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Published: October 8th 2006
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La Peyruque
In all her glory Like I said, we met up with Bill and Keiko, Masa’s parents, on the 23rd of September in Villefranche. We had some lunch there, and for the first time tried Cassoulet, a kind of stew/casserole dish made with white beans and duck. It’s good but very very heavy. We ordered a cab and made our way to an even tinier dot on the French map called Negra. We got our canal boat there, “La Peyruque” and after some instruction and setting up of things we were on our way down the Canal du Midi.
All in all we went through roughly 67 locks… I think. About maybe a third of them we were going up the canal and the rest we were “locking down” or going down river (doesn’t take a genius to figure that out, I know.) The locks were the most interesting part of the boat trip, I’d say, so I’ll provide photos to show you how it was done. Basically, you float into the lock, the close the doors and either let water in (up) or out (down) until you are at the level of the other side of the lock or of the next chamber in
Locking Up
we'd jump out either before hand or climb up a ladder on the side of the lock and hold onto ropes to make sure the water rushing in didn't send the boat all over the place. when the boat was at level, we'd jump back in. this is masa holding onto the rope while the boat is being raised. multi-chamber locks. Sounds simple, but you also need to make sure the boat is not knocking around during the process so you’re holding onto all these ropes as the boat goes up or down. Anyway it was fun and if I do say so myself, we were a pretty good team. Other boats were all over the place but we were pretty darn smooth.
The first night the wind was seriously ferocious and we came unmoored in the middle of the night and lost one of our pins (that you hammer into the ground and tie the boat to). We all four got up and Masa and Bill were able to tie the boat up to a tree but the pin seemed to be gone as much as they looked on the muddy grassy ground in the pitch dark. In the morning it was still gone, but luck of luck, Bill found an abandoned on while he was walking down the embankment. This saved us having to deal with trying to track down a new one.
We stopped in many of the small towns along the way, some of which were nice and some of which were hole
Locking Up - pt 2
That's Masa's mom Keiko holding the rope this time. in the proverbial wall. The first couple of days we had something of a food crisis because we started late in the afternoon on a Saturday in the middle of nowhere, meaning there wasn’t a market around. We luckily managed to find a small tiny little market in the town of Garouche not far from our starting place on the first night. We got some fruit, bread cheese, water, and “yogurt”. Upon further investigation back at the boat the yogurt turned out to be, in fact, baby food. But not tiny baby food, it was, after all for 18-36 month olds so it was drunk anyway. Tasted a bit like Ensure, said Masa. Keiko likened it to bland milk. But like I say, we were in a bit of a crisis in the nourishment department so we didn’t waste. We lasted on that food and the small amount of provision we had already brought for another three meals because as we were leaving the last lock before a town called Castelnaudary on the second night, the clouds rolled in super fast and it began to rain torrentially and it was getting quite dark so we stopped about a half hour
short of the town.
Next day we made it to Castelnaudary early enough to visit their market and went a little crazy buying food for the boat. You would too if you’d seen what we’d put together for dinner the evenings before. (that said, I have to add that we were certainly not starving and though our meals were odd assortments of baby food and sesame tortilla bendy things, with cheese and crackers, they were pretty good - as was the company. And the boat was actually very cozy and nice during the downpour the night before. We were definitely not suffering in the least.)
So we stocked up, showered in real showers, did some laundry, ate a bunch of Cassoulet, ran along the canal and generally enjoyed ourselves in Castelnaudary. The next day we set off again for the longest and most lock intensive portion of the cruise. On the way to a larger town called Carcasonne, we went through 23 locks. Twenty-Three times we jumped off the boat, threw the ropes around the bollards, held on as any one of the totally incompetent boats we encountered came into the lock with us, flailed all over, lost
control of their ropes and generally caused mayhem. Twenty-three times is a lot and we were pretty tired when we got to Carcasonne. Oh and Masa and I ran the length between two of the locks - about 4.8k. when we were done, we were tired and grateful for all the great food we’d acquired in Castelnaudary. Even though we were in a town at the end of the day and in no danger of starving.
Day 5 on the boat we met up with the Alkires’ friends Judy and Suichi and toured around the Castle in Carcassone. Now, our guidebook told us that Carcassone is the place where the story Puss in Boots was set, but try as we might, we could not find a single reference to the tale. Rats. Anyway it was a decent town and we had a great lunch in the Castle village (which was pretty much exclusively tourist shops and restaurants on the interior of the old castle.) That evening we stayed in Carcassone again.
The boat trip was amazing. It was relaxing, we got to see a lot of the country side which was unbelievably gorgeous (and we have about 5
locking down
this requires holding the rope while the boat is being lowered. Easier because you can just jump off the boat as you get into the lock, but then there's the matter of flipping the rope off the bollard. billion pics to prove it). We also got to visit towns that are way off any other means of tourist transportation and therefore just more lowkey and sleepy which was ok with us. I think everyone had a great time, I know I did. It was certainly one of the highlights of the trip, and I’d recommend it to anyone. One funny thing is that the people we probably saw the most along the way was a couple from Victoria, and live not far from where the Alkires live. Strange, and small, world, no?
Our second to last night we stayed out in the middle of nowhere which was nice, though it was near a bog and the mosquitoes were rampant. And the last night we stayed back at the main LocaBoat port so we could return the boat all clean and ready at 8 the next morning.
After giving the boat a final once over, we caught a cab to Narbonne where we met up once again with the friends of the Alkires. We wandered a bit around Narbonne, visiting an old Roman Church and the Market there, but Masa and I had our bags with us
four boats in a lock
got kind of cozy in there, especially with some of the yahoos we encountered along the way. But we made it without any serious damage. we rule. so we couldn’t really go far. In the afternoon we caught our train to Montpellier, where we parted with Bill and Keiko - they headed directly to Paris to leave for home the next day and we stayed on in Montpellier for a couple more days.
This was the 30th. Back at home one of my oldest and dearest friends, Susan, was getting married and I was missing it. I know that life goes on even though we are gone, but I was really sad to have had to miss Susan’s wedding. I got some pictures from my mom, who attended, and Susan was a gorgeous bride. I am so happy for her.
Anyway that sums up the boat trip. What a great and relaxing week. Many many thanks to Bill and Keiko for putting all of that together and inviting us along. We both had such a wonderful time.
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Congratulations Susan