Day 18 to Avignonet-Lauragais, 24 km

Les Cassés to Avignonet-Lauragais

Today was more of the tiny canal, La Rigole de la Plaine. A lot more. Probably 19 or 20 km. Very easy walking. It was a gorgeous day. And I got glimpses of the snowy Pyrenees off and on all day! And I actually saw other people. Lots of cyclists, all of whom were going in the opposite direction. A man walking the chemin in the other direction. Two men out fishing for rainbow trout. I talked to them long enough to need to pull up my hood and put on my gloves. There were a couple of joggers and some people walking their dogs, including a man whose nephew has just moved from Ottawa to the Laurentians, north of Montreal and become a Canadian citizen. And then there was the birder. Completely decked out in camouflage. Including a kind of buff on her head and netting that fit around her face and covered her neck, the same shape as whatever it is you call the thing that knights wore on their heads. When I first saw her, I thought it was someone living rough, carrying a big pack and a big walking stick. But, the walking stick was a tripod and the pack was a camera bag. When I got closer I saw the camera with the huge lens. She was looking for black woodpeckers. She told me about all the woodpeckers that live here, showing me pictures on her camera and looking them up on the Internet and checking to see the range and if they might also live in Canada. She thinks there is a lack of respect for wildlife in France. She also said that the 20 to maybe 40 metre wide wooded corridor along the Rigole canal is one of the places she can find the most ecological diversity. .

Eventually the little canal joins the big one, the Canal du Midi. There is a kind interpretive area and an obelisk marking this feat of 17thC engineering - but there was a lot of construction going on around it so I just kept going. The highest point of the canal, the Naurouze basin, is where the small canal, the Rigole, “feeds” water to the big canal. This is also “la ligne de partage des eaux,” the line separating water that flows to the Atlantic and water that flows to the Mediterranean. (The story is that the designer of the canal noticed a spring that produced two rivulets flowing to different watersheds.) His plan was to send water into the big canal at this point so it would be distributed both to the east and to the west. But then I also read that the lock going to the west was closed, so the water now just goes east to the Mediterranean. I think?????

After the Naurouze basin, the pilgrim goes out onto the path along the Canal du Midi. I will follow it for two days to Toulouse - and try not to get run over by bicycles!

Tonight I’m in an Airbnb because the gite was quite a distance from the Chemin. Dinner was a sandwich and an apple tart from the bakery, which is the only source of food in the village. I’ve been enjoying the couch!Read more