As we were sitting on the deck having breakfast, the caretaker of the Roge Chateau grounds approached and asked whether it was our car in the parking area. We explained Erika’s situation, and he seemed OK, but they preferred no overnight parking to prevent people camping in the area because of the large numbers of children staying at the school camps. He explained that the whole area was owned by the Mairie, and was run as a school camp venue. He said that the water-skiers were tolerated as an external club, and asked about their behaviour. He reported that many others had complained about their behaviour and that they were encouraging them to find another base for the activities. Shortly afterwards, Erika headed off on her way back to Bern.

We headed out just as the water-skiers were starting for the day. Soon we left the sunshine and went under high cloud cover, which had the desirable effect of cooling everything down. A short 30 minute run had us tying up in Ste Sylvestre just before 11am. This was the only mooring on The Lot where we had to pay a mooring fee, even though the facilities were not as good as some of the other towns. Given the relatively small number of boats in port (on both sides of the river), we could hardly see how they could collect more mooring fees that it cost to collect them.

The view of the Notre Dame de Peyrigude at the top of the hill was quite impressive from our mooring.

Rita went off to check out the shops and the town, while I settled down to watch the Hawthorn-Essendon game. It’s been a long time since they played each other as the first and second teams on the ladder, and it should be a good game. I started composing some email responses to David for after the game. In the end, the Hawks ran out easy winners by 56 points to retain their position at the top of the table, with Buddy Franklin kicking 8 goals against his favourite team.

In the afternoon, we walked up to the top of Penne d’Argenais. It was a bit of an effort in the hot sun, although we followed an old man in his eighties for most of the way, but the first pression tasted great.

Penne d’Argenais is a lovely hilltop village with well restored and reconstructed buildings over many centuries (with the town having oscillated between the French and the English for some time). We went for a good walk around the town checking out the sights, and Rita found a nice cat that was in need of a good patting.

We then went to the very top of the hill and checked out Notre Dame de Peyrigude which we had seen from the river. While we were there, we checked out the reverse view, of our mooring from the Notre Dame, and of the Lot upstream of Ste Sylvestre where we would go tomorrow.

We then explored the grotto at the top of the hill which seems to go back several centuries.

We stayed up there for a crepe dinner at Cafe des Arts. The weeping cherry tree behind Rita reminded us of sitting on the deck at the Taggerty General Store having a Sunday morning coffee with Doug and Lynne!

We then walked back down the hill to the port. It was still very warm at 11pm, with the petanque area adjacent to our mooring doing lots of business until well after midnight. We went to sleep with the click and clack of petanque balls hitting each other.