A cooler night gave us a good sleep, and we were up all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed around 0900h. While I spent the morning updating this website, Rita was working on a proposal for an event to take place in Marysville in 2019 as part of the recognition of the 10 years since the 2009 bushfires that wiped out the town. The idea is a celebration of various eras in the town’s history, represented through music from the various eras. In many ways, it was inspired by our witnessing  the "Au Fil de L’Eau” pageant in Valence d’Agen in August 2011. The idea has now been floated for possible funding, so we’ll see what support it gets form the local community.

In the early afternoon, we headed off to cycle to nearby la Reole, on the banks of the River Garonne. We got a different view of our mooring place, and the old Church where we played petanque, as we went over the bridge at the eastern end of the bief.

To get to la Reole, we took a back road which ran around the base of the flood protection levy that separates the River Garonne from the fields in the valley. This concrete levy, about 5m high, runs from the canal through the fields and links up with the approach to the main bridge into la Reole. Such levies are widespread along the Garonne (when it floods, it really floods), with another one just behind Phil and Terrie’s house in Coussan protecting them from the Garonne as it flows past Marmande.

The approach into la Reole over the Garonne is spectacular, with the old town on the right of this photo and the old Cathedral and Benedictine Monastery (since 1790 this has been the Mairie and administrative offices) on the left.

We rode/pushed our bikes up the hill on the narrow streets between the river and the Monastry, and since the lunch period (1200-1400h) was nearing its end, we decided to grab some lunch at a local cafe. As we sat there after we had ordered, we sensed something was wrong; there was something in the air. And what it was was the scent of eucalyptus in the air; we looked around us and found a small Buxton Gum (Buxton is 10km from our home town of Taggerty) growing in a flower tub behind our table. We couldn’t resist stealing a leaf, crushing it between our fingers and taking a whiff. Instant homesickness!!

After lunch, we went over to the Monastery and took a walk around inside and outside. Given that this is now the home of the Mairie, the building is well maintained and very open to the public, and lots of locals were wandering in and out attending to their business with the Mairie offices. Given the magnificence of the building, it would make coming in to pay your Mairie bills a real treat! At the north-western end of the building, there is a large open courtyard which backs onto the rear of the Cathedral, with its amazingly detailed stained glass windows.

Running off this courtyard is a short corridor that leads to what was the main entrance to the monastery, with fabulous wrought iron gates forged by the master ironworker Blaise Charlut several hundred year ago. Still magnificent! I should pay thanks at this stage to the two French men who were having an animated conversation in front of these gates when I arrived. I waited a while, and then when they saw I wanted to take a photo, they stood aside and backed up against the stone walls on either side of the corridor. Thank you for giving me a clear view of the gates, and thank you also for providing some scale to the gates. As you can see, the gates are about 5m tall.

We could have stayed exploring la Reole for a lot longer, but we dragged ourselves away in mid-afternoon to head for the little town of Hure, just up the canal from Fontets, because we wanted to check out the town itself, and we had also heard that it has an epicerie, and we wanted to see when it was open and what range of goods it had (for future reference). So we rode back to the canal at Fontets, turned left and rode another 3km to Hure. It was a cute little town, and the epicerie was open till 1900h. So we did a little shopping, then headed back to the barge.

In the evening (around 2000h) we cycled down to Fontet Lake, to check out the Fontet Night Market (Tables Nocturne) which we had seen advertised around town. After our disappointment with Marmande last week, we were surprised by the scale of this Night Market, with lots of varied food stalls and about 250 people in attendance. We found a couple of spaces at a table of (we assumed) locals, and enjoyed our bottle of Rosé and canard dishes. Rita got chatting with the lady next to us and found out she was a trained oneologist; we learned lots about the local wine industry during the night.

There was no live band for this Night Market, but a DJ with lights and speakers (and the obligatory smoke machine). Unlike many Night Markets, the sound levels were kept down while people were eating and talking, but as darkness fell, the lights and the sound went up a level and lots of people were soon up line-dancing (it is France, you know).

One little incident at the end of the evening reminded me of why i like France. Mum and Dad and teenage son (maybe 12-13 years old) were sitting at the next table, when another family on the other side of the table decided to go home. The dad got up and shook hands with the other dad, and then the teenage son put forward his hand to also shake his hand (I thought, “what a grown-up boy”). Then the mum and dad came around the table to do the double-kiss farewell, and the the son again joined in with the double-kisses. But the thing that really got me was when the teenage son of the leaving family arrived late, and hand-shakes and double-kisses were exchanged between the two teenage boys. This is just something one would never expect to see in Australia, and demonstrates a warmth and civility in France that I really appreciate.