The story continues as we meander along the Canal from Port La Robine to Homps, with a stopover for the night at Argens-Minervois. This seems to be like the heart of the wine country. There are vineyards lining the banks of the canal stretching in every direction. The countryside continues to amaze with its patterns of vineyards punctuated from time to time by small villages and farm houses. Wind farms are plentiful in these parts but they do not seem to have affected the vines. Port la Robine is a junction point for another canal joining the Canal Du Midi from Narbonne in the south closer to the Mediterranean coast. We keep going along the Canal du Midi, although there was a slight inclination to go down and see Narbonne. It would have been difficult time wise as well as a good number of locks to go back and forth over. Another time maybe!

Allthego checking out the local pizza oven tools

We are now back in lock country and we have to pass through one before entering the port at Argens-Minervois for our night stop. The team on board are getting quite good now at casting ropes up the lock wall and getting us set for the inflow of water in the lock as we rise up. Our trip involves us going up all the locks as the Canal does not  reach its highest point until east of Castelnaudary, where our trip concludes.

At Argens-Minervois we had dinner out at a great little BBQ resteraunt. There is a big open wood fired BBQ .and we order steaks of various types followed by a crepe house speciality. The crepe was substantial. On top of the crepe was placed a big lump of ice cream, covered with chantilly cream and then topped with some strawberries and grand marnier. The crepe was then folded over this lot and drizzled with strawberry sauce. How to finish a meal! Slept like a log.

BBQ restaurant

Tony’s steak

Crepe speciality

BBQ restaurant

The next day we resumed the Canal and went the 5 km on to Homps a short distance for our next stop over. Homps is an old canal port which was a transport hub for the wine industry in the ‘good old days’ . It is now a little weather beaten and is trying to reinvigorate itself around tourism. Still a lot of wine here to enjoy. We dined on a Toulouse sausage of some sort cooked on board by Tony Watt and eaten on our top deck. We had some clouds in the early evening sky and these were painted a pale pink as the sun slowly descended in the west.

Sunset at Homps