Friday 5 August - cycling to Auvillar, meeting Amarok, Au Fil de L'Eau


This was to be a regular pattern over the coming weeks, mooring in a town and then using the bikes to explore further. Great exercise, and expanding our horizons. So Rita and I and her 91 year old dad Frank set off to Auvillar. It was a relatively gentle ride until we reached the outskirts of the town, which it situated at the top of a hill. So we tied the bikes up to a convenient lightpole, and walked the rest of the way.

The town of Auvillar, like many in the region, is a bastide town, with an encircling wall designed for fortification and defence. So, after just beating the crowd for lunch at a local cafe, we entered the town through the main entrance and started to explore.

The old church, which like Moissac is on the Route de Compostelle de Santiago, had been used the previous evening for a classical concert, as evidenced by the empty chairs on stage.

The circular mill in the centre of the town square had us wondering about just how it would have operated - was it human-powered, animal-powered, water-powered? It was not at all obvious. Was it even a mill?

After a pleasant few hours, and an afternoon coffee, we wandered back down the hill, then cycled back to Valence d'Agen.

When we got back to Valence d'Agen, we found that our sister ship (Amarok, soon to be renamed Accord) had arrived from Moissac and tied up next to us. This barge was the original Lagom, the personal barge of Simon Piper, and the subject of the Boat Test article I had referred to when considering whether to buy Kimasut. We had met the new owners in Moissac (Dick and Carol Tuschick), who were one of a quartet of US couples who had bought Amarok as a syndicate. We were to meet with them often over the coming month. One of the good things about having a Piper is that, with a number of Pipers out there cruising the canals, there is always a ready source of help when you need it. For example, in Valence d'Agen, I found that I could not get the generator on Kanumbra started because the battery for the generator had gone flat while we were tied up in Moissac and on shore power (hence not needed to start the generator). Dick came over and had a look, and between us we figured that if we could jump start the 12v generator battery from one of the two 12v batteries for the engine, then we might be OK. So Rita and I went for a cycle around Valence d'Agen, with Rita using her best French to ask shopkeepers where we might be able to buy some jumper cables. Eventually we found the right store, bought two sets, and now Kanumbra and Accord have a set in their engine rooms. The generator started successfully and the battery has been fine ever since.

The reason we had come to Valence d'Agen that day was a recommendation by Kaz Noble that we should really try to see the show they put on there each year, the "Au Fil de L'Eau" (loosely, the history of the water). This is a community production that documents the history of the town over the past 100 years and it's relationship to the Canal. We got a glimpse of what was to come when walking around town that afternoon, and seeing the sets at the side of the canal.

But what we were to see later that night, as 450 townspeople put on the main show, really blew us away!

They even had a real barge enter from stage right as it cruised into town...

and then finished off with the obligatory fireworks display.