Thursday 10th July 2008 Vic to St Jory C. du Midi

Hot and sunny. We took a trip to the Intermarché in Castanets to buy some bread and a new straw hat for Mike then back to the boat to get ready to move off. Just after 10 a.m. we pulled up stakes, I retied the blue cruiser and then walked down to the lock. As Mike backed out into the channel a Nichols hire boat came round the corner also heading downhill. An elderly French couple with a dog seemed a bit bemused to share the lock with a strange boat like ours. When the lock emptied we all pulled our ropes in and the cruiser came away from the wall, so Mike indicated for them to go first. It was 10.40 a.m. as we set off on the 1.7 kms pound to Castanets lock. The dredging tip was just below the lock; a pile of mud, tyres and old motorbikes marked the spot. When we got to the next lock the French lady off the hire boat came to catch a rope for us and apologised for not being “with it” in the previous lock as she had loosed her rope off too soon. I assured her it had been no problem. The café on the towpath side above the lock was already busy. Castanets lock was a deep one, 5m, and the usual residential keeper had to indicate to the hire crew to untie their boat before he drew the paddles. I told them to beware that it was 5m deep. The ropes that the hire company had issued with the boat were several metres too short for the depth of lock so the guy on the back had to loose his off before the chamber was completely empty. They were going to stop in Toulouse so we wished them a good holiday as they left the lock. The VNF tug with a full pan of dredgings was waiting below the lock to go up to the tip and an empty boat and tug was waiting to go the other way moored by the houseboat péniche. 12 kms to Bayard lock in Toulouse. The moored houseboats started just before Ramonville and continued all the way to the Toulouse periphérique (ring road). Beyond that it was cool and shady with a double line of plane trees, but noisy from two cycle paths, one on each bank, a road on one side and lots of planes flying overhead. We went past the University buildings and moored for lunch next to the redundant floating stop lock gates (now superceded by modern radial gates which protect the aqueduct over the motorway link road) just while we ate a sandwich for lunch. We arrived at the top of Bayard lock at 1.35 p.m. as their lunch break finished. We turned the pole before the bridge on the blind bend above the lock; I took the mast off, (the bridge was a low one) and when we got a red/green light we carried on through the bridge as there was a large group of very drunk clochards (tramps) sitting by the waiting area. We hovered by Violette and Occitania, the two restaurant boats above the lock. The last three locks on the canal du Midi are now remotely operated by a keeper in an office next to the last lock. Mike took the boat in and I put our centre rope on a vertical bar in the wall. Eventually the gates shut and after another wait the paddles opened, slowly; the boat descended, slowly. Then another wait for the gates to open. Wonderful bit of VNF technology, shame it had to have a human operator to interfere with it and slow it down. The other two locks were worked in just as inefficient manner. We wound through blocks of high rise flats with busy roads on each bank, noisy and smelly. Down Minimes, slowly, and down the short pound to the last lock, Béarnais. A young lady came out of the lock office and asked if we were OK with just the centre rope. We dropped down as before, slowly, and waited another five minutes after the bottom gates cracked open before whomever was pressing the buttons decided to open them. It was getting hotter and hotter. More new flats were being built and it was even noisier than before. At 2.45 p.m. we turned off the canal du Midi on to the canal de Garonne in the port d’Embouchure. There was a narrowboat moored beyond the resident péniche, too far away to see its name. We ran on past the long line of moored houseboats at the start of the canal and on down the straight section leading to the first lock, Lalande, past the floating footbridge and the guy who lives in boxes under the motorway bridge. Above the lock there was a group of kids learning to canoe. More kids were playing at jumping off the wooden landing for the lock - we kept well away from it and them. Turned the pole to activate the lock and hovered around while it filled. Another group of kids had set fire to the grass between the lock house and the railway track, they were trying to beat it out and one was trying to put it out with a couple of inches of water he had scraped from the edge of the canal bank in a bucket. A VNF man came out from the lock house to chat as we went through the lock, so we told him about the kids setting fire to the grass, but he didn’t seen at all perturbed by it (we would have called the fire brigade! The flames were slowly advancing towards the railway tracks). As we left the lock the gates started to close behind us until the VNF man, who had come down the steps to the tail end of the lock, put a hand over the sensor causing the lock to go “en panne” and two red lights came on. We wondered why he did that? Was he just testing the system? We had a glass of ice cold coke as we ran down to lock 2, Lacourtensourt. Turned the pole and the gates opened as the lock was already full. A cyclist stopped on the lock side for a quick drag on a fag! The lock house was inhabited and a 4x4 stood outside, but there was no one around. A short pound lead to Fenouillet lock 3. The lock was empty and started to fill after we turned the pole. There were loads of cyclists on the towpath/cycle piste, must be the fact that the Tour de France is on at the moment and would be racing in Toulouse city centre at the weekend - that always brings out the lycra-clad brigade. An old blue van stood outside the lock house; again, nobody about. Left the bottom at 4.15 p.m. heading down the 3.7 kms pound to lock 4, Lespinasse. Lots of new houses with swimming pools had been built along the canal on the left hand side, the railway follows the right bank very closely. After the houses there were lakes beyond the canal bank. Turned the pole, the lock filled and we went down, ropeless, as we usually do at all the automatic locks without keeper interference. 1.87 kms to lock 5 Bordeneuve. Turned the pole, the lock filled and we went down again. 1.95 kms to the last lock of the day St Jory, N° 6. We turned the pole and nothing happened!! Tried ringing the call out number and got an answering machine, so I jumped off at the wooden landing stage above the lock and went down to the lock to use the intercom. The guy who answered asked if I’d turned the pole (it’s hire boat season and I suppose he had to ask), yes, and nothing happened; so he said he would be there shortly - he came out of the VNF shed on the lock side! He went in the office at the end of the lock house and pressed buttons in there. The lock worked OK. He ‘phoned the lock below. I told him we weren’t passing through the next lock we were stopping below this one, so he ‘phoned again and was on the ‘phone all the while we locked through. At 6.00 p.m. we moored at the end of the piling in front of an unusual narrowboat with high bows like a small Dutch barge, called The Grand Duchy. Had a wave from its skipper as we were tying up. Another cruiser was moored where we had stopped on the way up, tied to the roots under the trees. Glad to get in the cabin out of the glare of the sunshine and the heat.

Wednesday 9th July 2008 Day off at Vic. C. du Midi

Sunny and warm. Blue skies all day. Had a lazy morning and spent the afternoon taking advantage of 3G Internet connection to catch up on emails, etc.