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Canal Du Midi


Stephen Sugg

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Hi Tim,

 

your photo didn't look like Fonserannes, but that's the only place on the Midi with a 7 staircase lock.

 

Closer towards Castelnaudary where your photo was taken there are a triple staircase lock followed by a double staircase lock followed by a quadruple staircase lock, after which you'll arrive at Castelnaudary.

 

They are quite impressive too, only slightly less than Fonseranne.

 

Peter.

 

Thanks for the explanation, I obviously have a habit of combining lock flights, like the time I went up the Bingley eight rise :-)

 

Tim

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We are now stuck at a lock. Was particularly annoying because a hotel barge called Louisa pushed in front of us and then faffed around just long enough for the lock to close for lunch. We have now failed to get to our chosen place for lunch.

 

Hotelbarge Louisa seems to be an official hotelbarge, and that's why they have priority at the locks.

 

http://www.bargelouisa.com/

 

Peter.

 

 

Thanks for the explanation, I obviously have a habit of combining lock flights, like the time I went up the Bingley eight rise :-)

 

Tim

 

At Bingley the distance between the 3 rise and 5 rise isn't much either so it could have almost been named an eight rise

 

I had a very nice cup of hot-chocolat at the 5 rise café when I was visiting there.

 

Peter.

Edited by bargemast
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Yes he said he priority which is fair enough, just didn't like the way he asserted it. However, I spoke to the skipper afterwards and he was lovely and we eventually went ahead anyway (2 hour delay whilst VNF fixed the lock). It has now stopped raining and I have hit the vi n rouge.

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Yes he said he priority which is fair enough, just didn't like the way he asserted it. However, I spoke to the skipper afterwards and he was lovely and we eventually went ahead anyway

 

An English couple, David and Jenny Tremain. Came to us for training and certification a couple of years back and moved their barge from the Thames to the Midi.

 

Tam

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Salter steamers , on the Thames try to push in front . Almost ran us off the river a few years ago,we're trying to get us to heave too just before the lock , we were indicating that we wanted to stop above for water anyway . Husband walked up to the lock , asked to speak to the captain . Husband had a very quiet word , as not to cause a scene in front of his passengers ..... only to be told .... "best watch your mooring ropes tonight mate when your asleep, they tend to work themselves loose on the river " . Lockeeper confirmed that they do not have preferred rights of way . Bunny

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Salter steamers , on the Thames try to push in front . Almost ran us off the river a few years ago,we're trying to get us to heave too just before the lock ,

 

The regulations on the continent are fairly clear. Firstly any boat over 20m ( a "normal vessel" by definition) has priority over a smaller one ("Small craft") other than small tugs and pasenger vessels, which are always classed as normal vessels. Then over-riding that certain types of vessel have priority, and this includes bona fide (that term again!) hotel boats, i.e. those registered as such and paying the appropriate licence fees. Police boats and Customs vessels come into this group, as you might expect. All steerers are expected to know the regulations, and a hire company is supposed to brief its hirers, but I very much doubt that they bother to explain any of this.

 

Obviously hotel boat skippers can get a little pixxed off given the number of hirers on the Midi that they have to deal with.

 

Tam.

Edited by Tam & Di
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Salter steamers , on the Thames try to push in front . Almost ran us off the river a few years ago,we're trying to get us to heave too just before the lock , we were indicating that we wanted to stop above for water anyway . Husband walked up to the lock , asked to speak to the captain . Husband had a very quiet word , as not to cause a scene in front of his passengers ..... only to be told .... "best watch your mooring ropes tonight mate when your asleep, they tend to work themselves loose on the river " . Lockeeper confirmed that they do not have preferred rights of way . Bunny

Should that situation occur again,report the incident to Salters head office in Oxford and also to the Marine and Coastguard Agency.

 

And drop the E.A navigation district office a line as well

 

You may be pleasantly suprised at the response

 

Those Salters crews are not that well paid,Peanuts?

 

CT

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Just sitting in a canal side bar. We ate discussing the differences between UK canals and the Midi. One of which is the handover process. I will elaborate once we have handed the boat back.

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Just sitting in a canal side bar. We ate discussing the differences between UK canals and the Midi. One of which is the handover process. I will elaborate once we have handed the boat back.

I hope it went better than ours, we arrived at lunchtime and didn't leave the marina until the next day

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Right. Back in Blighty now! Okay, so, firstly we turned up a bit early, as is my habit and informated the staff that we had arrived but that we were going for a walk and then lunch, I find that this way you identify yourself with someone and they recognise you on return. They did. We went up to the desk and the very helpful young lady confirmed the booking details and told us to go and load up the boat. We did this, she then sped through a blue folder of important stuff which mainly consisted of which restaurants to avoid!

 

After a short while a chap appeared at the boat and asked if I had used this type of boat before, I hadn't. He then told me where everything was amd how it worked, and, Erm, that was that!

 

Off we went into the windy basin! To be fair, the boat was great, weather wasn't but we did have a nice time. The lockies are splendid and great fun. We saw an otter.

 

At the end, they calculated that we had only used 13 hours of engine time and as we had paid 150 up front, they ended up owing us money, which was nice.

 

The Canal Du Midi is nice, not sure I would go back to that part though. No really a lot to do.

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I think you will find that your 'otter' was a 'coypu' if you saw it in the Castelnaudary basin. We saw about 4 of them in the water near the bank feeding on baguettes that had been chucked in for them. I assume they live on the little island. We also saw one briefly on the towpath some 5km to the E of Castelnaudary.

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I think you will find that your 'otter' was a 'coypu' if you saw it in the Castelnaudary basin. We saw about 4 of them in the water near the bank feeding on baguettes that had been chucked in for them. I assume they live on the little island. We also saw one briefly on the towpath some 5km to the E of Castelnaudary.

 

I guess you're right, I've seen quite a few coypus around there, their tail is different from an otter, apart from that they look very much alike.

 

Some of them will be full of courage and come to the boats to beg for food.

 

Peter.

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