After 2½ years locked out of Europe due to the Corona virus pandemic, I finally get to collect my bike in southern France and go eBike touring around the Continent once again. The vague plan is to head north, arriving in Scotland around mid-May. But first I follow the Canal du Midi south-east out of Toulouse towards the Mediterranean coast until the canal track becomes deteriorated and then go directly east to the coast across the wine country of the Languedoc before arriving at the seaside resort of Cap d’Agde for a 2-day rest.
I had first met Philippe and Marie in 2018 when I hosted them in Melbourne during their cycling trip around Australia, and they’d been looking after my eBike in their garden shed in Toulouse since I left it there in November of 2019 just as the worldwide COVID pandemic started. Our meeting-up this time was a close call, as they were just about to depart for a 4-week holiday to Scotland and were in the midst of preparing their new second-hand VW camper van for the trip when I arrived.
They also had friends over for lunch – Eric and Kathy from Minnesota who’d been running a biking-excursion business out of Toulouse for 7 years and were currently living on a canal boat moored in the Canal du Midi boat basin – but Philippe still found the time to work with me on the bike all afternoon. One of the INOX bolts attaching the kickstand had broken off in the threaded aluminium lug on the frame, and it proved difficult to drill out. In the end, we had to take it over to one of his friends who had a drill press. We made a right mess of the hole, but I was eventually able to replace both hold-down bolts with ones that had lock-tightened nuts, so hopefully it might hold this time.
I stayed in the family’s granny flat and had all my gear ‘neatly’ spread out to wash and re-sort.
I packed a suitcase with all non-biking-essential stuff to forward-on to London. I had extra clothes with me because for the past 4 weeks I’d been tripping around West Africa, the southern USA and Mexico looking at mining projects. Marie solved the problem of dispatching the suitcase for me by organising it on-line with France Post, and even made the €83 payment since the system couldn’t accept my non-france credit card data. All I had to do was go down to the nearest post office with all the paperwork when it opened on the Monday and drop off the suitcase.
And the system worked flawlessly too – except, that is, for a tense couple of hours of panic when I couldn’t find my passport anywhere (Marie had thought I’d better take it along to the post office with me in case they needed I.D.). We’d already taped-up the suitcase inside a beautifuly-made homemade cardboard carton but had to pull it all apart again when we concuded I probably packed away my passport, too, by mistake. But no, it wasn’t there either.
Despair set in at that point, but as I was sitting on the pull-down sofa in the granny flat shaking my head in resignation and wondering exactly what I was going to do now, having just ransacked the flat with Marie one last time, I spied what just might be a passport-looking object barely poking out from behind the kitchen sink curtain. Sure enough, it was my passport: it had fallen down behind the curtain and so now my entire trip was saved! This hassle cost my hosts a couple of hours of their travelling day – they’d intended to get away by 11 and didn’t do so until 2pm – but at least I was able to repay Marie from cash out of the post office’s ATM.
Tuesday 12 April 2022. Toulouse to Castelnaudary |82 km|
[Severe head wind, gusting to gale strength from directly ahead; short bursts of icy hypothermia-inducing rain. Entirely on canal path that was generally good bitumen. The route only took in one actual town – Port-Lauragais Sud – and there were a lot of little navigational missteps along the way]
It was already getting windy on the Monday when I went over to see Eric and Kathy on their boat to deliver an important government letter (they’re using Philippe and Marie’s house as a post-restante address), but by Tuesday morning when I was finally ready to set off, it really was blowing a gale – and it was coming from the South-East, which would be directly into my face as I cycled along the Canal du Midi to the Mediterranean coast.
I didn’t get going until 12.15 – fluffed about fixing 2 slow punctures in the front tyre that I belatedly discovered (after fixing one and re-installing the wheel, and then discovering there was another one), and then buying some nice provisions such as a baguette, goat’s cheese and saucisson (fuet – a kind of dried sausage) at the local boulangerie.
It was a nice ride at first, and good to be back in the saddle. With its Brookes saddle, this bike (named Ziggy) feels so much more comfortable than its twin back in Melbourne which has the standard gel saddle (note to self: buy a Brookes saddle back in Melbourne). The general set up on this bike, too, is much more conducive to loaded-up expedition cycling, with its 3-inch (75mm) handlebar stem riser giving a more upright riding position, and around 40% of the baggage load on the front wheel rack giving more stable steering.
