depth was in fact only about one metre!) Just after our supper the French crew appeared with half a bottle of sweet white wine by way of thanks. They said they had drunk the other half at lunchtime and it had been very good. As the wine really needed a pudding to go with it, this inspired Louise to knock up her famous Eton Mess pudding and we took pudding and wine along to Aurigny to share with the others before the convivial evening’s drinking and chat.
A night’s mooring in both Agen and Moissac and then we stopped in Castelsarrasin and had coffee with Claude and Rose-Marie of GERMINAL whom we had last seen on the Petit Rhone in August. Then when we stopped for the night we saw ANNA up ahead and Mark and Annie came for drinks in the evening sun! It sometimes seems as if we have as many friends down here in the south of France as we have in England! And very nice it is too!
We eventually arrived on the outskirts of Toulouse and moored in the ‘Embouchure’ port. This wide port area some 4 kms out of the centre of the city, used to be a gathering area for barges waiting to go down onto, or just arrived from, the Garonne river, in the days when the river was the only way to travel between Toulouse and Bordeaux, i.e. before the Canal Lateral a la Garonne was constructed. Now it houses only a trip boat and a boat we had noticed last September when we passed through - a peniche called Sanctanox. Then, having clearly been a restaurant boat, it was undergoing lots of work, which as it turned out was to convert it into an advertising company’s offices.
One of the employees, Camilla, was clearly interested in us and came along to chat during one of her many ‘cigarette breaks’! We were painting our handrails at the time but she asked us if we would like to look around the peniche/office. We accepted readily but we said we would need to finish the painting first if that was OK. As it turned out, they all four left for an extended lunch break shortly after that and a little later, we took in a delivery of stationery for them while they were away. When they returned (at 3 o’clock!) we handed over the delivery and then went for a coffee and a look round the ‘office’, which was very typically modern: all black and silver and minimalistic – very impressive. Of course, we invited them back for a look round Riccall and they were pretty amazed at the accommodation we have and very complimentary, saying it is just like an English house.
The Embouchure port has, in fact three bridges out of it leading to three separate canals. The first is to/from the Canal du Midi which starts its 240 kilometres and 65 locks here in Toulouse. The second bridge is onto the Canal de Brienne which forms a short 1 km connection between the Garonne River and the Embouchure port. The third entrance/exit from the port is the Canal Lateral de la Garonne. Between the Midi and the Brienne is a world-famous bas relief in marble which depicts the Atlantic and Mediterranean seas. The two bridges which take the road over these two canals are known as the Ponts Jumeaux – the twin bridges. One early evening as we were sitting in the wheelhouse, a young couple arrived: she dressed in a long black coat and carrying a case of some kind. In the event they turned out to be a photographer and his ‘model’ come to the bas-relief to take some sort of publicity photos. She produced a violin and he a camera and they proceeded to spend the next hour or so taking pictures of her - with violin at rest, playing said violin, resting against the sculpture, with short skirt, with long skirt etc etc. Whether she actually WAS the violinist who knows? but Alex was certainly interested in the changes of costume!!
The next day and despite ferocious winds, we cycled to visit Ken and Rhonda in dry dock and spoke to Serge the boat engineer, who confirmed that we are indeed too deep-drafted for the VNF dry dock but he was able to offer an alternative where he could still do any work we needed, and booked us into the Ramonville dry dock for April 2012, also in Toulouse but a little further south. Serge comes with great recommendations from many people who have employed him to do work on their barges so we feel in safe hands – and he speaks good English: so important when trying to discuss technical matters.
The very next day Mike and Sally of ‘AILSA’ came for a coffee at 11 o’clock, having noticed us moored in the Embouchure as they travelled past in the navette from the airport. By the time we had finished we had had lunch and it was 5.30 in the evening! They invited us for dinner the following day and mentioned that there was a good bus service between our mooring and theirs in the central port St Saveur. So, as it was still very, very windy we caught the No 16 instead of cycling as we normally do, which got us to them in good time. But when we came to leave at 10.30 the last bus had already left at 9pm! The walk back took an hour and a half but, Hey! What the hell - it was a lovely warm and now windless evening.
Earlier in the day we had also been to see Ken and Rhonda again (to pick up the camera we had inadvertently left behind on our first visit) and we also took a trip on the trip boat from the Garonne River down through the lock onto the Brienne Canal to the Embouchure port and back again. This was the only way for us to do this short canal section as it is closed to private boats. The Garonne is said to be far too dangerous for ‘plaisanciers’. Wot! Worse than the Trent? I think not: we have travelled that many times.
Anyway, the staff of Sanctanox saw us get back from our day and as we had already told them of our intention to leave the next day, they popped across to say goodbye and give us a bottle of wine, as they were closing for the long Easter weekend. How nice!
Thursday, 10 February 2011
Winter update 2010-2011
Well, we’ve been doing our usual rushing about this winter: back and forth to Buzet by train, plane, bus and car, and bringing hundreds of kilos of batteries, spares for the genny and packets of crisps and all the other things you either can’t buy or can’t afford to buy in Fabulous France!
