Final day:
from Segala to Négra
We arrive at Négra, our final destination on Friday afternoon. Tomorrow morning the boat has to be delivered here between eight and nine. The boat has not been rented the other week so we don't have to hurry. Especially Marga is pleased by that message from Locaboat: it means no stress.
Our final destination Négra with a chapel near the lock
Today we just locked down. It is much easier than locking up because you can easily step ashore from the boat and the out-flowing water does not cause as much current as the incoming water locking-up. So, we don't have to pull the ropes that much.
We are locking the hole day with some other boats. We notice that they also have to deliver their boats at the same time. We don't see many oncoming boats. By accident we just meet hem at the double locks we pass today. The lock-keeper locks us at the same time. The boats navigate at the same time in the upper respectively lower side of the lock. Than the lock keeper lets the water flow from the upper chamber to the lower chambers and we fall and our oncoming ship rises. We change places and after that we can fall further as they rise. This way the lock-keeper is very efficient with the water and his energy.
All locks today are served by hand. Later on we hear that this will be done forever. Because of the status as monument the lock must be kept in the old-fashioned way.
Today is very windy but the temperature is pleasant. In the evening some drops of rain are falling, the first ones this week.
In the evening I cycle three locks further in western direction. I make a photograph of a lock-keepers house built in 1752.
Lock-keepers house
The canal is situated in a more open and hilly landscape. At some distance I see a view little villages.
Beside the canal the traffic rages at the A61. Because of the dikes you can't hear it very well when you are navigating but on the cycle-path the noise is emphaticly present. It's a different world over there which I had forgotten during this week. I did not miss it for a moment.
Friday evening we have a conversation with some two French couples we met some days ago (not the same as at the lock). We call them the 'o-la-laas'. They lay on the other bank of the canal when Pepijn felt in the water a few days ago. They were frightened. When Maarten pulled his bathing drawers down after swimming and was standing naked, the yelled 'o-la-laa' from their boat.
They come from Chamonix and invite us to drink a cup of coffee and self-distilled eau-de-vie. They tell us they enjoyed our children. They are having a larger boat with two steering positions. One of them is outside on the roof. Their boats is also more sophisticated then ours.
In the evening I make with a deck scrubber, a brush and the clothes-line I brought with me, a construction on top of the roof of our boat. We brought two garlands of flags because Maarten has his birthday tomorrow. I lead the garlands from the prow to the stern. The boat is festively decorated this way.
Our decorated boat at the eighth birthday of Maarten
Maarten is awake at seven o'clock the next day but stays obstinate in bed until a quarter past seven because he is born at that same time. At 7.15 a.m. sharp we give him his presents.
After a breakfast with cornflakes I cycle with Maarten to the bakery in Cardouche. That is at a distance of 6 kilometer. We go right to the church on top of the hill to find out that the bakery is downhill: It's a long lane which has no turning. Maarten chooses a cake with a picture of the church on it. We drink a cup of coffee and a cola in a bar before we cycle back to the boat. The sun is shining again. Also the wind is present again.
The men and women at the base work hard to clean the boats and make them ready for the next client. Several boats are leaving today. At the opposite side of the canal a running relay race is going on called The Ballad of Riquet. 150 teams of five runners are going in a relay race in two days from Toulouse to Béziers. The providing post is situated at the lock. Pepijn and Maarten help collecting the plastic cups which are thrown away by the runners.
Providing post
In the afternoon we leave with a cab to Villefranche-Lauragais. The train I wanted to catch, appeared no leave on Saturdays. So we spend our final hours on a terrace. We are in time to get our sleeping-train in Toulouse. When the train leaves I look outside the window melancholy at the Garonne Lateral Canal in the evening light. I am missing the plane-trees.