There were lots of small branches lying on the path and flying across it, and even some big ones that had ended up in the canal from off the plane trees that line both canal banks. These plane trees were originally planted during the reign of Louis XIV to provide shade for his marching armies but are now under threat from a fungus that is rotting their roots . I saw a worker on the opposite bank, suspended out over the canal in a crane bucket and using a grappling hook in an attempt to lasso a particularly large semi-submerged branch that presented a danger to passing canal craft. I also passed a few lesser mortals who were crouched behind trees clutching their bikes and sheltering from the gale, but not me – no, I soldiered on.
But by the 50 km mark, at a place called Labastide-d’Anjou, the batteries were already down to 40% due to the heavy going, so I pulled into the rather dismal-looking campground of Camping Municipal le Radel, intent on maybe staying the night. It turned out the campground wasn’t even yet open for the season but after putting on my ‘crying face’, the gruff lackadaisical manager who was supervising a maintenance gang, reluctantly agreed to let me stay for an hour or so to charge up using his office power. Philippe had given me some good advice – the French don’t respond well to being told to do something, but are much more receptive to a hard-luck story. I stayed an hour and 20 minutes under his watchful glaring eye.
I got going again and a few kilometers further on I came across a couple, Judiacel and his wife Carina from Lyon, with a punctured rear tyre on his recumbent cycle. She was sitting around looking pretty bored and it was obvious Judiacel hadn’t a clue about how to fix the puncture – he couldn’t even figure out how to work the pump. So I stopped and put to good use my recent practice by replacing the tube for him – at least he had a spare.
I only gained another 26 km out of the day after the Judiacel episode before range anxiety struck again as I was approaching the town of Castelnaudary. After searching in vain 5km both up and down the canal for an open campground (both closed), I ended up booking into the Hotel du Canal for €49, which was pretty good value considering I could dry out (did I mention I had two bouts of driving rain to contend with?) and use the internet.
There was no restaurant attached to the hotel and no supermarket or food providore open either at that time of a Tuesday evening so I strolled up the street to Maison de Cassoulet where I enjoyed their signature dish ( Cassoulet , or sausage and confit of duck with beans and offal) and a half-bottle of local rosé. The meal wasn’t cheap by my standards (€30.50) but oh so very tasty! My two new friends from Lyon also happoened to be there and happened to be staying in the same hotel as I. We got talking and they invited me to stay over in their home when I was passing through Lyon. I took their number, but knew that I was highly unlikely I’d be calling as I had no local SIM for my phone.
Wednesday 13 April 2022. Castelnaudary • Narbonne |123 km|
[Cool, less windy, overcast, morning drizzle. Canal tow path deteriorated to slippery single track. The route took in the city of Carcassonne and the town of Trèbes, and the villages of Montredon-des-Corbières, Aude-Trèbes, Badens, Aigues-Vives, Puichéeric, Castelnau-d’Aude and Escales before arriving at the city of Narbonne]
Well, Claude, the bastard – the hotel receptionist who’d seemed such a nice guy the night before – had blatantly lied to me about the quality of the €12 breakfast when he convinced me to sign up and pay for it. Even by the worst standards I’d experienced so far in life, this one just about takes the cake! A tiny yoghurt, one mashed-up mini croissant, a cold boiled egg and a miniscule orange juice.
Back on the canal route, which had by now become very deteriorated and mostly single track ever since the 2018 flood (as I’d been repeatedly warned about by Philippe and Marie), I came to a road block set up by tree-cutters in a place called Le Cammas de la Ville. I could see the other side of the holdup – a mere 500 or so metres further on – but the barrier guy, though sympathetic, had strict orders not to let anyone through and told me I had to backtrack to the bridge at Bram and ‘go round via the D33 road’. Well, I’m acquainted with these so-called ‘Deviations ‘ – there never is another sign that puts you back on track – so I put on my crying face once again and he finally relented, dragged aside a section of wire mesh fence and said “follow that track through the farm, turn right at the irrigation ditch, go under the rail line and you’ll be back on the canal tow path” – or french words and gallic gestures to that effect. That little bit of help turned what would have been at least an 8 km detour and the probability of losing the route altogether, into a mere 600m side trip through a farm and under a railway line.
I continued following the canal as far as Carcassonne then took D roads through the vineyards to Narbonne. The tow path had by then become quite impassable. The problem with it was that the path comprised only a 20cm (8″) wide single track worn down about 5cm (2″) and level with, and only 1m (1 yard) from, the canal itself. Every few metres (yards) or so, the front tyre would ‘bite’ into the soft track sides and try to violently throw the bike into the canal, which became quite nerve-wracking.