The old Xantia did sterling work bringing the first load of stuff down (12 x 25kg batteries and the rest) but we realised that as it was costing so much to run we scrapped it and bought a 2003 diesel Clio (£700 per year cheaper to run - 60mpg instead of 33! And only £20 pa tax) we now feel we can visit friends and family and generally tour around in both the UK and France, which is what we like doing. Not many pics I am afraid for this posting, but by popular request (at least one) we offer you a link to ‘The Finding and Refurbishment of Riccall’ – the first part of which has now been posted.
www.riccallrefurbishment.blogspot.com
We thought most people would go to sleep just thinking about the refurbishment bit so in order to keep our seven readers of the ‘rambling’ blog on line, as it were, we posted the new blog under a separate title.
We will of course keep the old blog going and intermittently posted when the season gets started, but just to give a flavour of our winter, after our first foray back to Riccall in December we did a trip down to Louise’s son Robert’s and girlfriend Kerry’s for Xmas (well done them – it was lovely), via Julia and Steve’s, then a night with Alice and Mark before going back to base in Co Durham. Then we spent a night on the narrowboat, had a lovely early birthday lunch with friend Angela, a night with friends Mike and Jean near Rochdale and a visit to friends near Appleby, on the way to a wonderful weekend with Alex’s cousin Mary and her husband Martin in Glen Prosen in Scotland! On the return journey we stopped for lunch with long-time friends Nigel and Janet, and tea with ex-neighbours and friends Stef and Barrie, both near Alnwick. Phew!
In all these wanderings we have managed to completely avoid any semblance of bad weather, which considering the winter there has been so far in both the UK and France is nothing short of a miracle. Scotland was wonderful – covered in snow, but no problem in driving. Visits to cousin Dorothy, and entertaining Maurice and Judy, Paul and Diane, Derran and Jamie have also been managed, in between.
Our trip back to Buzet involved a night with Julia and Steve (again – poor things!) a visit to Louise’s son Richard’s future mother-in-law Sue for morning coffee, and then two nights with Alex’s brother David and wife Bun in Somerset.
From there to Buzet involved an overnight stop in a not-brilliant B & B near Abbeville, followed by a ten-hour drive to Buzet!
So there it is, and if we have inadvertently missed anyone out – it was great to see you too!
The old Xantia did sterling work bringing the first load of stuff down (12 x 25kg batteries and the rest) but we realised that as it was costing so much to run we scrapped it and bought a 2003 diesel Clio (£700 per year cheaper to run - 60mpg instead of 33! And only £20 pa tax) we now feel we can visit friends and family and generally tour around in both the UK and France, which is what we like doing. Not many pics I am afraid for this posting, but by popular request (at least one) we offer you a link to ‘The Finding and Refurbishment of Riccall’ – the first part of which has now been posted.
www.riccallrefurbishment.blogspot.com
We thought most people would go to sleep just thinking about the refurbishment bit so in order to keep our seven readers of the ‘rambling’ blog on line, as it were, we posted the new blog under a separate title.
We will of course keep the old blog going and intermittently posted when the season gets started, but just to give a flavour of our winter, after our first foray back to Riccall in December we did a trip down to Louise’s son Robert’s and girlfriend Kerry’s for Xmas (well done them – it was lovely), via Julia and Steve’s, then a night with Alice and Mark before going back to base in Co Durham. Then we spent a night on the narrowboat, had a lovely early birthday lunch with friend Angela, a night with friends Mike and Jean near Rochdale and a visit to friends near Appleby, on the way to a wonderful weekend with Alex’s cousin Mary and her husband Martin in Glen Prosen in Scotland! On the return journey we stopped for lunch with long-time friends Nigel and Janet, and tea with ex-neighbours and friends Stef and Barrie, both near Alnwick. Phew!
In all these wanderings we have managed to completely avoid any semblance of bad weather, which considering the winter there has been so far in both the UK and France is nothing short of a miracle. Scotland was wonderful – covered in snow, but no problem in driving. Visits to cousin Dorothy, and entertaining Maurice and Judy, Paul and Diane, Derran and Jamie have also been managed, in between.
Our trip back to Buzet involved a night with Julia and Steve (again – poor things!) a visit to Louise’s son Richard’s future mother-in-law Sue for morning coffee, and then two nights with Alex’s brother David and wife Bun in Somerset.
From there to Buzet involved an overnight stop in a not-brilliant B & B near Abbeville, followed by a ten-hour drive to Buzet!
So there it is, and if we have inadvertently missed anyone out – it was great to see you too!
Saturday, 6 November 2010
Moissac to Buzet-sur-Baise
In Moissac there is a double lock down onto the River Tarn where there are additional moorings run by the port, complete with water and electricity, and if you ask the local hotel nicely, free wifi. To encourage the bigger barges down onto the river the mooring rate is reduced. Needless to say we moved onto the river at the first opportunity and also had a fun cruise for 10k up river to the old abandoned lock then down to the confluence of the Tarn with the Garonne. We were the only boat on the river, or so we thought, until, returning, we met the restaurant peniche PORTHOS taking a trip up river as well - with 30 pensioners on board! Much waving and thumbs up.
