We left au Canal in mid-morning, headed for Agen and points east. When we arrived at the bottom of the four locks leading to the Agen Aqueduct, there were several fishermen fishing in the canal, including a young couple who had spread themselves out across the waiting pontoon and had hung their fishing nets across the front of the pontoon, thus preventing anyone from mooring there. Luckily there were no boats coming down from the locks, so the wait was not too long. So I just ambled in mid-stream, going backwards and forwards along the length of the pontoon. Hope I didn’t scare too many fish away!

After a trouble-free run though the four locks and across the Aqueduct, we cruised through Agen harbour (still full of permanent mooring boats), and then stopped for lunch at the mooring area in Agen East. After watching a father and son playing petanque in the adjacent park for a while, we headed further east, eventually stopping about 1900h to overnight near the town of Laspeyres. At the point, the canal was between a roadway and the railway, so we weren’t quite sure how noisy if would be at night.

Again, we got the bikes down from the cabin roof, to ride to the nearby bastide town of Caudecoste. Along the way, we crossed the River Garonne, where the sky was setting itself up for an interesting sunset.

Nestled in the trees on the banks of the Garonne was Chateau St Philip, a restaurant/hotel/B&B that looked very interesting. A Google search later showed that it had no website and no prices were available, so it’s probably out of our league!

We then rode up the hill about 5km to the bastide town of Caudecoste. Along the way, we passed fields of sunflowers.

Like other bastide towns of Vianne and Damazan, Caudecoste was laid out around a town square, but unlike Vianne the bastide walls were no longer intact. There were several sections of wall, but nothing continuous. Also, unlike Vianne and Damazan, the buildings were not made of stone, but had a variety of ramshackle timber frame houses. Like many other towns we have seen, many of the buildings displayed large photos of local sites and identities.

After riding around the town for a little while, we’d seen all there was to see, so it was back down the hill and over the Garonne to get back to the barge for dinner and a good night’s sleep. Luckily the road and rail traffic died down after dark, and were not very intrusive.