With the flights booked for Reyce and Prentice we thought it prudent to make a move in the direction of Toulouse. According to the books the only real stopping point between Montech and Toulouse was at Grisolles.
When we arrived at the first lock – heigh ho – double red lights, (which means lock out of service) so we had to park the boat and Sara went up to the lock. With there being no lockkeeper she had to press the VNF call button which is on the same control panel as the green and red buttons. Then in her best French she explained that “Ecluse Dix il ne fait pas, monsieur” and was taken aback when an English voice said, “OK I see, lock ten is out of service – I’ll call the lockkeeper”. Just as Sara arrived back at the boat the VNF van was coming along the tow path and within minutes the problem was resolved. Excellent service and response time, and full credit to VNF.
When we arrived at Grisolles it all looked a bit Spartan (see photo below) so we decided that the day would be a long one, and we would work the locks all the way to Toulouse.
When we arrived at Toulouse we went through the last lock on the Canal Lateral. As we were a bit tired we looked for a place to tie up, but this area seemed to have a number of people who were down on their luck. We then noticed a new concrete jetty with bollards and the perimeter was surrounded by security fencing. I thought to myself that will do nicely and we tip toed in towards this jetty. When we were about three feet away Sara shouted to back up, and as it turned out there were big rocks lurking just under the surface. We headed off again, and decided we would park up for the night at the Port de l’embouchure as there was not enough time left to get through the remaining locks to Port St Sauveur where we had booked four nights berthing.
On the way to Port de l’embouchure the canal banks had more and more folks down on their luck, and when we arrived at the Port there was a small group of New Age travellers parked up with their vans in the car park with their Alsatian dogs. Not exactly a nice “Welcome to Toulouse” experience. But to be fair to everyone, there was no hassle or noise during the night. This port marks the change from Canal Lateral to Canal du Midi, with the Midi starting once we pass the elaborate marble bas relief on the wall
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