While we were moored on the river, we were enjoying sitting in the sun one afternoon when a number of French army chaps came down the river in several small lightweight landing craft and we assumed they were on some sort of exercise. We thought we’d never know what they were up to, but next day, we set off up the double lock back onto the canal and on towards the west, and as we cleared the town a huge four-engined Hercules (or the like) flew overhead, and we were just in time to see about half a dozen parachutes opening in the sky behind it, right over the river confluence. So that’s what all the army boats were about – picking up the parachutists who were practising landing on water. We were treated to several more sorties while we travelled along as the plane flew round in circles dropping groups off each time.
We were also being entertained by a kingfisher which was flitting from branch to branch in front of the boat making it difficult to know which way to look, and sadly so fast it was impossible to capture such a lovely sight on camera.
We got to your next mooring, Malause, where there was water, leccy and nobody to take any money! We got the bikes out and rode the 6km or so west to Valence d’Agen for tea with Ken and Rhonda on SOMWHERE. Alex did some repairs to their generator bracket and we ended up staying for supper and were offered a lift back to Riccall in the car, leaving the bikes behind. The next day, Ken and Rhonda fetched us back to our bikes and we returned the long way round on the bikes in glorious sunshine, taking a closer look at Goltech power station and having a picnic lunch beside the Garonne near a village called Auvillar. As the centre was up a long and very, very steep hill, we decided to leave investigation of the abbey and apparently lovely village until we have the car.
The following day, in truly torrential rain Alex helped Ken bring SOMEWHERE up the three locks to our mooring point at Malause while Rhonda and Louise came by car (via coffee and a chat in a bar in Valence) – lucky them.
In the morning we said goodbye to SOMEWHERE and set off on the last leg of our trek westwards. A couple of days later we moored in Agen in a big basin in front of a boat called JAZZ. We were slightly surprised that they hadn’t popped out to take a rope, as we could see them in their wheelhouse, but a few minutes after we had moored up Ian and Jill came rushing over to us with total disbelief and apologies; we had arrived so quietly that they had just not noticed us at all till one of them turned round and there we were!
We had a good cycle round Agen - the old quarters, the old quay on the Garonne which was used when the river was navigable (just) before the lateral canal was built, and the aqueduct over it for the canal, all in lovely weather. While we were having drinks with Ian and Jill in the evening La Chouette sailed past – all 30 metres of her – with a cheery wave.
Our penultimate stop at Sérignac offered free moorings with water and electricity so that was good, but the inviting looking restaurant in the lovely village complete with ancient houses and church with a spiral steeple, had just closed for a month! So it was supper on board again, after we had cycled the 3kms to the Garonne in the mild evening sunshine just to have a look at it (and to get our afternoon exercise).
Finally we arrived at our winter moorings at Buzet-sur-Baïse where we found Bob and Bobbie of La Chouette already ensconced. Bob helped us moor up and they both came for tea, then Alex helped Bob reassemble his wheelhouse and we had evening drinks with them in it.
So that pretty well concludes this year’s cruising. We are moored here at Buzet with several other barges which we know and a few other boats we don’t. We will probably be the only couple living so much of the time aboard, so I guess when we get the car down here, we will doing our socialising by car, as we have friends moored about 50kms in each direction!
This winter, Alex is threatening to write the story of the finding, buying and conversion of Riccall in the blog, unless there is a vociferous howl of protest from the 6 people who read it. (Yes, we think it’s up to 6 this year!)
This year’s stats
Kilometres: 1,425
Locks: 301
Canals/rivers travelled: Canal du Marne au Rhin
River Moselle
Canal des Vosges
La Petite Saône
Saône
Rhône
Petit Rhône
Canal du Rhône à Sète
Etang du Thau
Canal du Midi
Canal Lateral a la Garonne
River Tarn
While we were moored on the river, we were enjoying sitting in the sun one afternoon when a number of French army chaps came down the river in several small lightweight landing craft and we assumed they were on some sort of exercise. We thought we’d never know what they were up to, but next day, we set off up the double lock back onto the canal and on towards the west, and as we cleared the town a huge four-engined Hercules (or the like) flew overhead, and we were just in time to see about half a dozen parachutes opening in the sky behind it, right over the river confluence. So that’s what all the army boats were about – picking up the parachutists who were practising landing on water. We were treated to several more sorties while we travelled along as the plane flew round in circles dropping groups off each time.
We were also being entertained by a kingfisher which was flitting from branch to branch in front of the boat making it difficult to know which way to look, and sadly so fast it was impossible to capture such a lovely sight on camera.
We got to your next mooring, Malause, where there was water, leccy and nobody to take any money! We got the bikes out and rode the 6km or so west to Valence d’Agen for tea with Ken and Rhonda on SOMWHERE. Alex did some repairs to their generator bracket and we ended up staying for supper and were offered a lift back to Riccall in the car, leaving the bikes behind. The next day, Ken and Rhonda fetched us back to our bikes and we returned the long way round on the bikes in glorious sunshine, taking a closer look at Goltech power station and having a picnic lunch beside the Garonne near a village called Auvillar. As the centre was up a long and very, very steep hill, we decided to leave investigation of the abbey and apparently lovely village until we have the car.
