We woke to a peaceful morning on the river, and then had breakfast on deck waiting for the lock to be ready for us to go up to the canal. Around 0930h, two boats came down to the river to catch the outgoing tide, and then we went up through the lock from the Garrone.

We then moved onto the second lock, where we got our bikes off the deck of Hilda May. After we said goodbye to Stuart and Christine and while we were getting ourselves ready to cycle, a weed muncher entered the lock to go down and do some weed-munching between the two locks which was quite weed-infested.

We again said bye to S&C as they waited to enter the third lock on the canal, and realised fully for the first time that even when riding very slowly, bicycles are much quicker than barges!

We rode for about 40 minutes to Fontet, where we had a short break next to the marina and the swimming lake, and then headed on. As we passed Meilhan, we noticed how empty the port was. There were lots of barges moored for free along the canal, but none in the port itself (apart from one hire barge). What a waste of a good resource, especially considering how vibrant the port had been in the past.

We continued riding along the canal, then headed off towards Marmande, before taking to the back roads to ride to Coussan, where we had lunch with Terrie and Phil Chatfield, who were renovating an old house. Given our experience in Moissac, we were interested in comparing notes. The big difference is that Phil is doing most of the work himself, given his previous life as a builder.

After a sumptuous French lunch of cheese, pate, bread and wine, we got to inspect progress on the house. The house is two storey plus attic. Several internal walls have been removed to open up the living space.

In the attic, there was an interesting mixture of old and new. The old curved beam supporting the roof, and the new steel reinforcement of the main beam that was simply too far gone at one end. The stones and tiles that were evident in the exterior walls are carried though onto some of the interior walls that will be left unrendered to display the interesting stone and tile patterns.

After a very pleasant couple of hours with Terrie and Phil, we headed off to ride to Marmande over the suspension bridge crossing the Garonne River, to take the train back to Moissac. All-in-all, a very interesting two days, and a good way to keep our minds off Frank's illnesses.