Hot and sunny with a cooling breeze. Set off at 9.00 a.m. to the next lock, La Domergue. The lock was empty, we hooted and the keeper filled it. On the lockside he had lots of birds in cages and an old caterpillar-tracked tractor. Mike had a chat with him about the tractor, (which was built before WWII, ran on petrol and was used for tending the vines), as we dropped down in the lock. 1.2 kms to the next lock, La Planque. This time the lock was ready and as we dropped down the chamber Mike chatted with an old chap on a bike whose accented French sounded Dutch. Into Castelnaudary, paused between the footbridge and the first road bridge and I went to get some bread (1,10€) while Mike kept the boat by the bank. As we passed through the moorings in the town we saw a British cruiser we’d done a few locks with; so we asked the skipper how much it had cost him to moor at Le Sègala and he replied that it had cost him nothing for mooring but 2€ for electricity. Told him we’d been told that the moorings at Castelnaudary were being renovated and end-on finger moorings were going to be provided, then the moorings (which up to now had always been free) were going to be charged at 24€ per night. The first boat of the day went past, a Locaboat heading uphill with a very large flag bearing the logo “Port du Ghent”. We trundled past the little yacht (whose owners we met the previous Tuesday) tucked in the moorings back of the island.
Crossed the big wide basin, noting that Crown Blue Line were now called LeBoat. A LeBoat hireboat, called Caprice 2, was trying (unsuccessfully) to get away from the quay above the four-rise staircase of St Roch. We could see the top lock was full and there was something coming up. The guy on the hire boat was Scottish and he said that the keeper had said it would be half an hour before his boat could go down the locks. We said we’d go down with them. The boat coming up was a 30m unconverted Dutch Luxemotor with a banner down its coaming proclaiming transport by water was X N° of times safer than road transport. He wanted the quay that we’d just backed up to as a tanker had just arrived to refuel him. We pulled out and round him, not easy with half a gale blowing across the basin, and followed the hire boat into the lock. (Read sometime later that the brave Frenchman, called Sam, who owned the Luxemotor called Tourmente, was trying hard to revive trade on the Midi canals by taking wine down to Bordeaux for export) The Scotsman told us it was his first ever boat trip and their first lock. There were two middle aged couples on board and they didn’t make too bad a job of their first locking. We dropped down the four chambers and left the bottom at 11.50 a.m. A Dutch yacht was waiting below to go up. 1.4 kms to the next lock. A Nichols hire boat went past heading uphill. Gay two-rise was ready. A young lady worked the lock from a control box by the middle gates. It was 12.20 p.m. when we left the bottom. Just a short run of 1.7 kms down to the next lock, three-rise Viviers, which was closed for lunch until 1.30 p.m. The Scots moored halfway along the pound and we moored on the stumps in the shade above the lock. At 1.30 p.m. we dropped down the locks on our own, no signs of the hire boat. Another LeBoat went past heading uphill. The lady keeper at Guillermin was very chatty. She had an ice cream tray control box and she showed Mike that there were even buttons to operate the traffic lights above and below the lock - but they didn’t work! Another very short pound to St Sernin. The stumps above the lock were occupied by two Locaboats who’d stopped for lunch. The French crews weren’t ready to continue, they informed me when I asked if they were waiting for the lock. They said the lock keeper was asleep. We sat and waited, crabwise in the wind as they were occupying the waiting area. The old guy in shorts wasn’t asleep. His lock was empty, he brought another hireboat up then we went down. Another short pound to Guerre. The lock was ready so we went in. Two large yellow dogs were lolling in the heat on the lockside but no sign of the keeper. Eventually the blonde keeper appeared; she didn’t understand what Mike said to her at all. She spotted a hireboat we’d just passed which was against the bank with its crew holding strings and said Ah there’s another “avalant” (downhill) to which Mike said no, he’s “montant” (uphill). She looked a bit bleary eyed, probably too much wine with her lunch and had just woken up. She closed the gates behind us and wandered off. She came back with her ice cream tray and remembered how to work the lock. A bloke arrived from a boat below and stood chatting with her. A lizard ran off the lockside (the lock was almost empty) and into the water. It managed to climb partway up the wall so I went to encourage it to go all the way up the wall before the lock filled again. We passed the péniche from Malause again, moored about 300m above the next lock, La Peyruque.
The lock gates were opening as we arrived and Winifred, one of the big blue-hulled hireboats that used to crash about in the Moissac area, came towards us - its British steerer struggling with the heavy boat in the side wind. It missed us, or to be more accurate we missed it! A duck and ducklings were in the chamber, so we shooed all the little ones from between the boat and the wall. 500m to La Criminelle where a young female student, (followed by boyfriend), worked the lock for us while the boyfriend sat on a bollard. 1.4 kms to the last lock of the day, Trèboul, a deeper one at 3,20m. It was empty, two hireboats had just come in to come up. We looked across to the Pyrénées in the distance to our right with the sun shining on their snow covered flanks.
On the left two new wind farms had sprouted from the tops of two hills in the Black Mountains. We sat on the aqueduct and waited for the hireboats to clear. The resident lady keeper was chatty so Mike asked if she knew the history behind the lock name of Guerre, (war in French) she didn’t, but she did know the history of La Criminelle. Mike didn’t understand much of what she said and I couldn’t hear her from where I was - holding the centre rope, but I remembered being told before that the name refers to the lock itself and I thought they said it was a killer of horses, somehow they got pulled into the canal and drowned. It was 3.55 p.m. when we left the bottom and set off on the last stretch to Villepinte. The wooden quay was empty, all ours. It was 4.00 p.m. we’d done almost six hours, the longest day yet. A young German couple were picnicking and they told Mike they’d seen a woman doing some washing at the old lavoir - so it was still in use like it was when we came here first in 1994. Mike said he could smell soap powder. I wouldn’t fancy washing my hands in there let alone putting the laundry in the canal. It looks clean, but bearing in mind there are only a few sanitary stations or pump outs in France…… We’d noticed the last three locks had been refilled behind us and the boat following us came past just as we were tying up. It was a very ugly new VNF boat, a square pan (no shape to it) with a hydraulic leg powering it at the back and a large crane arm with weed grabber at the front. Shortly after that Caprice 2 arrived and moored in front of us. We couldn’t get any satellite TV as the trees were in the way. Nothing on TV anyway so Mike took the dish down and put our “Make no waves” board out as there were still lots of hireboats passing at speed.
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