The following day, in truly torrential rain Alex helped Ken bring SOMEWHERE up the three locks to our mooring point at Malause while Rhonda and Louise came by car (via coffee and a chat in a bar in Valence) – lucky them.
In the morning we said goodbye to SOMEWHERE and set off on the last leg of our trek westwards. A couple of days later we moored in Agen in a big basin in front of a boat called JAZZ. We were slightly surprised that they hadn’t popped out to take a rope, as we could see them in their wheelhouse, but a few minutes after we had moored up Ian and Jill came rushing over to us with total disbelief and apologies; we had arrived so quietly that they had just not noticed us at all till one of them turned round and there we were!
We had a good cycle round Agen - the old quarters, the old quay on the Garonne which was used when the river was navigable (just) before the lateral canal was built, and the aqueduct over it for the canal, all in lovely weather. While we were having drinks with Ian and Jill in the evening La Chouette sailed past – all 30 metres of her – with a cheery wave.
Our penultimate stop at Sérignac offered free moorings with water and electricity so that was good, but the inviting looking restaurant in the lovely village complete with ancient houses and church with a spiral steeple, had just closed for a month! So it was supper on board again, after we had cycled the 3kms to the Garonne in the mild evening sunshine just to have a look at it (and to get our afternoon exercise).
Finally we arrived at our winter moorings at Buzet-sur-Baïse where we found Bob and Bobbie of La Chouette already ensconced. Bob helped us moor up and they both came for tea, then Alex helped Bob reassemble his wheelhouse and we had evening drinks with them in it.
So that pretty well concludes this year’s cruising. We are moored here at Buzet with several other barges which we know and a few other boats we don’t. We will probably be the only couple living so much of the time aboard, so I guess when we get the car down here, we will doing our socialising by car, as we have friends moored about 50kms in each direction!
This winter, Alex is threatening to write the story of the finding, buying and conversion of Riccall in the blog, unless there is a vociferous howl of protest from the 6 people who read it. (Yes, we think it’s up to 6 this year!)
This year’s stats
Kilometres: 1,425
Locks: 301
Canals/rivers travelled: Canal du Marne au Rhin
River Moselle
Canal des Vosges
La Petite Saône
Saône
Rhône
Petit Rhône
Canal du Rhône à Sète
Etang du Thau
Canal du Midi
Canal Lateral a la Garonne
River Tarn
Thursday, 21 October 2010
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!
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!
Monday, 11 October 2010
Carcassonne to Toulouse
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.
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.
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Homps to Carcassonne
We left Homps, passed Aurigny moored at La Redorte, which looked quite inviting, but we felt a bit early even for us to stop and moored instead at Puichéric – a couple of locks and kilometres further on We went into the village to suss it out. Everything was closed for Friday afternoon – the church, the shop, the wine cave, everything, so we returned to Riccall disappointed. We had another go on Saturday morning without much hope, but as it happened the shop and the wine cooperative were open (church still firmly closed) so we bought bread and wine and felt the trip fully justified.
The first floor office where we went to buy the wine backed onto the warehouse, which was a hive of industry. We could see rows of huge rectangular stainless steel vats with people darting about everywhere as the grape harvest was being weighed and unloaded from the steel farm trailers. Nobody was treading grapes or rolling wooden barrels about! In fact, it all looked so industrial you expected at any moment that steam would issue forth from the vats.
But the mooring we had found was a nice quiet spot and the weather was overcast and windy so we stayed another night, and on Sunday morning the sun came out, the sky was blue and we moved on.
The locks close between 12.30 and 1.30 hereabouts (pour le déjeuner don’t you know) and so we just squeezed through a triple lock by 12.30 and decided to stop for our lunch as well as we wouldn’t be able to get through the next lock anyway till 1.30pm.
As we struggled to moor up on an open section using tree roots to secure the boat, Alex suddenly noticed water on the back deck. As he slipped in it he realised - not water, but hydraulic fluid. Oh shit! So – stop engine, finish mooring up and do what we always do in a crisis – have lunch. Not the most relaxed of meals, but the sun was warm, the wind was gentle and fresh French bread and tapenade should have been fantastic.
After lunch Alex dived into the engine room to find a spare flexible hose for the hydraulic steering ram, the old one having disgorged a couple of litres of oil all over the deck from a pin prick fountain half way along its length. The replacement plus modifications was fitted, tested and passed OK so we were on our way again. At Marseillette we moored up on a nice new wooden quay with good wooden bollards and depth. Minor crises like the one we had just had always take it out of us and make us glad to stop for the day.
All day the plastic hire boats - bumper boats - whiz past us in both directions but from about 6 o’clock onwards, when we have settled down for our evening drinks, they start to roost.
They come past at about 10kmh, see that there is a mooring possible and put everything into reverse to stop. They moor up and then as likely as not, think, “It’s not perfect, let’s move on”, and off they go again.
