Argens-Minervois to Trebes

Oh my goodness; it's so humid!

Yes, super humid. The worst of the trip. It was so close, the cloud was on the ground and it felt like it was constantly drizzling, but it wasn't. The temperature was in the low 20's, so that was alright, but because of the humidity and dampness it was unbearable (for me anyway). I immediately had a shower in the morning, but it didn't help. I was just as wet afterwards as I was in the shower. Fortunately, once the boat was underway, the breeze created by the movement was a huge relief and within a short while, the sky opened up and became sunny; as can be seen in the pictures below. By the time we got to the first lock of the day, the clouds were lifting and in time (over an hour) spent at the lock, they had almost completely disappeared. Brilliant.

I made a big mistake when I booked this trip from Capestang to Castelnaudary in 6 days and 7 nights. It's quite a longish trip and a lot of locks (51) with absolutely no experience (not that it has ever stopped me before).

The first lock we had to wait a full cycle, as there was a hotel boat coming down stream, and they have priority, which of course meant a delay of more than an hour. Pretty spot though, it was called "Ecluse de Pech Laurier". But, because of the delay, I wondered if we make the schedule with 51 locks over the entire journey. And because of this stress, I pushed harder than anyone wanted. The result of which was we never really stopped anywhere to look around, which is one of the prime reasons anyone ever undertakes a trip like this.

The first lock after leaving Argens-Minervois called "Ecluse de Pech Laurier". This was our second lock and our first double lock.

The is the hotel boat "Saraphina" that had priority and we had to wait for it to clear the lock first.

Lunch at Homps

For lunch, we stopped at Homps. I can't remember what we had, but it was on the boat. Possibly sandwiches and/or a cheese meat platter.

Our lunch stop in Homps.

Marseillette

In the afternoon, we kept travelling and hoping to rest overnight at Marseillette.

We wanted to stop at Marseillette for dinner and overnight, but when we looked for a suitable restaurant, we were told by some local ex-pats that nothing was available and that we should venture on to Trebes as they had quite a few good choices.

That was a bit of a shock as it was getting late and we really had to motor to get there before all the locks closed for the night. We just managed it, kind of. We ended up moored for the night outside of the double lock entering Trebes.

So this ended up being a long day with a lot of miles covered, more than we intended, and as I said earlier, no real stops anywhere to look at anything. But at least it means a short day tomorrow into Carcassonne and we'll have a longer relaxing stay there.

It was about a 10 to 15 minute walk to the centre of Trebes and dinner (italian).