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 .  

 

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