At this mooring, for instance, we arrived at 3 o’clock. Since then one boat has left, three boats have arrived and subsequently left and there are now 3 boats in front and 3 boats behind us. One boat arrived, asked Alex if it was OK to moor. “Yes” said Alex, and five minutes later he left! Weird!
While we were at Palavas-les-Flots (seems about 10 years ago) we noticed a couple of guys walking along the side of the canal with a fishing net dipped into the water at the edge – sort of dredging! When we pulled in one of our buffer tyres there were a few mussels in it and tipping them out on the bankside we realised that this was what those guys had been ‘dredging’ for.
Imagine our surprise when today we noticed in one of our tyres, lying on the deck, a baby lobster! (We think.) We have no idea where we caught it or how long it had been trapped there, but it was good and dead now!
The plane trees which line both sides of the canal and give welcome shade in the height of summer, are now hiding the warmth we need from the sun, as the days settle into their cooler autumn pattern. Many of these aged trees have one or two bands of green painted on them and in many places there are notices indicating that boaters must not moor up nearby as the marked ones have a fungal infection. To our dismay we have learned that they are all to be felled, and even the roots removed this winter! We feel really lucky to have seen the Canal du Midi in all its glory before it happens. Of course these trees not only give the canal its character, but their roots protect the banks from the wash of the passing boats, and the falling leaves in autumn form a waterproof lining to the bottom of the canal. So when they are taken away VNF will also have to address the removal of both those benefits.
We stopped just shy of Trèbes and Alex moseyed up to take a look. Aurigny was there (snaffling the best place as usual – they get so lucky!). But we were invited to join them and their friends for drinks and good chat that evening. There was a space, along a bit, with two bollards just in front of a canalside restaurant. We moved Riccall forward and moored up, much to the interest of the restaurant clientele, cameras clicking, who were no more than three feet from the rather imposing Riccall flank!
Louise started to put together lunch while Alex looked for any untoward restrictions on the quayside. After a couple of minutes the restaurateur (somehow it was obvious who he was) came up to Alex and asked him to move Riccall forwards 20 metres. We were blocking his clients’ view! Alex said he couldn’t as there were no bollards further along: they both shrugged. He was not happy! And though we knew he had no right to ask us to move, after a lunch during the whole of which he stared daggers at us, we decided that mooring just through the town bridge where we had seen a good quay, would be quieter and less contentious, which it turned out to be. We cycled into Carcassonne to have a look at the mooring situation there, and actually managed to book a place on the quay for several days hence.
Our friends Gill and Brian popped in to stay overnight with us on their way home near Gaillac from Carcassonne airport and we had a lovely outdoor supper in a window in the weather giving warm sunshine and little wind.
The next day we set off for Carcassonne, but at the first lock, the éclusier came down to inform us that another strike was in progress that day (the retirement age again) and the locks were closed. Damn!
We moored up and in grey but dry weather cycled in to Carcassonne for the second time. As we arrived at the port we were amazed to see a sign on one of the moorings saying, ‘Reserved for Riccall’ and the date we were due to arrive! So now we really were committed (not like us). It poured with rain overnight but looked not so bad in the morning. Roof down – off we go!
First three locks OK but then a hint of rain. Next lock, two manoeuvring trip boats waiting, and raining harder now. We decided to moor up and put the roof back on, and a good thing we did. It started to pour. Off went the trip boats and after an age a couple of hire boats came down through the lock. The lock, of course, was now ready for us, but with a low bridge to negotiate to get in. The rain had eased, so – decision made – roof off and in we go. Just as we neared the top of the lock the rain started again in earnest and while Louise held onto the ropes on shore, Alex put the roof back into position, as the éclusier looked on in astonishment, smiled and gave us his approval. We knew that we could get through the next two bridges with roof on and that would get us to our quayside mooring, but the lockkeeper was very concerned to establish that we didn’t intend to go into the next lock whose bridge is also very low. No, we assured him, we are mooring before that point but good for him to warn us!
So, Carcassonne, here we are!
The first floor office where we went to buy the wine backed onto the warehouse, which was a hive of industry. We could see rows of huge rectangular stainless steel vats with people darting about everywhere as the grape harvest was being weighed and unloaded from the steel farm trailers. Nobody was treading grapes or rolling wooden barrels about! In fact, it all looked so industrial you expected at any moment that steam would issue forth from the vats.
But the mooring we had found was a nice quiet spot and the weather was overcast and windy so we stayed another night, and on Sunday morning the sun came out, the sky was blue and we moved on.
The locks close between 12.30 and 1.30 hereabouts (pour le déjeuner don’t you know) and so we just squeezed through a triple lock by 12.30 and decided to stop for our lunch as well as we wouldn’t be able to get through the next lock anyway till 1.30pm.
As we struggled to moor up on an open section using tree roots to secure the boat, Alex suddenly noticed water on the back deck. As he slipped in it he realised - not water, but hydraulic fluid. Oh shit! So – stop engine, finish mooring up and do what we always do in a crisis – have lunch. Not the most relaxed of meals, but the sun was warm, the wind was gentle and fresh French bread and tapenade should have been fantastic.
