I woke early to follow the scores in the AFL, where the Hawks continued their recent good form to defeat the Magpies 118-94, and keep alive their very slim chances of playing finals this year. In mid-morning, we said goodbye to drive up the coast from Port Vendres in very windy conditions. In the etang (shallow saltwater lakes) south of Narbonne, the wind surfers were literally flying across the water, until they fell, whereupon we could see that they were often standing in knee-deep water. One wouldn’t want to face-plant in such conditions.

We were initially heading for Port Nouvelle, where the canal through Narbonne eventually reaches the Med. I was thinking that, one day, we might come down here in the barge, but the fierce winds seemed to have Rita having second thoughts about the possibility! We walked around the town for a while, but it was a bit like an old deserted Wild West town, with tumbleweeds blowing through the streets and not a soul in sight. Since it was lunchtime, we looked for a place to eat but everything seemed closed, until we looked through the windows of one restaurant and realised that it was full of people. So we went inside to join them in the windless, warm interior, and were lucky to find one remaining table for two. We then enjoyed an enjoyable hour with a lot of local folk having lunch in a little restaurant with lots of Rugby-themed paintings on the walls (which we later learned were done by the chef himself). In the south of France, Rugby is an unofficial religion, and knowing something about the game is a passport to conversation (even if it is in a strange mixture of French and English). We noted that there were no Australian players gracing the walls, and so the chef asked who would be a good one to paint. When Rita mentioned George Gregan, the chef thought that was a great idea, since George has cult-status in this area, having played for Toulon in south-east France after his Test Match days with Australia were over.

Sadly, we dragged ourselves out into the wind again after lunch for the walk back to the car, since we still had a way to go to get to our final destination for the day in Talairan where we would be spending the night with Kaye and Peter Coates, our Australian friends from whose house our fateful trip began in 2010 when we first thought about barging. We seem to see more of Kaye and Peter in France than we do in Australia, even though we only live 2 hours apart back home. But it is always nice to catch up with them here, and this time we saw how much renovation they had done on their “new” house that they bought a couple of years ago. Peter has done all the work himself, and it’s looking good. Unlike our house in Moissac, he has probably added more value to the house that he has spent! That evening, Peter treated us to a good old leg of lamb, which we haven’t tasted for a long time. It was done to perfection, and was well complemented by good wine and conversation. Another enjoyable night!