Homps – La Redorte – La Gravière – Marseillette – Trèbes – Carcassonne
Homps
Arriving in the little town of Homps, after a series of single and double locks, (having enjoyed more than 50 km without a lock, just twists and turns on the canal and a few more bridges that we felt required the bimini to be lowered), we decided to tie up within view of the top of the last lock leading into this village.
We wanted to take the bikes off and cycle further along to see if there were any suitable mooring spots for us. So we crossed the canal at the lock, and cycled along the tow path, and found ourselves in a busy, but small section of the canal. There are two hire boat bases here, located in cuttings off the canal, resulting in plenty of water traffic. The sides of the canal did allow boats to tie up, many appeared to be permanent residents, and there was a long space for hotel boats, but if we had found a suitable place, there was a fee, but no facilities, so we decided we were happy with our choice.
The village was quite small, with a small mini-mart closed for the holidays, naturally
but there was a small but acceptable supermarket on the edge of the village. The church was not open,
and while there were a couple of restaurants on the canal, none were going to be open while we were there. So, overall, a quiet little place. On our way back to Catharina, we stopped for a drink beside the canal at one of the little cafés, situated pleasantly under the trees.
Being close to the lock, there was plenty of activity, although it took the form of waiting for the lock to be ready for the boats that approached from our end. There was some evidence of queue-jumping – if a waiting boat tied up too far from the lock gates, another boat would pop past them and sneak in. But once the lock closed for the day, it once again became blissfully peaceful.
One evening, an English cruiser came up through the lock, and we recognised them from Ventenac (Bernard and Kathryn on Lejand), so they tied up just in front of us, and we had the obligatory drinks before they moved on the following morning.
We stayed a couple of nights because we wanted to take a ride out to another village and check it out. Olonzac, which we knew held a market on Tuesday mornings. Thus, on another fine sunny day, the bikes came off again, and we set off through the fields, arriving in Olonzac (see the map below) to find the market in full swing. It was quite large and featured stalls with somewhat more upmarket items than we usually see in these small villages. The main streets had all of the non-food stalls, which we later found set up all along narrow streets right outside the doors of locals’ houses.
The next morning, we set off to continue our journey, passing the two hire boat bases,
towards the little village of La Redorte. A single lock between Homps and La Redorte, which was now quite a treat for us to have to navigate only one lock at a time. Shortly after this, the bimini came down again for a bridge before another series of sharp turns in the canal. Crossing over a small pont-canal,
we passed a beautiful spillway (épanchoir), now classified as an historic monument. Building of the Épanchoir d’Argent-Double began in 1677, finishing in 1694 (after another of Vauban’s designs). Excess water flows automatically through the 11 arches and into the Argent-Double creek below.
Coming out of a 90° turn, we sounded our horn before reaching the next corner, to be greeted by an echo of another horn of an approaching cruiser.
We all waved as we carefully passed each other, delighted to find somebody other than us actually uses the horn to alert other boats to their presence when the route is not straight, or it narrows.
La Redorte
Approaching La Redorte, we elected to stop along the space reserved for permanent residents long enough to check out the moorings closer to the village itself. No one needed the space we occupied (a local chatted to us and said no boat was currently using that spot), and as we were only a few hundred metres from the port office itself, we decided to stay where we were. While there was neither power nor water, we did not need anything, so that suited us just fine.
Our English friends on Lejand were tied up further along, and we had another chat with them before cycling to the supermarket to stock up. This one was quite big, with a decent choice of well-priced wine and beer, so Ian made a second trip later on. Jeanne d’Arc was well-represented in the local church.
Cruising off the next day, we saw a number of other decent mooring possibilities just around the corner beyond a bridge, noting this for the next time we passed through.
Three sets of double locks were ahead of us, and a triple staircase too. We were getting the hang of these, but they are quite tiring. Standing off-board hanging onto a rope while the lock fills requires a fair amount of strength, so the number of locks we would do in a day was much less than we were used to. We found ourselves working out how many we were prepared to pass in a cruising day, so we could pace ourselves between suitable mooring spots.