After lunch Alex dived into the engine room to find a spare flexible hose for the hydraulic steering ram, the old one having disgorged a couple of litres of oil all over the deck from a pin prick fountain half way along its length. The replacement plus modifications was fitted, tested and passed OK so we were on our way again. At Marseillette we moored up on a nice new wooden quay with good wooden bollards and depth. Minor crises like the one we had just had always take it out of us and make us glad to stop for the day.
All day the plastic hire boats - bumper boats - whiz past us in both directions but from about 6 o’clock onwards, when we have settled down for our evening drinks, they start to roost.
They come past at about 10kmh, see that there is a mooring possible and put everything into reverse to stop. They moor up and then as likely as not, think, “It’s not perfect, let’s move on”, and off they go again.
At this mooring, for instance, we arrived at 3 o’clock. Since then one boat has left, three boats have arrived and subsequently left and there are now 3 boats in front and 3 boats behind us. One boat arrived, asked Alex if it was OK to moor. “Yes” said Alex, and five minutes later he left! Weird!
While we were at Palavas-les-Flots (seems about 10 years ago) we noticed a couple of guys walking along the side of the canal with a fishing net dipped into the water at the edge – sort of dredging! When we pulled in one of our buffer tyres there were a few mussels in it and tipping them out on the bankside we realised that this was what those guys had been ‘dredging’ for.
Imagine our surprise when today we noticed in one of our tyres, lying on the deck, a baby lobster! (We think.) We have no idea where we caught it or how long it had been trapped there, but it was good and dead now!
The plane trees which line both sides of the canal and give welcome shade in the height of summer, are now hiding the warmth we need from the sun, as the days settle into their cooler autumn pattern. Many of these aged trees have one or two bands of green painted on them and in many places there are notices indicating that boaters must not moor up nearby as the marked ones have a fungal infection. To our dismay we have learned that they are all to be felled, and even the roots removed this winter! We feel really lucky to have seen the Canal du Midi in all its glory before it happens. Of course these trees not only give the canal its character, but their roots protect the banks from the wash of the passing boats, and the falling leaves in autumn form a waterproof lining to the bottom of the canal. So when they are taken away VNF will also have to address the removal of both those benefits.
We stopped just shy of Trèbes and Alex moseyed up to take a look. Aurigny was there (snaffling the best place as usual – they get so lucky!). But we were invited to join them and their friends for drinks and good chat that evening. There was a space, along a bit, with two bollards just in front of a canalside restaurant. We moved Riccall forward and moored up, much to the interest of the restaurant clientele, cameras clicking, who were no more than three feet from the rather imposing Riccall flank!
Louise started to put together lunch while Alex looked for any untoward restrictions on the quayside. After a couple of minutes the restaurateur (somehow it was obvious who he was) came up to Alex and asked him to move Riccall forwards 20 metres. We were blocking his clients’ view! Alex said he couldn’t as there were no bollards further along: they both shrugged. He was not happy! And though we knew he had no right to ask us to move, after a lunch during the whole of which he stared daggers at us, we decided that mooring just through the town bridge where we had seen a good quay, would be quieter and less contentious, which it turned out to be. We cycled into Carcassonne to have a look at the mooring situation there, and actually managed to book a place on the quay for several days hence.
Our friends Gill and Brian popped in to stay overnight with us on their way home near Gaillac from Carcassonne airport and we had a lovely outdoor supper in a window in the weather giving warm sunshine and little wind.
The next day we set off for Carcassonne, but at the first lock, the éclusier came down to inform us that another strike was in progress that day (the retirement age again) and the locks were closed. Damn!
We moored up and in grey but dry weather cycled in to Carcassonne for the second time. As we arrived at the port we were amazed to see a sign on one of the moorings saying, ‘Reserved for Riccall’ and the date we were due to arrive! So now we really were committed (not like us). It poured with rain overnight but looked not so bad in the morning. Roof down – off we go!
First three locks OK but then a hint of rain. Next lock, two manoeuvring trip boats waiting, and raining harder now. We decided to moor up and put the roof back on, and a good thing we did. It started to pour. Off went the trip boats and after an age a couple of hire boats came down through the lock. The lock, of course, was now ready for us, but with a low bridge to negotiate to get in. The rain had eased, so – decision made – roof off and in we go. Just as we neared the top of the lock the rain started again in earnest and while Louise held onto the ropes on shore, Alex put the roof back into position, as the éclusier looked on in astonishment, smiled and gave us his approval. We knew that we could get through the next two bridges with roof on and that would get us to our quayside mooring, but the lockkeeper was very concerned to establish that we didn’t intend to go into the next lock whose bridge is also very low. No, we assured him, we are mooring before that point but good for him to warn us!
So, Carcassonne, here we are!
