Homps to Carcassonne

Neil, Andy, James and Sharna arrived on Friday 21st May 2010. We managed to find a restaurant in Homps that was open and had some delicious salads.

We made a leisurely start the next morning and stopped just past Puicheric bridge. A lovely mooring where Andy prepared a salad, Neil made sure everyone had a drink and James became officer in charge of barbeques watched by Sharna.

The view the next morning

With the boys putting the world to rights

A 20-25cm terrapin just sunning himself on a log as we drove past

It is difficult to imagine the Midi locks until you moor in them. Carmen only touches at bow and stern. The lockeepers will not take a rope and the bollards are extremely badly placed for a barge of Carmen's length. In a triple lock we had to over ride the lockeeper who, perhaps missing the sublte differences between a 25 and 30m barge, was angry that we did not put our rear rope on the bollard just inside the lower gate. This would have effectively left us with no ropes stopping us from ramming the rear gates, the predominant thrust direction for most of the cycle. His gesticulations indicated he was washing his hands of us. He gave us a very rough ride. Later at the triple a Trebes we had an easy ride from a lockeeper who knew his metier.

Of course with the bridges being so low and often round we had to cruise without the wheelhouse and use the brolly wheelhouse instead. Neil did a lot of the driving.

James stationed at the bow for estimating visibility around bends and giving early warning of Tuppaware hire boats travelling at destroyer speed. One evening one caught us still manouvering to moor on the wrong side of the river. Being indicated to pass us on the "wrong side" it was interesting to observe that he didn't slow down at all but just aimed for the diminshed gap among the overhanging trees. As he passed I politely pointed out that it was not forbidden to slow down but according to one of the crew I apparently got a very rude reply.