Summer itinerary; travel travails; party people; broken bones; fetching the Twingo; music in Montech

Summer plans

So, after two months in Durban, what’s on the cards for the next four months in France aboard Karanja? Nothing hectic, it must be said. We’ll start the cruising season by heading eastwards along the Canal de Garonne to Toulouse, and spend a week in that lovely city. Then we may continue along the Canal du Midi to Castelnaudury for a few nights, before retracing our steps back to Montech. There, you can  join the Canal de Montauban, which takes you to – you guessed it! – Montauban.

Summer 2019 in France also holds the prospect of several family get-togethers: We expect two or three guest appearances by daughter Wendy, currently working in Marseille; son Carl will be bringing his family from Perth, WA; I’ll be popping over to England to plague my sister Dale for a while; and we’ll be catching up with Roy’s two sisters at Lyndsay’s house in the Dordogne.

Getting there…

A week in Moissac was just enough to recover from a bit of a fraught journey. We’d chosen to fly Air Mauritius direct from Durban to Port Louis and from there to Paris – mainly for the opportunity of a week-long layover on the island on the way back to Durban in October.

But our main flight was cancelled and we’d been re-allocated to an Air France flight that was departing imminently. As a result, we had five cold, rather bleak early-morning hours to kill at Paris’s Montparnasse station. Then the TGV bullet train to Moissac was delayed for nearly 40 minutes – people were walking on the line. Enough moaning, and full marks to the taxi companies that got our messages and met us anyway: taxi2airport.com for Charles de Gaulle airport to Montparnasse, and Les Taxis Montalbanais for the trip from Montauban station to Moissac port.

Party people

Sadly, the Sunbeam bar has closed down; Bar Compostelle up in the town may be the next spot for the boating community’s Friday night festivities.

At Iain Noble’s 50th, we got to catch up with him and his wife Kaz, French couple Laurent and Patric (Zag), Melburnians Rob and Cherry (Rovi 1), Tony (the karaoke guy), English Karen and Nick (La Perle), Nigel, Jackie (ex-bar Sunbeam), his wife, and several others.

Moissac to Castelsarrasin – Wednesday, 19 June

It was a fairly easy first day of cruising for us – fewer than nine kilometres, and seven locks: Moissac, Gregonne and Cacor, crossing the Cacor aqueduct, then a chain of three: Artel, Les Verriès and St Jean de Vignes, and finally Castelsarrasin lock. We were followed out of Moissac lock by a Le Boat with an English couple aboard; she helped nicely with ropes and we shared all seven locks.

Anna at the capitainerie had allocated berth five to us. After only slightly overshooting it – thanks perhaps to Steven and Henriette (ex-Perth, now looking for a new home in France) – waving to us from Canard d’Oz in berth nine, we moored pointy end towards the quay. Hotel boat Rosa (our nemesis) had pre-booked our favourite spot under the shade of the passerelle.

Dem Bones

Also in port was Andy and Dee’s 24-metre behemoth, Zeelandia. Poor Dee had broken her arm a couple of days earlier in a freakish accident. Adrian on Riverdance was here too, also with an injured wrist.

But that’s not all! Our Moissac-born friend Anne Giavarini has just broken her right hand while moving from her barge, Hodi, to a nearby house – and my sister broke her right arm about six months ago.

I can’t help feeling a bit wary about Roy or myself breaking a bone or two of our own. Accidents don’t necessarily happen while you’re executing heroic feats. It seems that bones are broken in the most ordinary of circumstances, like when you’re stepping ashore, or taking the stairs from the wheelhouse to the saloon, or – like poor Jack (Artemis) last year – treading backwards into an open hatch.

Or, in my sister Dale’s case, tripping over something on the pavement while leaving a pub after  what she continues to swear was only one G&T.

Going back for the car

It was a happy surprise to see Kiwis Trish and Tony, too – having completed their refit of Anneke, they’re thoroughly enjoying being under way. They’d been having a good time in Mas d’Agenais for a while, they said, and had caught the train to Castelsarrasin to pick up their car.

This going back for cars is a bit of a theme: my task for the afternoon was to jog the 8km back to Moissac along the towpath to fetch our Renault Twingo.

Castelsarrasin to Montech – Thursday, 19 June

After a rainy night and a showery early start to the day, we set off on the 14.5km stretch to Montech, where we’d booked mooring for three nights.

Following in Rosa’s wake – putain! – we had the first two locks (Pardes and Saint-Martin) to ourselves, but then had to let a hire-boat with a couple of friendly German families come in behind us for the third one, Escatelens.