Thursday, 16 September 2010
Beziers to Homps Canal du Midi
Today we tackled the flight of locks at Béziers. Not the best of days as it quickly turned very windy, but at least no rain. We were 11th in the queue so that should have meant we would be in the 4th set going up (two or three boats can go up together). But of course, two trip boats, which have priority, appeared and took the first two slots. Then as each set of three boats entered the first lock, the whole waiting queue shifted forward. So about every 15 minutes it was ropes off and move forward 50m or so. Not so easy with the wind. Then when we got to pole position we lowered the roof to accommodate the arched bridge over Lock 3, and almost got a round of applause. One boater thanked us for ‘marvellous entertainment’!
The first three locks in the staircase were OK as the male lockkeeper kindly helped us with our ropes – putting them over the bollards which were too high and distant for us to reach.
But then ‘Madame Eclusière’ took over for the next four locks and told us in no uncertain terms that her job was operating the lock controls and not putting ropes over bollards: one of us must get off the boat and do that ourselves. We had been forewarned about this attitude of course, but initially Louise refused, explaining that she would control the boat from the boat – it is better practice. Madame gave up arguing but her attitude was plainly offensive and designed to be just that. Louise has now perfected the phrase, “Madame, sans plaisanciers, pas d’emploi pour vous!”. All Madame wanted to do was press buttons, and of course she wouldn’t wait for us to be safely moored up before letting the water cascade in. Very dangerous behaviour in a so-called professional.
At one point the other boat in the lock with us was acting as a rather large fender for Riccall but no harm done! The flight was negotiated and we were on our way but stopped as soon as we reached a possible place as the wind was getting stronger and it had been a stressful day so far. We moored, to huge trees, beside what turned out to be a sort of gated holiday community, consisting of owned homes and holiday lets. The laptop indicated a very strong wifi signal which needed a name and code to access. Alex went in search of the operators of the development. At the locked entrance gate an English car appeared whose occupants invited him in! Reception said Non! to temporary wifi access and a second couple of Brits confirmed this was now the case, so after affable chats with two sets of English home owners on the site Alex returned empty handed.
The next day we moved to within 100m of the entrance to the Malpas tunnel where several mooring posts beckoned us to stop and moor up for the day, and glad we did, for the ancient settlement (the Oppidum d’Enserune) on top of the adjacent hill was fascinating. Its museum was bursting with artefacts which had been unearthed during excavation of the site, and the surrounding countryside where an inland étang had been drained in the 1300s, was a spectacular sight. The land had been drained and drainage channels had been dug which all converged on the centre. From here a deeper channel had been created leading back out of the étang and through the tunnel. This gave the landscape the appearance of a huge pie chart with the different crops giving different coloured segments!
The hillside through which the Canal du Midi runs actually has three tunnels running through it. Highest is the Canal du Midi: below this is the railway tunnel, and below that is the drainage tunnel from the etang! Responsibility for this last was given to a committee in the 1300s and the ‘descendents’ of that first committee are still responsible today for its upkeep, though judging by the state of the drainage channel, they may be neglecting their responsibilities somewhat.
After the inevitable night of a live band and fireworks just 100 m away from what we thought was a totally rural setting, we moved on next day, through the Malpas tunnel and towards our ‘bête noir’ the Capestang bridge. We moored up half a kilometre before the bridge and Alex cycled forward to recce the scene.
Moored just through the famous bridge were Balestra and Aurigny, plus a couple of hire boats and enough room for us. So we thought, let’s not hang about, let’s get on with it, and have lunch later! (The suspense was killing Alex – this has been in his mind as a potential turn-back spot for years!)
Alex set up extension leads to the front of Riccall, large and small angle-grinders, spare cutting discs, goggles, gloves etc just in case we came unstuck (or rather became stuck and needed to remove the forward handrails!) and we set off.
In the event we cleared the bridge with inches to spare and just touched one hand-rail, well towards the stern, when Riccall gently drifted over to one side. (At such slow speeds it is very difficult to maintain an absolutely straight line as there is no flow past the rudder.) Nevertheless, we got a round of applause from the watching boaters.
So we moored on tree roots (free) just beyond the bridge helped by Peter and Nicci, whose barge Aurigny had also squeezed through the day before. They came for celebratory fizz in the evening and we were still there in the dark at 9pm exchanging chat and stories, as you do.
We are at the time of year when the grape harvest is being gathered in. The weird-shaped, and very expensive, harvesters keep dashing back and forth together with grape carriers, and when we ride past the vintners, the smell of fermenting grapes is often overpowering (and not altogether pleasant) but that’s part of what this is all about!
Our batteries have been playing up lately. Alex checked them all when we were at Toul during the winter and they seemed OK, albeit showing signs of ageing. He hoped they would see this year out before being replaced – they’re about 6-7 years old. However, a recent check after several unexpected ‘low battery condition’ warning lights showed that three batteries were well down on performance. Removing these from the bank has improved things a bit, but not completely. We’re just hoping that we can survive the next couple of months or so until we get to our winter moorings and a steady supply of 240v electricity. Then we must decide how to get 10 heavy-duty batteries from the UK to the south of France. Do we do a car run and make an adventure out of it, or do we get them shipped? (No way could we afford to buy them in France – they would be four times the price!)
