Port Saint-Sauveur vanishing bike act; champagne at Castanet; Bo Peep and her boathook; my many and multifarious roles; lunch hour rules; important-little-towel philosophy; sympathetic éclusier at Sanglier; Le Diné at Port-Lauragais; the insightful M. Riches from La Rochelle

In the wee hours of our last day in Port Saint-Sauveur, Toulouse, neighbour Hans (Comtesse) had a bike nicked from our shared pontoon. In full view of the surveillance camera, someone had come through the gate – must have had a key – and carried the thing away, lock and all.

At 3pm, we headed west along the pleasant and shady 10km stretch to Castanet, the first lock between Toulouse and Castelnaudary. With temperatures climbing to 37 degrees, this was a relief after the concrete crucible of the port.

You pass first Port Technique, on the left; then Port du Sud on the right.

Just before Castanet lock, we moored at the landing stage on the right – the shady side, great! – two hours before 7pm, when the locks on the Canal du Midi close for the day. That was no problem; when red barge Lollipop came screaming in at two minutes to seven, she used the one on the left and just made it through.

Local boat contractor Serge Ribes and his wife Vanessa came over as arranged for drinks around 7.30pm – their BYO a chilled bottle of Canard Duchêne. It was “for drinking now”. Perfect!

Serge learnt a lot of his colloquial English by watching Seinfeld, he says. He and Vanessa live on Stella, a 1927 barge that is one of those enormous vessels we passed close to the dry-dock.

Castanet to Negra

Today, for the first time ever, I hung my forward rope over my shoulder, took my virgin boathook and crossed the bridge to the lock. How this worked:

1. I dangled my rope eye-first down to Roy as he entered the lock; he attached it to the forward bollard and I made the other end fast to a forward bollard on the lock-side.
2. I extended my boathook for Roy to loop his after-rope over it; but with Castanet being such a deep lock (nearly 5m), we only just made contact; I had to lie flat on my stomach.
3. I then looped his rope over an aft bollard, and activated the lock-filling mechanism. (On est montant, remember – we are climbing the locks.)

   

Vic lock was about half as deep, so easy-peasy. Then came a nice long 7.5km stretch to Montgiscard lock. We’re seeing a lot more traffic today, including big barge Gladys from Manchester.

A smaller boat was emerging from Montgiscard – or was it Ayguesvive? – as we arrived at noon. I got ashore and hurried off to prepare the empty lock, but the doors refused to open at my bidding. What’s more, no one answered the call button. What to do? Luckily, a humourless but handy English gongoozler  lent me his phone in order to call the number provided.

Putain! Canal du Midi locks close  for lunch from 12.30 to 1.30pm, and this was half-an-hour early. Only later would I find out, from the nice éclusier at Sanglier double lock, that the lunch hour for the Canal du Midi changed two years ago. It is now from noon to 1pm.

Little towel philosophy

Thought for the day about my many roles, all of which (for the sake of sibilance) must start with an “s”. They are: scribe, skivvy, spouse, stepmother, spider-slayer, sandwich-maker – and now scapegoat – Roy mislaid the little towel he keeps in the wheelhouse to dry his hands, and was convinced I’d made off with it. (It turned up where he’d left it, just outside the wheelhouse door.)

Overnight at Negra

As hoped, we found a mooring just before Negra lock, equipped with nice, fat old bollards.

Just over a kilometre up the hill from Negra lock, I discovered Montesquieu Lauragais – a dormitory town, apparently.

You’d think that with such a big town hall, such an imposing church and so well-equipped a playground that there’d be somewhere to buy a baguette. Sadly, that was not the case. (Let them eat sausage, declared the mayor.)

After Negra lock comes the newly automated double lock at Laval. Despite the Sanglier lock-keeper’s explanation the day before (or maybe because of it), let’s just say I had a little trouble with the buttons. It was not my finest hour.

Gardouch lock boasts a restaurant, L’Estanquet, and a beer garden. It has nice mooring, which does not seem to be private… but who knows? The no-mooring signs may be on the quayside, conveniently placed for any passing pedestrians to read. (It happens.)

Arriving at Renneville lock just after noon, we docked at the landing stage on the left and had lunch. At Encassens double lock, I had to walk up to the second lock to roust M. Éclusier out of his office – “J’arrive”, he promised, and did.

As I have mentioned before, some lock-keepers on this canal don’t give you enough time to readjust your forward line after dealing with the aft one. Once two lines have nominally touched the shore, the gates clang shut and the water pours in, fairly friskily here.

“With all the automation that’s happening, I think you’re one of the last éclusiers on the canal, Monsieur”,” I remarked – and in this case, without a whole lot of regret.

Finally, Embourrel. The lock was full, I pressed the montant button. Nothing happened. I pressed again – still nothing. So I pressed the button for help, and got a recording to leave a message. I did that twice. Rock music was coming out of the écluse house, and then out came M. Éclusier from Sanglier double lock. I could have kissed him!

He wasn’t on duty, he explained, but this lock-house was his home. He called someone else, talked at length, and eventually it all started working – luckily for us! Otherwise, we would have had to moor at the landing stage for the night and missed out on dinner at Port-Lauragais.

Dinner in the diner

At Port-Lauragais, we got exactly the same stretch of mooring as we did two years ago, surrounded by Nicol hire boats.

Dinner at spacious, friendly Le Diné, in the large complex that also houses the capitainerie, a sandwicherie and a terrace, was jolly good. (Not so sure about the carpet designed to look like wooden planks, though.)

Mine was a €19 formule: salade Lauragaise and confit de canard with a pile of green beans; Roy’s a $15 formule: tomato salad followed by chicken with aligot (potato and cheese mash).

What we saved on the €20 mooring fee, as the capitainerie was unmanned and would only open after our 8.30am departure, we spent on the better rosé option, a Gaillac.

Not sure either about this extract from the menu, though. It translates roughly as:

“Cassoulet* is the God of Occitane cuisine, a God in three people: God the father who is the cassoulet of Castelnaudary, God the son who is that of Carcassonne, and the Holy Spirit, who is that of Toulouse”

(*Cassoulet is of course one of southern France’s most famous dishes, composed of various meats including sausage from Toulouse, usually duck confit, sometimes pork and/or mutton, cooked slowly with the incredibly tasty local beans.)

Port-Lauragais to Castelnaudary

It was nice to meet and greet the walking couple who easily kept up with us yesterday from lock to lock. They planned to spend a night in Castelnaudary, they said – “On vous verra la-bas!”, “We will see you over there!”

At the second lock, Mediterrannée, you start going downhill, or avalant. (That means you enter a full lock, empty it, and depart at the bottom.) No longer did I have to go ashore before each lock with rope over shoulder and my Bo Peep boathook in hand.

Double lock Roc (manned by what looked like a girl student) was followed by triple-lock Laurens, with its own lock-keeper. Then came la Domergue, and then a lunch stop before our last lock for the day, la Planque.

We again saw our couple of walkers having lunch across the way, outside a little café, before their final 4km trek into Castelnaudary.

They came to say hello to us later, moored close to the capitainerie, and I found out that they were from La Rochelle, on the Atlantic coast. To my delight, the insightful M. Riches: (a) complimented me on my French, and (b) remarked how  I did everything on the boat, while my husband just stood behind the wheel, “Bob, bob, bob…”