We knew that at the second of the double locks (Ècluse de l’Aiguille), we should find metal sculptures. Joël Barthes, the éclusier, is well known for these pieces that he makes, often as not, using everyday nuts and bolts as well as reclaimed wood, creating comical characters and others that represent common objects and animals.
The sculptures were clearly visible as we rose into the second lock, featuring an outdoor gallery, with a garden bed filled with quirky interpretations, and several tables laden with smaller pieces. It was not hard to choose some as gifts, but it was challenging to contain our enthusiasm and to limit what we bought. The éclusier himself was delightfully friendly, allowing us to remain in the top lock while we strolled around selecting from his many creations.
We farewelled the singer and dancers, and the family playing in his backyard to face a triple staircase lock.
La Gravière
We knew there was a wild mooring along the canal before the village of Marseillette, marked on the map as La Gravière, and so we were delighted to find it free as we approached, and in no time we had ropes on and cold beers joining us on the aft deck after a busy day. It was so pretty, quiet and secluded that we stayed there for two nights. Ian even took the opportunity to have a couple of swims in the canal to cool off from the unremitting heat. The tow path (chemin d’halage) was right beside us, and along with the fairly regular hire boat traffic passing us in both directions, we saw many cyclists. We saw everything from professional cyclists to families with two or three young children, the smaller children frequently ‘towed’ behind one of the parent’s bikes. And often travelling for a week or more covering significant distances. Regular bikes. No batteries. Would that I could do that.
Marseillette
Going up through the next lock in the morning (a single, yay!), we spotted in front of us a long stretch of well-treed banks, providing plenty of shade, so we had one of our shortest cruises, coming up in the lock, and tying off a few hundred metres beyond it. We were now familiar with the stout wooden poles every 8-10 metres, generally with a deep notch cut into the pole to help keep ropes from slipping up and off. So we were delighted to settle here for the day. The ground down to the canal was rather steep, so it seemed more sensible to walk into town to explore.
Marseillette is another small village, with little in the way of shops or anything open. There was a small restaurant which seemed to be well-patronised, but we just wanted to check out the place. There was a cemetery (cimetière), which is always an interesting place to wander through.
We could not get into the church,
but peeping up above the local radio station, we spotted an interesting clock tower,
and set off to investigate.
In the 18th Century, Claude Chappe invented a system of optical transmissions to send messages rapidly through relay stations. Essentially, an optical semaphore system and the first successful telecommunications network in the world. His invention was so revolutionary that it attracted the interest of Napoleon I, who quickly leveraged the system for rapid military and administrative communication.
During the French Revolution, France was beset by several enemy nations, and the development of a system of rapid communication gave France a strategic advantage. A message that took four days to arrive by messenger was communicated in 40 minutes by Chappe’s system. The towers had two flexible arms that could be positioned to generate 92 different signals.
Two signals were combined to yield 8464 possible words or phrases, which were held in a 92-page code book accessed by using the first signal to specify the page and the second to identify the word or phrase on the page. Each tower had two telescopes fixed on each of the adjacent towers, and the tower was manned by attentive signalers throughout daylight hours.
Built in 1834, the Marseillette Tower, 14 metres high, was originally a relay station, but, along with the rest of the network, was made redundant with the development of the electric telegraph and Morse Code by Samuel Morse in 1838. While many of the towers in the telegraph system were dismantled following the introduction of the electric telegraph, the Marseillette Tower was acquired by the local council in 1858 to serve as the town clock tower. The tower we saw today.
