Day 19 to Ayguesvives, 20 km

Avignonet-Lauragais to Ayguesvives, or the Écluse de Sangliers, along the Canal du Midi

Very very very nice day. Easy, bucolic, and blessed by perfect spring weather. I spent the whole day walking on the north side of the big canal. Incredibly I did not get bowled over by any of the many cyclists, who to a person do not use bells or words to warn you that they are coming. The only person who actually rang their bell when they passed was a little boy of maybe 8.

No getting away from the fact that the whole path is paved. And it runs parallel to the autoroute, at times getting very close. But I still really enjoyed it. I did not really miss the 25 km of crops that Gronze wanted me to walk through.

Lots of ducks. A lot of unidentified by me songbirds. Three rodenty creatures I thought were maybe muskrats.

Busy canal means there was a coffee en route. But there was only the one cafe today. Closer to Toulouse there are apparently more. There were lots of benches and tables. In a few places the rest spots on the canal path had gates leading to service centres on the autoroute.

I left at 9 and really took my time to make sure I did not arrive at the gite before 3. It’s run by volunteers who come for a week. It’s run by the same association that runs the gite in Revel and the brand new, just opened gite in Toulouse, that people have been telling us about. The couple who are here this week were in Revel earlier and will go to Toulouse for a week later on.

The gite is right beside the lock of the wild boars! Very cool to watch boats going through. The locks are automated now. You pull into the basin, someone jumps off the boat and enters info into what looks like a parking meter. And then gates open and close, etc. and off you go. But one time it did not work and the people had to wait for a canal employee to come.

Huge dinner here. It started with a glass of wine and crackers. And then went on for more than 2 hours! I was fading. There are two of us here. Me and a Swiss man who walks with a little trailer.

My knee was very unhappy this morning. But after an hour it felt much better and now it feels way better still. Fingers crossed that it stays that way.

I think tomorrow is a lot of city outskirts. Toulouse is the 4th or 5th largest city in France by population, depending on where you look. And then there will be a fancy coffee, a bath, maybe a nice salade composèe, and the purchase of a tube of voltaren,Read more