Rosa Thursday 9 June 2016

The day started differently today, No breakfast onboard, instead Dominique took us to the local market where we had breakfast at a street cafe before walking the stalls and choosing the cheeses and cold meats that we would be eating that day. The market was very close to the moorings and only a few minutes walk into town.

As well as the cheeses and meats that Dominique bought there were clothes, (John got a new hat,) fruit, flowers, fish, bread, vegetables just about every thing you could think of.

As we walked back to the boat we passed this 1960 Ford Anglia, unfortunately it wasn’t very well and left the contents of the radiator on the car park.

After a few minutes onboard to sort ourselves out we headed by minibus to Abbaye Belleperche. This one time Abbey is now a museum of dining table ware showing how tables were set from before the use of knives and forks to the present day.

          

The Main Entrance	Cloisters	Mosaic Tiles found in the floor
Setting of the earliest table	Spoon collection	Serving utensils
	Tea Pot Collection	Note the Asparagus shaped mould
	Table layouts over the years

 

We were back onboard in time to enjoy the cold meats and cheeses that we had chosen for lunch on the top deck under the shade of the umbrellas before we cast off once again heading to our next overnight mooring at Montech.

One of the first things we passed was this large canal side grain store that had a shoot over the canal so they could load barges with grain, I wonder how long ago it was last used.They grow lots of fruit around the area especially prunes and all the trees are covered in big net tents like mosquito nets but all the ends were open. We think this was so the bees could get in to pollinate the fruits and later on they would close the ends to keep the birds out, but this could be wrong.   One of the things you must see if you visit Montech is the boat slide. Its been out of use for a few years now and is basically two diesel railway engines strapped together and they push a wedge of water ahead of them with the boat floating in it up the slope. The slide  bypassed 7 locks and some of us left the boat at the bottom of the flight, went to look at the slide and then walked up the flight. Unlike the other locks we have been through this flight is operated by lock keepers who follow the boat along on their scooters.

The lock keepers at Montech waiting to take us up the lock, the reason there are so many is that two boats have just come down		As you can see basically two engines ether side of the slide but running on a concrete track on rubber tyres.
	The top of the slope	This is where the top of the slope rejoins the canal

I have only been able to find this very short video of the Montech water Slope in operation.     

However I did find a home movie of a boat going up the Fonserannes Slope which is of the same design.

We didn’t bother to get back on Rosa as it was only a short walk to our overnight mooring from the top of the locks.
The weather was so nice that we had our evening meal on the top deck in the warmth of the evening .  

 

To see Fridays Blog please click HERE

Rosa Friday 10 June 2016

Bit of a change today and Rosa was on the move a little before 9 am. retracing her steps for a couple of hundred meters before turning right down the Branch Canal
The locks along here were a bit different and instead of turning a suspended pole Pierre our navigator  had a small transmitter to signal the locks to open as we approached them.
We sometimes came across a lock cottage that someone was still living in it, this one had well tended gardens, but often they were just desolate.
Some of the wood stores were quite interesting as well so I guess there is still a lot of wood burnt. Some of our fellow guest needed a helping hand to reboard while Rosa was in the locks as the deck was well above the lockside level, well they were both in their seventies, but a group effort saw them safely back onboard. When we arrived at our mooring for the night at Montauban we found it occupied by a trip boat, it turned out the couple that ran it met each other working on Rosa  a few years back. They soon moved out of our way going further down the moorings.
There had been a diesel spill at the moorings the day before and the emergency services were just finishing clearing up. Unlike the UK most boaters buy their diesel from the supermarket outlets in 25lt. cans and then pour it into their boats and this was the result. We didn’t see any canal side outlets selling diesel directly into the boats. Obviously at one time the canal branched off under the bridge but there is no trace of it now.
Once safely moored we were off again, this time to a  vineyard and I think I learnt more about producing wine than I ever have. The young lady who showed us round spoke very good English. She started right from which grapes are grown where and why, things like soil types and angle to the sun etc. the process after harvesting and storage through to bottling. They have their own bottling plant but it had broken down so they had to hire one in. Their line has two separate parts after the filling, one puts corks into the bottles and the other screw tops. nearly all wine sold overseas is screw topped. Wine tasting is still something of a mystery to me as smelling and tasting a wine to me bears no relationship to what it will taste like with food.  We had 7 to try.
            

	Map of the vineyard
	Temperature controlled vats to ferment the wine.
Wine filter	Bottling line	Lorry mounted portable bottling line
The cellar	Reference library of wines produced over the years	Finally the tasting, note some of the certificates received over the years.

 

Returning from our visit where we had a good thunderstorm, luckily we were inside at the time, we walked to the other end of the moorings before diner, this is actually the end of the canal as here it drops with a double lock under both the road and the railway onto the river Tarn again.

This was our last night onboard  and this our final meal. Normally the Captain would sit down  with the guests but on this ship the captain is the owner and also the chef, so while we enjoyed our meal he was working away in the galley on our behalf.

And finally our crew, Pierre  our navigator, Elisa our stewardess, Adele our guide   

     

 

The of course there was Dominique the boat owner, captain and our Chef.

A map of our travels

Click the map to go to Google Maps if you would like to see the route we have followed on Barge Rosa.

 
Tomorrow morning Adele would load us all in her minibus for the last time and take us to Toulouse.

For the last day in Toulouse click HERE