We reluctantly bid farewell to Port Lauragais around 1000h to make a start on the trip back to Toulouse. As we approached the first lock at Embourrel, we were caught by a Swiss couple and ended up doubling with them until we stopped for lunch at Gardouch. The cafe near the ecluse was doing good business, and we made a note of it for future trips. After lunch the Swiss couple stayed at Gardouch, while we headed on by ourselves. As we approached the lock at Negra, we noted a couple of fisherman on the right with long poles spanning half the canal just in front of the waiting pontoon. Since the left of the canal is occupied by numerous Locaboat hire-boats, I stayed in the middle of the canal as I approached, expecting them to raise their poles. But they refused to make eye-contact or raise their poles, so at the last minute I was forced into a drastic evasive manoeuvre to miss both them and the hire-boats, and let Rita off on the opposite bank just behind the last hire-boat, much to the consternation of the cleaners who were readying the hire-boats for the next customers. In hindsight, I should have just moved to the right to moor at the waiting pontoon, and taken their poles with me if need be.

After a few more hours, and not passing a single boat since Negra, we arrived at the town of Montgiscard. As we were approaching the town, we spied an Intermarche sign through the trees, and so since we were running short of supplies, Rita jumped on her bike and headed back as soon as we had moored.

There were no formal mooring spots left in town when we arrived, with permanent moorings occupied on the right and the large VNF research barge (Naïade) occupying all the stone quai on the left. So we tied up opposite her, mooring at the back to one of the concrete bollards for the waiting pontoon and to one of our stakes, and to the base of a fence on the approach to the lock. This was a bit naughty, since we have seen many fences damaged by mooring lines, but it’s usually OK if you moor to the base of the fence post and not to the railings at the top.

After an overcast day, the late afternoon was warm and sunny, and the port looked very peaceful, with the old Lavoir (wash-house) on the bank behind the VNF boat.

As I checked the front mooring ropes, I was approached by a French lady who looked in a somewhat distressed state. Luckily my knowledge of French extended far enough to understand that she was looking for two dogs (chien) that had escaped that afternoon, and luckily we had seen them trotting along the canal towpath, and then past us and over the canal bridge after we had tied up. So I was able to tell her where they went, and she followed off after them. We never saw her again but hopefully she found them.

As I had been standing on my feet all day behind the wheel, I took the opportunity to sit on the edge of the lock and dangle my feet in the cool water. Bliss!

I was actually dangling my feet in one half of a former double-ecluse, which had now been converted into a single ecluse.

I’m not sure why this conversion was done; perhaps it had something to do with the fact that double ecluses are manned by VNF staff, whereas single ecluses are self operated by the bargee themselves. Whatever the reason, the effect is that, since the same water height distance must be traversed from entering to leaving the lock(s), there are now a large number of relatively deep single locks (4-5m) rather than a bunch of double locks with each lock being 2-2.5m deep.

After dinner, we walked into town and recognised that we had been here in 2011. The bell tower on the church was most impressive (from the front) but on looking from the side it was clear that the church itself was mediocre and the bell tower was just a façade.