9th August - Castelnaudray
The company who have hired us the boat said this was the worst year for business they have ever had. On some days last week we only saw one or two other active boats on the canal. This is a surprise bearing in mind this is peak season and we have passed many large boatyards with 20 or 30 boats lying idle (picture above is Le Boat yard in Castelnaudray today, 22 idle boats, probably £4 - 6 million pounds worth).
There are several theories about why; one is that the threat of a March Brexit discouraged British boaters (who make up half the normal trade) and who would normally have booked around Christmas. The poor exchange rate has also not helped so the brits have stayed at home. Another reason is that last October there was a terrible flood which washed away some of the canal banks as well as flooding entire villages, 13 people lost their lives so understandably this was very big news in France. A lot of people did not think the French waterways authority would get the canal back working by this season so the French also looked elsewhere for their holidays (incidently they have fixed the canal but many of the flooded houses are still uninhabitable).
A typical boat probably costs £200 - £600k so a boat not earning money is bad news. Our boat was a “last minute special offer” but not a huge discount, you do have to wonder why the companies are not discounting more or pushing harder (lastminute.com etc).
Still this is great for us, the canal is much quieter than the UK canals and apart for having to wait 10 minutes if the lock we are approaching is against us, the only hold-up so far was this morning when the automatic gates jammed, fortunately we were in the lock with a French boat (picture above) and he summoned the repair man on his phone rather us having to test our rusty school French.
We have been pottering along at a steady 4-5 miles an hour, this is also the norm for people who are in their own boats however the French holidaymakers seem to be on a mission to get from lock to lock as fast as they can. One boat actually rammed us as he tried to overtake and panicked because of some overhanging trees, his plastic boat came off worse against our steel one. At the next lock he was very embarrassed and then went steaming off the next lock three miles away. We pootled along behind, much to his annoyance the lock keeper had radioed ahead saying two boats on their way and he was kept waiting perhaps 10-15 minutes before we arrived, very satisfying.
The picture opposite is of a windmill in Castelnaudray where we are tonight.
Below shows us moored up yesterday lunchtime at a motorway service station! The motorway passes the canal so they have made it a feature of the service station with the cafe overlooking the boats, a nice little museum all about the canal and lots of other excellent little features like a large dog exercise area. Why can't we be more imaginative about our service stations?