Cycling Along the Canal du Midi

Today we both celebrated our birthdays. As a break from our regular routine of work and more work, we decided to make a trip by bicycle along a part of the Canal du Midi and have a picnic somewhere along the way.

Picnic spot

Where to start from and where to cycle before turning around and heading home again? The weather was another consideration because even though it was a glorious day, the predicted wind strength was something in the region of 100kph.

Along the towpath

We had thought of Castelnaudary because there is a fairly wide path there and access is easy. But we looked further on Google Earth (great programme) to see if there were a couple of villages we had not yet visited (as we have been to Castelnaudary a few times now) and chose Villesequelande as our starting point (43 14' 21".03 N 2 13' 57".37 E). We cycled direction east towards Carcassonne, past Sauzens and up to the sharp bend opposite Pezens.

The Canal du Midi is a World Heritage site

Along the way I kept thinking of Kermit the frog and the Rainbow Connection. Kermit rides his bike in the opening shots of the movie and then the music starts and we see a swamp and hear the first chords of a sole banjo - the camera slowly zooms into the swamp as singing starts and orchestra joins in and there we find Kermit sitting on a log, playing and singing. I think this is one of the most beautiful songs ever (although I do admit my list is a long one!)

Ecluse (lock) between Villesequelande and Sauzens

Old Poplar

Back to the canal - there are some wonderful views from certain points, but you have to remember that as a canal it is not high up for panoramic views. However, you do catch glimpses across to the Black Mountains, across the villages on the northern side of the canal, and on higher points, over towards the peaks of Andorra. Quite stunning landscape indeed. And no worries about the wind as in most places it is very sheltered, having trees on both sides a lot of the time, or the canal is dipped behind stop banks - would be hot in summer but at this time of the year it's quite wonderful.

Wonderful trees along the way

Reeds in flower

Wouter was fascinated by many crows in one field - they seemed to congregate there and when he made some bird noises (he didn't tell me before that he could do bird impressions - the things you find out about a person....) they circled around like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie, squawking. Armed with camera, he managed to take a few photos which satisfied his curiosity.

Field of crows

The canal is by no means busy at this time of year but there are a few boats still out for a leisurely trip here and there. You usually see boats in small groups - this is because when they go through the locks they come out together and so two or three pass within minutes of each other. Between 12 and 2pm though, it seems like they just tie up somewhere while the lock operators have their lunch break.

Reflections in the Canal

Cycling back another image came to mind - the Famous Five who were always having an adventure - except there were only two of us - Timmy (aka Cassy) was at home on guard duty and Dick and Anne were off hunting for mushrooms on Kirrin Island. We also didn't have lashings of whipped cream with any of our picnic but we did eat well mainly from our garden (tomatoes included).

I hope our pictures give you some idea of the lovely scenery along the canal and you can imagine a pleasant bike ride while enjoying the autumn sun and the calm of the surrounding nature.

Flora et Fauna et Canal du Midi

We’ve been walking the local railway tracks – disused since around the 1970’s but made into public walking and cycling tracks. Some of them are very interesting and go behind farms with crops you can view at close quarters. The other good thing is that you can see a lot of wild nature as you walk past, seemingly unperturbed by humans.

The slugs I’ve already mentioned (see picture), other things we’ve discovered are some lovely flowers which I have no name for, so if anyone out there can help, please do – either Latin, English, Dutch or French name. Actually we found out it's called a Teasel (sp?) used for carding wool - picture under slug pic.

Due to some good detective work I’ve also found out what the seeds are in the poo we’ve been finding. They are a wild cherry – very small – and found all over the place. Something is eating the fruit, pooping out the seeds in large quantities, and the giant slugs seem to be attracted to this. We've been told that it could be foxes eating the cherries but anyone who might know do let us know.

So far we’ve seen 5 snakes – 2 dead, 2 crawling across the path/road, and one dangling from the talons of a hawk about 100 meters in the air. We’ve also seen a few deer around the edges of the forests. Other “wildlife” are the sheep that find their way out of paddocks and onto roads and cows which find their way to local roundabouts and kindly trim any grass or other delicacy growing there.

Some of the roundabouts are interesting – they try to put a theme (usually local) on them, which makes them very distinct. I doubt things like this would survive a weekend in NZ.

We made a trip to some small villages to the north of the Canal du Midi. The Canal looks like it can be a bit of a circus, but if you find a quieter spot, can be really interesting with the comings and goings of boats and barges going through locks – up to four at a time to get to the next level.

There are literally hundreds of hectares of sunflowers ready to bloom – a few are already flowering and are a spectacular sea of brilliant yellow in a green (trees) and brown (barley, wheat and bare land) landscape.

On our way to the Canal we found a poterie in the lower part of the Black Mountains, with hundreds of pieces of pottery of all kinds. We stopped briefly and got away with only a few small purchases – a vase, a casserole pot and two noodle/soup bowls.