On the Baise with Locaboat

 After catching the train through the very flat, pine-forested southwest coastal France, and a quick change at Bordeaux, we arrived in a rather damp Agen. Vikki and Choco picked us up at La Gare. They are friends from Melbourne, who joined us for canal boating after their three weeks in Provence. We stayed in Condom, which started a course of hilarity that went on for days. We had a night there and next day descended on the Carrefour supermarket to provision up. One of Choco’s rules is that if you spend more on food than on grog in provisioning then you’ve got it wrong. We got it right and set off to drop our stuff at Locaboat in Valence, then Ann and I stayed in the village while Choco and Vikki did the rental car return to Agen and taxied back

Espagnette is a very spacious 12.6 m and  a beamy 3.85 m wide. She has 3 bedrooms (so we have a storeroom), 2 bathrooms and a very big saloon. The boat is so wide it just fits inside the locks width wise.

Initially the river Baise was very narrow so we were running through a corridor of trees. It is very tranquil. Nothing happens quickly on a canal boat. In the narrow part we could only motor at 4 kph, now we are up to a heady 8 kph.

But that helps when there are choices to be made: the barrage or the lock?

It also means we get plenty of time to spot wildlife. The count so far is two deer in a paddock, one heron, and lots of fat, buck-teethed creatures called Coypu. Big rats really, up to 6 kg, introduced from South America for the fur trade. They actually look like beavers, but have a ratlike tail. Quite a few fish around at times.

 

Aquitaine is a really historic area. The centre of the Hundred Year War, it has lots of walled towns that we’ve walked or biked to during the day. The architecture of the houses is fascinating, with a lot of half-timbered houses in the villages that look really rickety, and lots of Romanesque churches and town buildings. Alongside the canal/river are some beautiful chateaux, and in the canal some lovely old boats.

 Alongside that we’ve seen some French rural life. Groups of men playing petanque/ boules (some ferocious sportsmen there), the rubbish collection trailer towed by a draft horse, the pomp of a funeral for an earl, fishermen, houseboaters who spend months on their boats cruising, a friendly dog who understood fetch but not ‘sit or ‘asseyez vous’. It’s been fun to ride around, chat to curious locals and find a place for coffee or lunch.

There's varying land use: maize, kiwifruit and apple cropping, poplar plantings, and some animal farming – geese and cows. While we are locking up or down, Choco aka the pirate, forages around the lock area and has supplemented the salads with wild walnuts and figs.

Some double locks, and a ‘water bridge’ that ran over the Baise River made for fun but no real challenge.

Plane trees and poplars have been the dominant species, and the treatment of the plane trees has been inventive at times as in these hand-holding specimens in Le Mas D’Agenais.

We’ve had some great overnight stays and done some good biking. Because we were in a river we had to stay in anchorages initially, rather than just tying up to the bank, but it’s made life very easy.

Night 1 was in Condom. Potentially very peaceful, but the church bells tolled every quarter of an hour. Guess it saves having to look at the watch during the night. (The mornings here are really dark until at least 7.30-8am.)

Night 2 Moncrabeau. The “head town of liars, boasters and storytellers of the kingdom.”  The story goes that at the beginning of the 17^th century several old soldiers who were enjoying their retirement, but running out of news to talk about. So they started to create their own news. A nearby monk in Condom approved of the concept and instituted the above name, and an academy of liars. A ‘best liar’ is still chosen on an annual basis, and as king/ queen of liars they sit on the chair of liars and adjudicate the following year to choose the best unlikely story.

Even better was the bike ride to a nearby chateau, Chateau le Carrejot, which makes Armagnac. It is a family affair. The grandfather and father manage the production on site. The son, who is studying the IB, gave us a tour and tasting. We started with a 1998 then a 1984 then a 1974, which was very smooth and finally a 1994 which had good ‘aromas’ as he termed it and mellow flavour. Heady stuff for middle of the day tasting. The distillation process was very interesting, involving lighting a fire under the brewed wine to vaporise the alcohol, which then transformed into the spirit and stored in barrels to age. Or at least I think that’s how it worked - the English wasn’t always clear. We settled on the 1994 Giacosa – Gold medal winner in Paris 2009. We’ve also taken on the technology so may develop a still.

Night 3 Nerac. This is a lovely town, the biggest we visited, and a chance to reprovision. The butcher really enjoyed the chance to talk about his meat and between our French and his English we even manage to discover that the sausage casings were lamb for the small and beef for the fat ones, but the contents identical!  A coup for cross-cultural communications I think. The Toulouse-style sausage is just superb. We need the recipe. Our anchorage was really picturesque, with the castle of Nerac overlooking us.

Night 4 Buzet sur Baise: the name also rather apt in view of our treatment of it. Our nights are generally very food focussed, and accompanied by sampling of local vintages, with time whiled away by a few hands of 500. So we livened up the sleepy little village, situated at the junction of the Baise River and the Canal de Garonne.

Night 5 Le Mas d’Agenais. This village has many claims to fame. It is a walled city, and the 11-12 Century Romanesque church has a genuine Rembrandt of the living Christ on the cross. Thursday morning was market day, but my expectations exceeded the reality significantly. I guess it is late in the year.

 

Night 6 back to Buzet sur Baise

Night 7 Agen and time to return the boat. We stayed on the boat in the Locaboat base, did the laundry, had the last supper and emptied out the fridge and larder. I picked up our rental from Avis on Saturday am, dropped Choco and Vikki at la gare for their return to London by train. They have a couple of days there and then fly back to Melbourne

The weather’s been autumnal. We had some showers initially, then three days of beautifully warm weather after heavy morning mists burned off, and a cloudy but warm day today. The trees alongside the canal are losing their leaves slowly – lots of reflection shots.