Trèbes
Although the mooring was lovely and shaded, we felt we had to keep moving because we had some eagerly anticipated guests arriving in Carcassonne in a few days, so our next stop was to be Trèbes, only 15 km away, with just one triple lock in front of us. But of course, familiar as we now thought we were with these multiple locks, there had to be a new trick to this one. As we arrived, there were several hire boats settled in and waiting for their turn. I did the usual and hopped off to go up and chat to the éclusier. There were several boats coming down, a number of us waiting to go up, and in time he instructed us to enter the first chamber.
When our turn came, we realised the boat behind was not ready, and so we entered alone. Up we went in the first chamber, but had not realised that the éclusier had started a hire boat on its way down at the same time. When they were coming through the top chamber into the middle one, and we were about to enter the middle chamber, the éclusier literally had us pass each other in this middle chamber. They then continued down, and we completed our journey up. Bizarre, but it worked.
We decided to tie up just beyond the lock, as we did not know what spaces might be available a bit further along, since the canal in this town was pretty much taken up by a hire boat base. We found the now familiar wooden stakes along the bank and tied up to a couple of them amongst some rather unkempt undergrowth, but it would suit. There was a little repositioning of the ropes as hire boats seemed to leave the lock at breakneck speed, and we were being tossed around a bit, but eventually we felt secure enough to leave the boat. We took the bikes off (Ian pulled them up the steep slope to the tow path) and set off to explore.
We wanted to check out the remains of the historic flour mill, located beside the triple staircase. Several months earlier, it had been subjected to three bouts of arson. At risk of collapse, the waterway authorities (VNF) and various stakeholders agreed that navigation should be suspended in both directions while the damage was thoroughly assessed and the necessary elements of the now badly damaged mill could be removed safely. The building we saw was now boarded up and a sad reminder of what must have been a beautiful architectural example at one time.
In the other direction, we found the small village, but little to keep us occupied. The church was only open for church services, we did not come across shops of any great consequence and found ourselves back opposite the hire boat ‘basin’, if it could be called that – a slight widening of the canal to accommodate a small number of boats. We stopped at one of the cafés (several of those to tempt the hirers) and had a rather delightful snack while watching the antics of hire boats struggling to work out how to stop a boat in the allocated space. There was a series of about turns, aborted moorings and more. Very entertaining. (I am certain we have provided a similar degree of voyeurism over the years.)
And so we were ready to move off on the final leg of our journey to Carcassonne.
Carcassonne
On the approach to Carcassonne, there is the statistically lowest bridge on the Midi, the Marengo Bridge, the second-most-feared bridge on the Midi – just so you know. It is a few centimetres lower at the centre than Capestang, but it has a much gentler arch and less of a problem for the higher parts of a boat at extremes of width. Taking no chances, we cruised under with the bimini lowered and moored on the other side in the space between it and the lock that takes one into the main port. Larger boats like ours have to moor outside the port, which is reserved for hire boats, cruisers and hotel boats.
The entrance to the port, and our direction of travel, is a bridge at the gates of a lock. It is also pretty tight and would need the bimini to come down, so this time we would have to enter the lock with it down, partly occluding the bollard at the stern. Great, I was going to have to look at that bridge for several days before we attempted it. We had timed our arrival to meet two of our daughters at the nearby train station the following day, and to start their visit by spending some time exploring the delights of the mediaeval walled town set high above us.
Just after arriving, a chap hailed us from the pontoon with a message from his partner, who was demanding that we come into the main port for drinks. Stewart and Deb are Aussies from Queensland and part-owners of a very nice cruiser, Mizu. Although we had never met them, the jungle drums had alerted Deb to our imminent arrival. As instructed, after we had settled, we trotted up to the main port and had a delightful evening of conversation while being serenaded by a concert taking place across the harbour aboard the large “street art barge”, Europodyssée, which the town has taken over as a museum and platform for events.
Then off to bed. Early rise to make contact with the girls who would be arriving at Charles de Gaulle around 7 am.
One Response
Anothe lovely meander along the Canal du Midi, this time in an area very familiar to me! thank you both for sharing these delightful gentle cruises with us.