Thursday 15th August
Le Somail, where we picked up the boat from, is the tourist epicentre for the Canal du Midi. It is difficult to know why, it has a very nice bridge which looks good in photos (see above) but there are plenty of others on the canal, there are two boatyards, nothing special about that, and then three or four restaurants, two gift shops and a large second hand bookshop which is very “Hay on Wye”. The restaurants are packed both lunchtime and evening but they are not special either so what the attraction is we have no idea. It is a village smaller than Clun yet the restaurant we ate in last night had 30 tables, probably 120 diners and they were turning people away, amazingly they only had three waiters yet managed to cope just about.
This morning the boatyard did a bit of TLC on the boat for an hour then we set off to do the rest of the canal. It is noticeably busier now compared with two weeks ago but nowhere near as busy as the English canals.
The stretch between Le Somail and Beziers, which will take us two days does not have any locks but to achieve this it meanders round the hillside so you motor 10km to get 3km as the crow flies. After the excitement of locks and being angry at “jobsworth” lock keepers today has been a bit dull.
It was even duller after lunch when the Lucas museum curse struck again. We double checked the opening hours, cycled to the museum only to find it closed for no apparent reason other than they knew the British were coming - bastards.
Talking of bastards, you can moor almost anywhere along the canal for free however some local councils have realised that if they offer electricity, nice mooring rings and water they can charge a fortune. Two nights ago we moored in a nice council quay - no charge as the council want to attract visitors, today we moored in Capestang (picture below, can you spot our small boat?) and then we discovered they were going to charge us 22€ for the privilege, we upped sticks and moved half a mile along the canal where it is free and probably quieter.