Canal du Midi - Languidity at Last

Today's activity was bike riding along the banks of the Canal du Midi. Picture a horse pulling a barge loaded with wheat along a canal that joins the Atlantic and Mediterranean... with hundreds of locks... and massive volumes of water fed into the canal from the Montagne Noire (Black Mountains) at its highest point. To stabilise the banks, Plane trees were planted along its banks... providing pleasant shade for horses, barge drivers... providing a quiet carpet of leaves to soften the horse's step... and now, tourists on bikes. But it was the burgeoning wheat trade in 1666 that persuaded Louis XIV to make the investment.

I have been told by friends of their idyllic holidays aboard a barge... puttering along shady canals... stepping off to ride a bike to an ancient village close by... reaching out and picking grapes overhanging the canal... sharing the vino with peasants exhausted from their morning work... taking their lunch in the shade along the canal. We saw glimpses of the idealised canal holiday. The photo below shows a launch squeezing under a bridge featured with red and white petunias... red geraniums cascading over the edge. That part is real. So is the queuing at the locks... waiting your turn to be lifted the 2 metres up/down the stream... and then eating the diesel fumes from the lead boat as you join the convoy to the next lock. We spoke to the canal people... they are always up for a chat... nothing else to do while you wait those hours in the queue. They said they tried waiting until the convoy got ahead so they could have serenity during their canal passage. "The problem is that the next convoy catches up unless you maintain speed." They complained about the congestion... but said they would do it again. The speed of the barges was less than our bikes... something like 12 klms per hour.

Then there is the issue of job allocation when traversing a lock. First, there's the captain... he has to stand at the wheel and watch while everyone else does the real jobs. Now the Captain is always a 'bloke'... no matter how physically disabled the crew that jumps off-board to fasten ropes... the captain has strict requirements regarding his gender. Indeed, we did see one 80 year lady... walking stick in hand stumble onto the bank to fasten ropes while the 80 year old (male) captain managed the controls. The experienced barge crew made it look so easy... one person doing all the jobs... while the amateur crew increased the confusion with larger numbers of helpers.

The locks caught the imagination... such a simple way of lifting extreme weights. Also surprising was to see the canal keeping its height across a gully while the gully stream runs under it.

Today, we did have moments of languidity... not a sound to be heard... other than the bike wheels crunching the autumn leaves... no barges... no one else... sun filtering through the plane trees... the slow current ambling along. Yes, we discovered some languidity... it has to be taken in small doses... it has to be held on the tongue... savoured... while being distracted by nothing.