We are now moored at Homps (a much nicer mooring than it sounds!) where we are able to plug in to water and electricity for a couple of days and give the batteries a good long charge – not to mention doing all the cleaning/laundry and having long luxurious showers or baths. Hopefully plugging in for 48 hours will revive the batteries a bit.
The first three locks in the staircase were OK as the male lockkeeper kindly helped us with our ropes – putting them over the bollards which were too high and distant for us to reach.
But then ‘Madame Eclusière’ took over for the next four locks and told us in no uncertain terms that her job was operating the lock controls and not putting ropes over bollards: one of us must get off the boat and do that ourselves. We had been forewarned about this attitude of course, but initially Louise refused, explaining that she would control the boat from the boat – it is better practice. Madame gave up arguing but her attitude was plainly offensive and designed to be just that. Louise has now perfected the phrase, “Madame, sans plaisanciers, pas d’emploi pour vous!”. All Madame wanted to do was press buttons, and of course she wouldn’t wait for us to be safely moored up before letting the water cascade in. Very dangerous behaviour in a so-called professional.
At one point the other boat in the lock with us was acting as a rather large fender for Riccall but no harm done! The flight was negotiated and we were on our way but stopped as soon as we reached a possible place as the wind was getting stronger and it had been a stressful day so far. We moored, to huge trees, beside what turned out to be a sort of gated holiday community, consisting of owned homes and holiday lets. The laptop indicated a very strong wifi signal which needed a name and code to access. Alex went in search of the operators of the development. At the locked entrance gate an English car appeared whose occupants invited him in! Reception said Non! to temporary wifi access and a second couple of Brits confirmed this was now the case, so after affable chats with two sets of English home owners on the site Alex returned empty handed.
The next day we moved to within 100m of the entrance to the Malpas tunnel where several mooring posts beckoned us to stop and moor up for the day, and glad we did, for the ancient settlement (the Oppidum d’Enserune) on top of the adjacent hill was fascinating. Its museum was bursting with artefacts which had been unearthed during excavation of the site, and the surrounding countryside where an inland étang had been drained in the 1300s, was a spectacular sight. The land had been drained and drainage channels had been dug which all converged on the centre. From here a deeper channel had been created leading back out of the étang and through the tunnel. This gave the landscape the appearance of a huge pie chart with the different crops giving different coloured segments!
The hillside through which the Canal du Midi runs actually has three tunnels running through it. Highest is the Canal du Midi: below this is the railway tunnel, and below that is the drainage tunnel from the etang! Responsibility for this last was given to a committee in the 1300s and the ‘descendents’ of that first committee are still responsible today for its upkeep, though judging by the state of the drainage channel, they may be neglecting their responsibilities somewhat.
After the inevitable night of a live band and fireworks just 100 m away from what we thought was a totally rural setting, we moved on next day, through the Malpas tunnel and towards our ‘bête noir’ the Capestang bridge. We moored up half a kilometre before the bridge and Alex cycled forward to recce the scene.
Moored just through the famous bridge were Balestra and Aurigny, plus a couple of hire boats and enough room for us. So we thought, let’s not hang about, let’s get on with it, and have lunch later! (The suspense was killing Alex – this has been in his mind as a potential turn-back spot for years!)
Alex set up extension leads to the front of Riccall, large and small angle-grinders, spare cutting discs, goggles, gloves etc just in case we came unstuck (or rather became stuck and needed to remove the forward handrails!) and we set off.
In the event we cleared the bridge with inches to spare and just touched one hand-rail, well towards the stern, when Riccall gently drifted over to one side. (At such slow speeds it is very difficult to maintain an absolutely straight line as there is no flow past the rudder.) Nevertheless, we got a round of applause from the watching boaters.
So we moored on tree roots (free) just beyond the bridge helped by Peter and Nicci, whose barge Aurigny had also squeezed through the day before. They came for celebratory fizz in the evening and we were still there in the dark at 9pm exchanging chat and stories, as you do.
We are at the time of year when the grape harvest is being gathered in. The weird-shaped, and very expensive, harvesters keep dashing back and forth together with grape carriers, and when we ride past the vintners, the smell of fermenting grapes is often overpowering (and not altogether pleasant) but that’s part of what this is all about!
Our batteries have been playing up lately. Alex checked them all when we were at Toul during the winter and they seemed OK, albeit showing signs of ageing. He hoped they would see this year out before being replaced – they’re about 6-7 years old. However, a recent check after several unexpected ‘low battery condition’ warning lights showed that three batteries were well down on performance. Removing these from the bank has improved things a bit, but not completely. We’re just hoping that we can survive the next couple of months or so until we get to our winter moorings and a steady supply of 240v electricity. Then we must decide how to get 10 heavy-duty batteries from the UK to the south of France. Do we do a car run and make an adventure out of it, or do we get them shipped? (No way could we afford to buy them in France – they would be four times the price!)
We are now moored at Homps (a much nicer mooring than it sounds!) where we are able to plug in to water and electricity for a couple of days and give the batteries a good long charge – not to mention doing all the cleaning/laundry and having long luxurious showers or baths. Hopefully plugging in for 48 hours will revive the batteries a bit.
Saturday, 11 September 2010
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.)
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.)
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