Gardouch to Castelnaudary

Sunday, September 16th

The canal was very peaceful when the sun came up around 7:30am. Because locks don’t open until 9:00am you just learn to take your time:

There were quite a few locks to get through today – the first half going up and the second half going down. It’s on this section here that you pass the “summit” of the Canal du Midi:

At the first lock we entered with one of the boats that spent to night at Gardouch with us. They were a  French couple, their young son, and the mother of one of the adults.  The father (captain) was just a little to precious about his boat, even though it was also a hire boat and was in a much worse state than our relatively well kept boat. When I managed to avoid hitting him, he cheered up a bit. 

 From then on he and his “crew” seemed to have more trouble maneuvering than his initial attitude suggested. We travelled with them for a while, only really communication with the grandmother – the wife looked like she’d rather be at home. They stopped for coffee, or perhaps a marriage breakdown:

We then “paired” up with another boat – English possibly; who knows ? - they never communicated. Whatever the company was like, it was nice to be going down rather than up – it’s somehow easier and a bit less stressful:

Prue also felt much more confident by the time we had negotiated about 10 locks and pulled into Casteldaudary for the evening:

What a lovely place Castelnaudary is. In addition, the port is extremely well equipped and welcoming. The charming French girl showed us and some other Australians the facilities – 9 euros for a lovely shower, access to washing machines, water and electricity for the boat, and WiFi!!!

After we cleaned up we went looking for the Centre Ville – it was also lovely, and included bars and restaurants that seemed to feed off each other – no G&T at the restaurants; no food at the bars; restaurants open for dinner at 7:30pm; bars close around the same time!

What better way to finish the day than a bottle of the local red, and cassoulet – a specialty of the region, and especially of Castelnaudary.