10 June Third Day Capestang to Narbonne

After breakfasting on the top deck again, the girls walked into the town to check out and shop at the local markets 

whilst the men moved the boat to the Quai Elie Amouroux to top up the water supplies as we were getting a bit low. There was supposed to be free WiFi available but unfortunately it wasn’t available on Sundays so the blog still didn’t get published.

Bill’s turn as master today. Jim steered us through the first day and Ian through the second.

A few twists and turns along this 19km stretch of the canal passing rows and rows of grape vines, many wineries with some magnificent cellar buildings before reaching the junction to turn south towards Narbonne. Helen and Linda decided to ride along this part of the canal

where there were 7 locks that didn’t have any lock keepers so we went on ahead and opened the lock gates ahead of the boat and operated the locks as the boat went through Cesse,Truilhas, Empare, Argeliers, St Cyr, Salleles locks to the Port de Gailhousty where the cycle path ended for us because the canal crossed L’Aude river. Bill managed to successfully negotiate the sharp bend and around past the weir.

Another 4km to the first lock on the Canalde la Robine at Raonel. Then another 4 km to the lock just outside Narbonne. We pulled up outside the first available mooring spot on entering Narbonne as we were warned that the places to tie up were few and far between. Because we had bought sausages and decided to have a BBQ we weren’t happy with that mooring as it was in the built up area so we decided to keep going through the town and continue heading south. We had an interesting time trying to fathom out the weird lock process for the lock in Narbonne. It had a yellow tube connected to a rod hanging down from the centre of the lock, that we had to turn 45 degrees to the right to start the lock operation.

After a lot of discussion over which was the correct way to turn the rod, because nothing had happened, the light finally turned green and we were able to proceed through the town, under the bridge with the houses built on top,

under the A9 and past what looked like an industrial area until we were out in the country again.

Because we were close to the coast it was quite windy so we found a quiet place beside some trees for shelter to tie up for the night. No other boats around.

Jim cooked the sausages and the potatoes in the BBQ on the deck which we ate with salad, down in the cabin as it was still windy and cold.

 We were treated to a beautiful sunset tonight