Chain of events

We remembered having done the chain of five locks after Montech on our way west in 2017; this time, it was of course before Montech, and now we were montant (going up) instead of avalant (going down), so the process was a bit slower.

German hire-boat could not fit in behind us in these shorter locks, and so had to wait; but its courteous captain came in handy – he called the lock-keeper for us when the fourth lock in the chain suddenly showed a red light and closed its heavy doors in our faces. The second lock had also refused to work, so we were getting to know Madame Éclusiére quite well.

As I have said before, the waterway authorities (Voies Navigables de France, or VNF) generally do a good job.

Review: Bistrot Constant

Our second dinner at Bistrot Constant was pretty much as good as we remembered it from our first one in September 2017 (click here for that review). Once again it was literally a minute’s walk from our mooring in Montech port, so the rain didn’t matter.

It was of course my fault that Roy had indigestion that night, as it was I who had insisted he have a starter (œufs Mimosa) before his pork (côte de cochon fermier crousti-fondant, gratin de macaroni, crumble* chorizo), mistakenly thinking that you had to take the €38 three-course menu. You don’t, of course. You can pick and choose from entrées at €11, plats at €22 and desserts at €10.

* There must not be a French equivalent for the word crumble

What’s more, we’d accepted their suggestion of a pre-starter starter to share: deep-fried whiting with a mayonnaise-y sauce (€9) – lovely!

My crab starter (emietté de tourteaux, crème de Tarbaus parfumé au romarin, sable parmesan) was utterly delicious, but with my main course – the tête de veau, langue et cervelles pochés, sauce ravigote aux câpres – I bit off more than I could chew. (I really must stop ordering the French-est thing on the menu.) Though the chunks of veal tongue, cheek and other unctuous bits were yummy with the boiled potatoes and traditional caper sauce, calf’s brain doesn’t taste nearly as good as it sounds, even poached in a vinegary broth and topped with diced hardboiled egg.

All that, including two coupes of champagne (€13 each) and a gorgeous half-litre of Côtes du Rhône (€30), came to €120. No room for dessert; but we knew we would be back on Saturday night with Wendy to have another go at the new summer menu.

Friday, 21 June, Montech (2nd night)

Cycling the 14km back to Castelsarrasin along the tow path  was a good way to burn off the bistro calories*.

*Fact: 100g of beef brain has 151 calories, and the same probably goes for veal, tongue comes in at 224. (Tongue is fattier.)

A lucky break in the generally wet and chilly weather meant we arrived comfortably dry at the Twingo, but with me as usual dying for the loo. As the Castelsarrasin capitainerie was closed for lunch, I had to use the cute, round building behind the waterfront café. It was less cute on the inside, boasting: (1) a squatting pan; (2) liberal quantities of shit; and (3) an insubordinate flush that gushed water all over my Tomy takkies*.

* Tomy takkies: cheap sneakers from the iconic South African fashion brand, first manufactured in 1964 at the original Bata shoe factory in Zimbabwe. Find out more here ;http://www.tomy.co.za/about-us/]

Montech

Having spent only a night in Montech en route to Moissac in September 2017, I never got to see the town itself; now’s my chance.

Established in the 12th century as a village fortifié, medieval Montech boasted four gates with lifting-bridges and several towers, plus a central castle, and was surrounded by deep ditches. Not much is left of all that, but there’s plenty of architectural interest.

This includes the mairie or town hall (previously an orphanage and a hospital) and several hotels and maisons particulières (private houses) from Montech’s 17th, 18th and 19th century industrial heydays. Many of them are of the pretty rose brick that the area is famous for.

Walking through the town centre in search of a baguette and a custard flan from intriguingly named boulangerie Les Secrets du Pain, it was surprising to see so much going on. Not one, not two, but three sources of music were either on the go or being set up:

* In the main square outside restaurant La Place, a folk-rock ensemble was drawing the families;

* A couple of blocks down in an open-sided hall – no doubt so no one could get up to mischief in the corners, laser lights and clubby music were entertaining the youth of the town ; and

* Next to the bandstand, trestle tables had been set up for the townsfolk to enjoy a €10 dinner of aligote (cheesy mash) and barbecued sausage, a slice of tarte tatin (apple pie) and a drink – all seemingly organised by a town committee. That’s where we came down later for a 500ml pichet of red wine (€4), to enjoy the conviviality and the brilliant band.

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As Wendy reminded us the next day, it was all in honour of the annual fête de musique that is celebrated on this day in every French village, town and city, all over the country. (Last year, we partied with Wendy and the line-dancers at Castelsarrasin; click here for more about that.)

Next up, Wendy joins us in Montech, and we cruise to Grisolles.