MONTECH INCLINED PLANE: Trippy Sloping Solution 🏗️ Canal des Deux Mers

Day 57. 92km (86398kms 8yrs)

Host Adéle is Breton so breakfast included some especially delicious salted butter and natural apple juice. But I’d woken with a bit of a headache; since I still harbour a deep resentment to Corsica I will blame the (very tasty) Corsican amber ale we all shared the previous night.

Cycling along the flat towpath it became quickly apparent I was physically depleted too. There was a slight headwind, but nothing that should be making this easy ride feel so exhausting. On this stretch there were more hikers than bikers on the towpath. I thought about the man grumbling in my comment section when I rode a towpath in England; here at least there’s plenty of room for everyone, even if the hikers sometimes block the whole path 😉

In Moissac I bought the stodgiest looking pile of calories I could see in the bakery and popped by the loo on my way to enjoy it at the abbey. But it was a mechanical toilet of the ‘press button for release’ variety, but the button did not release me! I was trapped! After a short amount of re-pressing and rising panic I began banging on the door. Passersby stopped to help; they summoned assistance and reassured me they would wait with me. Intermittently I retried the button and door. So when a policeman arrived who simply opened the door it was all very embarrassing for everyone involved! (The vid which didn’t fit for time in my vlog is available for my Patrons on ✨Patreon✨)

So, finally able to relax and eat I enjoyed this bread n butter pudding type cake under the ornately carved entrance of St Peter’s abbey before taking a look inside. The streets around abbey are three of four stories high, with shutters, giving quite an Italian feel to the town centre.

Back on the bike path I saw a lizard or two; the weather is really warming up now. Still 40kms from my desired camp spot I pushed on despite still feeling depleted, eating baguette with excessive quantities of chocolate paste in an effort to quickly refuel.

In Montech I wondered at the ‘water slope’ – an ingenious creation designed to bypass 5 nearby locks whereby a colossal vehicle straddling the canal pushes the water up or down allowing boats to move more quickly over the comparatively steeper gradient. 25kms later I was as close as I wanted to risk camping to Toulouse, so left the canal setting off down a track towards the river. At first I couldn’t find a good hiding spot between the open fields and banks of nettles and thorns, but on my way back to the road I spotted a path down to the water; the tiny sandbank was insufficient but by flattening a patch of long grass I made a lovely camp beside a bend in the river. The full moon was so bright through the trees it cast spooky contorted branch shadows on the tent.

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