A 1000h start saw us enter the first deep single lock for the day, immediately in front of our mooring. Our first real challenge for the day was navigating the low bridge at Pont de Donneville. While it is oficially listed as 3.70m clearance at the centre, and our wheelhouse is only 3.0 (or 3.2 with the bimini up), the sloping sides of the bridge and the extra width of the bimini would make it a real challenge with the bimini up, which is why we kept it at half-mast for today’s journey. As we entered under the bridge, signs were good as the bicycle handlebars cleared the bridge easily. But getting the bow through and the stern though are two different matters, and concentration is needed to keep the wheelhouse in the centre of the bridge opening. On this occasion, with no cross-current or cross-wind, we managed to do this successfully, but it would have been a real challenge with the bimini up!

As the morning progressed, I started following the AFL game between the Hawks and the Sydney Swans. After a see-sawing game, which saw the Hawks leading for extended periods, only for Sydney to grab the lead on three occasions, the Hawks ran out narrow winners by six points, 72-66, thus keeping their finals chances alive and more importantly signalling that they will be a strong contender if they get there, after good performances against the top teams in the past month. Time will tell.

Our second challenge for the day, which we had not encountered before, was waking a young lady who was lying on the waiting pontoon at ecluse Vic, with her feet dangling over the edge, listening to music on her iPhone with earplugs in. Since Rita had to get off to start the locking sequence, we had no choice but to wake her. But no amount of engine revving, bowthrusting, or even air horn blowing could stir her. Finally, as we got very close, the vibrations must have registered with her, and she woke and sat bolt upright, looking very embarrassed. As she apologised profusely, we all had a good laugh. So different from the fishermen at Negra yesterday.

As we passed through the ecluse at Castanet, our last lock before Toulouse, we noticed that the right ecluse door could not open fully as we left, since a length of building timber was jammed between the door and the side of the lock. Since it was nearly 1230h, we stopped for lunch after clearing the lock and Rita phoned the VNF to allow them to clear it over the lunch break. But they were already aware of the problem through their electronic system, and soon after we saw a VNF van arrive to fix the problem. While we were tied up for lunch, we decided to raise the bimini, in preparation for our arrival in Toulouse. So far we had seen no boats moving on the canal today.

After lunch we continued on and soon arrived at Port Sud. You can tell that you have arrived at Port Sud by the long line of (mostly) large residential barges moored on the left as you proceed north. Because of this it is a relatively slow trip from Port Sud to Ramonville.

Our trip was further slowed at Ramonville, when we saw our first moving boat for the day, the tour boat operating out of Toulouse. We arrived just as it was doing a u-turn at Ramonville to head back to Toulouse. So we followed it into Toulouse. While it is relatively big, it is also very slow.

But at least this gave Rita a chance to get behind the wheel...

while I took some photos from the back deck of where we’d been.

The canal passes over a number of waterways, large and small, on it’s way to the Atlantic or the Med, but this is the only overpass over a Motorway that we have seen so far.

Our second moving boat for the day was another commercial boat, when the tour boat met the brown&gold party boat that we had seen in Toulouse a couple of weeks ago. They passed, very carefully, under a bridge which gave them just enough width with concrete edges on both sides (I suspect this is a pre-arranged passing point for them), and then the party boat signalled for us to pass them as well, while they were stationary. Soon after, we saw our only private boat in motion as we approached Toulouse, where we moored once again next to Mr Undies at the end of the E1 pontoon. But the weather was much cooler than last time we were in Toulouse, so he was dressed more conservatively.

We had made relatively good time from Montgiscard, despite the tour boat, and so we had ample time in the afternoon for a walk around the Toulouse parks, including the Botanical Gardens and the Grand Rond (the Big Roundabout) containing the Rotunda and fountains.

That evening we treated ourselves to dinner at the le Bistro du Port (sharing the building on the left of the photo at left with the Pompiers), just a short stroll from our barge. We both had the Magret de Canard, which was very ample in size, and delicious. Luckily, we didn’t had a salad as entree, since they were huge. We had a very friendly waiter, who made the whole evening delightful. We liked it so much we made a booking for tomorrow night when Valerie will be joining us.