Determined this time to find a camping ground, I GPSed myself to a couple that were located way out on the outskirts of Narbonne. They were about 8 km out of my way and represented a real risk getting to, as my batteries were once again almost depleted. The first one looked really good but was closed. The second one, where I ended up staying, and that I reached on empty batteries, was open but wasn’t much at all. The people were friendly but the facilities weren’t up to scratch – in fact, it’s the worst campground I’ve stayed at in my by now considerable European eBiking experience. There was no ‘proper’ food available either but at least the nice reception lady did open up her meagre store for me and I managed to collar a tub of wild Boar paté, a half-Baguette and a couple of small bottles of beer. That’ll do. It didn’t even rain much during the night, and my two pairs of simultaneously-worn woollen long-johns kept me warm enough, even if my light-weight sleeping bag was a huge disappointment.
Thursday 14 April 2022. Narbonne • Cap d’Agde |92 km|
[Cool; hardly any wind, partly cloudy but clearing. All D roads except for some off-piste excursions onto rocky and rubbly or muddy tracks. The route took in Vinassan, Fleury, across the Aude River (for the second, third and fourth times), Lespignan, Vendres, Sérignan, Portiragnes, Vias, Agde, Marseillan (by mistake!) and finally Cap D’Agde].
And so, for the ride: today, the GPS stuffed up twice. Seriously. It took me up impossible and unnecessary hill-climbs on stony rutted dirt track, to an impassibly-deep creek crossing and then along a lot of muddy single track that petered out and got swallowed up in the swamp. The worst of this occured just out of Fleury (which was actually quite a nice town itself) and before the village of Lespignan. But I over-ruled the GPS and just winged it back to more-or-less the correct route anyway using dead-reckoning. Clever me.
I crossed the Orb River at Sérignan without any further hassle (I remember the bike bridge there from when I passed through over 2 years ago) and took the same bamboo-lined roads on to Agde as my last time through here.
I got horribly lost again getting from Agde to Cap d’Agde. When I say ‘again’, I mean just like I did when I came through here last time a couple of years ago, as I mistakenly went to Plage Marseillan and then Ville Marseillan, but I eventually did arrive at my planned destination of the Naturalist Colony at the cape. Quite a rigmarole getting in too. It’s a large – no, HUGE, a couple of km at least – gated community and first I had to get a ticket to walk in and find a booking office to book and pay for accomodation then go back to the entrance and pay a daily entrance fee to be allowed back in with my bike. All without seeing what kind of accomodation I’d just shelled out €360 for for 3 nights.
Well it all turned out ok in the end. I stayed for the 3 nights/ 2 days in ‘villa’ #7 of the ‘Park Naturel’ complex (there are at least 8 self-contained ‘complexes’). The accomodation consists of mostly privately-owned apartments or villas that are leased out under managment contracts to realtors. Mine was owned by Germans, judging by the more than several hundred-odd German TV channels and password-protected German porn channels. No Sports channels, though, so my yearning for Champions League football went un-assuaged. My ground floor apartment was very close to the beach and close to the thick of things restaurant and bar-wise. Not that it was particularly jumping at this time of year – still too early in the season, though Easter weekend is regarded as the kicking-off point for the crowds. The weather was good – up to the mid-20s in the afternoon with a bit of wind. I even dipped my toes in the Mediterranean but it was far too cold to actually swim in at that time of year. The boulangeries/ patisseries/ charcuteries/ traitoirs were open and the take-out food was great, so that’s all I ate while I was there, and ignored the many bustling restaurants (though I did frequent the various bars).
Friday 15 and Saturday 16 April 2022. |no travel|
Had another flat front tyre to greet me in the morning – patched and refitted the tube twice. I survived on my rations from Le Petit Casino food store (like a 7/11 only smaller), where I was able to buy lemonade, a bottle of rosé and nice pastries, so all good.
Even sunbaked in the afternoon for an hour or so. I think the temperature got up to about 26°C.
I thought it best not to have my camera out snapping pics all day in a nudist colony. I did take one nice picture of an upside-down Easter full moon though (upside-down compared to what I’m used to seeing in Australia).
– ends –
Summary of the route in Europe 2022, so far
297 km travelled by ebike in 5 days (3 days of cycling).
Nights camping: 1
Nights in hotels: 4
- Repaired kickstand by drilling out broken bolt and replacing same.
- Oil change for Rohloff hub gearbox.
- Front tyre off 6 times; 4 punctures patches; tubes replaced two times.