At St Jory, we had been a bit naughty by mooring overnight at the pontoon normally used for waiting for the lock to open. However, we had not moored till nearly 7pm (when the locks officially close) and we suspected that no one else would be coming up from the south because of the sunken twister at Ecluse 1. However, that meant that we were moored between the twister and the lock at St Jory and hence would need to back up to operate the twister in the morning. However, this was not required as a German boat came up the lock just before we were ready to depart in the morning and they twisted for us after they had passed us.

We had an easy run all day with Peter and Judy doing the rope work as Rita cleaned the barge. Along the way, we passed an old peniche that we had seen on the way down. Clearly, it hadn't been anywhere for a long time and was just being used as a residential boat, but it had a bit of everything on board.

We got to Castersarrasin just before 5pm; a full day ahead of schedule, mainly due to the speed of locking with a bigger crew and the fact that the skippers could swap and get a bit of a rest without stopping the barge.

We also saw only four boats all day; two up and two down behind us. We captured all of them in one photo as we went through the five-locks at Montech!

We tied up on the town side in Castelsarrasin next to the fountain, because we wanted to connect to shore power in order to do some washing.

It was here that I learned one of the dangers of barging, as I was putting out the gangplank, when I heard a strange tearing sound as I bent over to put it on the ground. There goes my favourite pair of jeans )-: