I was up early to listen to the AFL game between the Hawks and the North Melbourne Kangaroos. After last week’s lacklustre performance against the Demons, the Hawks were out of the blocks early and held a 48 point lead by quarter time. They then held steady to run out comfortable 39 point winners, 96-57.

We had a relatively early departure from Buzet, as we waved goodbye to our friends on a trio of barges in the port.
 It is a fairly clear run from Buzet to Agen, apart from the double-lock just south of Buzet near the River Baise, and the set of four locks as you arrive in Agen, and then the run across the Agen Aqueduct over the River Garonne. At the double-lock near the River Baise, as soon as you clear the second lock (in the rear-vision mirror at left of photo below) you line up to cross a short aqueduct bridge over the River Baise.

Looking through the wheelhouse doors as you cross the bridge, you get a good view of the River Baise (which we explored last year) and the stone pebble paving which is very common in southern France.

As we cruised lazily along the canal leading up to Agen, we saw a tortoise sitting in the sun on a branch in exactly the same place as we had seen him when we were travelling west; but this time we were quicker with the camera and snapped him before he slid into the water.

We reached the base of the four rising locks at Agen in good time, and did not need to wait before entering the first one. Rita walked ahead after each lock to accept the ropes I tossed up from the bottom of each lock. After the fourth lock, we looked ahead to crossing the long aqueduct over the Garonne River.

As we were halfway across the aqueduct, we noticed a hire boat wobbling around in mid-stream at the other end of the aqueduct. This can sometimes be tricky as you come around a tight turn under a narrow bridge to be confronted by a set of lights. You need to wait behind these lights for oncoming boats to clear the aqueduct before you can proceed and sometimes you drift forward ahead of the red light telling you that you can’t proceed, and then you have to back up to be able to see the lights again. But this guy was out of control and at one point was wedged sideways across the canal, blocking movement in either direction. We just hoped he got it sorted out before we got across the aqueduct, and even slowed down a little to give him time to sort himself out. By the time we got there, he was at least back on his side of the canal and pointing in the right direction. So we were somewhat surprised when we were greeted by a torrent of abuse from him and his Spanish lady friend standing on the bow, accusing us of being too slow and even stopping in the middle of the aqueduct to takes photos of the river!! Since we knew he was talking utter bullshit we didn’t take too much notice of his ranting and raving, but could not resist responding with a few choice Australian phrases, which we knew they wouldn’t be able to understand anyway.

But this episode did reinforce a problem we had seen many times on the canal with impatient newbies getting into trouble and then blaming everyone else for their problems. This is caused, I think, by two issues with novice bargees who rent a hire boat. Firstly, because they rent for perhaps a week, they want to go as far as they can in that week to ensure they “get their money’s worth”. As a result, they drive too fast and are generally impatient in many other ways. Secondly, renters of hire boats get very little training in what they should be doing. Whereas Rita and I did six days of training before taking the wheel of Kanumbra, the hireboat renter is lucky if they get 15 minutes of training by the hire boat company before being cast out into the wild world. The photo below shows a typical example from Agen. The hireboat moorings are on the left of the photo, and the newbie has just been taken for their “training" in a quick loop out to the centre of the basin and then back to the mooring. Just enough time to be told how to use the steering wheel and the throttle lever, which is both accelerator and brake. In Agen, the situation is even worse because most newbies head off to the west, and so within their first 30 minutes they are confronted by the tight turn under the narrow bridge, the lights at the head of the aqueduct, then the aqueduct itself, then the set of four deep locks before they have even left Agen. No wonder they get themselves into trouble, and then cause havoc for everyone else!

Luckily, we were able to get a mooring spot again within the basin, since tomorrow we will meet up with Doug and Krista Bell who are arriving by train into Agen, as one leg of a European trip they are undertaking.