Sunday 4th August
We reached the top, the dizzy height of 200m above sea level, I might have to start worrying about altitude sickness, garlic soup all round. Up until now we have been working our way up through the locks to the canals highest point – the pass of Naurouze – where the canals creator Pierre-Paul Riquets finest achievement was to build what was in 1666 the worlds largest reservoir to keep the canal supplied with water even at the end of summer. On Saturday night we moored up in a nice village called Gardouch (pictured above) which has a canalside restaurant (pictured left) where we managed to make a reservation and had an excellent dinner.
This was better than Friday night in Le Segala when we walked along to the only restaurant in the village to find they were full, they suggested another place two miles away so we got on the bikes and had a nice ride along a country road to find it was also full but they said if we waited an hour they could fit us in.
So we waited an hour and a half and had a very pretentious meal which was not as good as the Tuns. By the time we finished it was pitch black so the cycle back was quite exciting especially after consuming a couple of G&T's and a litre carafe of the local vino.
From now to Toulouse it is all down hill through 11 locks all of which have been automated. I have mentioned how surly most of the lock keepers are, well their days are numbered. The waterways company have started to automate all the locks starting from Toulouse and working their way east. The first automated lock we came across had no instructions and apparently the day before all the labels had been ripped off as well, I am not sure what the French equivalent of a Luddite is but it seems they have a few in the lock keepers ranks.
The automatic system performs in exactly the same way as a real lock keeper, it even stops at noon for an hours lunch! Perhaps the computer needs a byte to eat (sorry about that I could not resist it). Left shows our lunch stop waiting for the automated lock to also have it's break.
Picture above is of the contol panel, no security, anyone can come along and press the buttons, don't French teenagers have any imagination?
One surprize has been that almost nowhere offers WiFi. None of the bars or restaurants on route so it is only in the larger towns that we are able to update our blog and get emails. This update will almost certainly have been done when we arrived in Toulouse where we expect to stay a couple of days.