Thursday 18 August - up the Baise, moor in lovely Vianne


Today was the start of a different part of our adventure; we were leaving the Garonne Canal to do some cruising on the River Baise. The Baise joins the canal at Buzet, next to the port we were in. A double-lock takes you down from the canal to the river. The river then runs for about 55km down to Valance-sur-Baise (that's down as in going south, but it's actually up in terms of elevation). We weren't sure how far we would get, but it would depend on river conditions and what we found to do along the way. For reasons that will be explained later, we only got as far as just beyond Lavardac, near the town of Barbaste. But all that will be described in good time.

The Baise was very different from the Garonne Canal. Generally narrower, twistier and with dense vegetation down to the banks. No mooring by the side of the water here!

After a short while on the Baise, we passed under the aqueduct that we had a few days earlier passed over as the canal crossed the river. Now was the time to remember the meaning of all those CEVNI signs we had memorised to pass the ICC exam back in April in Cambrai.

Which way do we go?

One thing we found was that the narrowness and tight bends in the Baise did not seem to slow down the plastic boat hirers! On a number of occasions, we were forced to take evasive action to avoid being hit by boats going too fast around the inside of bends, forcing them to drift across to our side. Fortunately, another boat caught up behind us, so we pulled over and let them pass, and then followed them up the river. In this way I could then follow in their tracks, and they were the ones who would first encounter boats coming the other way, forcing them over onto their side and slowing them down a bit so that we had an easier and less stressful passage.

Eventually, we reached the first lock, just short of the town of Vianne. As we had been warned, the locks on the Baise were very different to the locks on the Garonne Canal. When we arrived, another boat was coming down through the lock, so the boat we were following had tied up to the waiting pier. There was nowhere else for us to go, so we just had to wait mid-river, using the engine, rudder and bowthruster to keep us in reasonable shape, and counter the flow of water coming over the weir at the right.

Finally, the boat in front moved into the lock and we were able to take our place at the waiting pier. Even then, it was not all plain sailing. The green&white bollards (really just poles) had no "knob" on the top to prevent the rope slipping up and off. After a few false attempts, we worked out a way to keep it secure, but it didn't feel all that secure. Also the lock entrance was on a bend and the lock itself was very narrow (some barges cannot go up the Baise because the locks are too narrow for them). In addition, the locks are relatively deep. So, it all makes for a fun time. But we managed to get ourselves through, and were even congratulated by the six people on the boat ahead of us for our two-handed effort.

After all this work, we decided to moor in Vianne for lunch and to explore the town (another bastide) a little bit.

The town itself was very attractive (the compactness of bastide towns tends to give them a very special character). The wall around the town had four gates at the compass points, with cobbled roads crossing from one side to the other and meeting in the centre. The photo at left shows Rita walking from one of the gates through the middle of town to another gate.

In true French tradition, there were lots of deux chevaux around (these ones for hire).

As we explored, it began to rain, so we sheltered under a marquee and had coffee and ice-cream (well, we had to do something until the rain stopped!). But the rain did not look like stopping, and we could only handle so many coffees and ice-creams, so we made our way back to Kanumbra in the rain.

But the rain did not stop some intrepid photographers!

As the rain settled in, we realised that it was time to kick back. So we had an informal dinner on board, and then I settled down for an exciting evening on the laptop doing more data analysis on the Townsville travel survey for a client.