cycling Canal Du Midi - Days 3, 4 and 5.

We leave Carcassonne riding between two UNESCO World Heritage Sites - the Canal Du Midi and the Cite Medieval. It's very exciting and the canal path welcomes us with a stately row of plane trees. What a surprise. An even bigger surprise is the flat front tyre Jenny (the name of Cathie's bike) gets beside a lock. I repair it in double quick time. Actually, it takes the usual 20 minutes of cursing and head scratching. Cathie gets back on Jenny and rides two metres before I notice the back tyre is flat as well. More cursing, more head scratching, more dunking the inflated tube into the canal to see if my repair held. It did. And we're away, hungry and frustrated and my... look at that path, isn't it splendidly bumpy and pock-marked and muddy and no wonder there's few cyclists out today.

Every second barge we pass flies the Australian flag. It's peak season for 'g'days' shouted from the bow. Or is that the stern? Or the port side? Whatever. 

In the afternoon, we divert away from the canal and ride on a D road, with the hot blustery wind in our faces to Bize-Minervois, a gorgeous village with a fast-flowing river, an excellent restaurant and a B&B run by a Scotsman and a Yorkshire woman who make us feel very much at home by offering us numerous beers on arrival.
The next day, we ride to Minerve along a smooth tarmac road (smiling all the way). Minerve is a beau village set on a hill in the middle of an eroded canyon. The river flows below as we walk the cobblestone streets and admire the spectacular views. 

At night, we have a party at the B&B attended by lots of lovely Scottish people and two Americans. We eat duck, pork, chicken, salmon and drink too much beer and an enticing carafe or two of Rose. I didn't know the Scots could cook so well. Haggis was nowhere to be seen!
Refreshed, the next day we start cycling at 2pm, which is admittedly a rather late start, but there was a certain World Cup Qualification Football match to watch in the morning. Refreshed AND triumphant, we cycle away from Bize through hillside vineyards and reluctantly rejoin the bumpity-bump of the Canal. It's still just as beautiful and sedate as when we left it two days ago and the path is still an obstacle course. To relieve matters I start calling back to Cathie a commentary of what lay ahead.
'Tree roots'
'Wheel ruts'
'Overhanging branch'
'Pain in left buttock'
'Tree roots'
'Midges'
The last one certainly made me forget the pain in my buttock. I now focussed on the buzzing insect in my right ear, left nostril and what was that I just swallowed?
We arrived in Beziers and happily climbed a ridiculously steep hill because it was free of midges! 

And so to our last day on the canal, from Beziers to Sete, on the Mediterranean. It rains most of the way. The path gives up altogether near the sea and we have to divert through vineyards and a new housing estate. We rejoin the path five hundred metres before it empties into the Etang du Thau, near Sete. But, frustratingly, access is barred. We've journeyed beside the Canal du Garonne and the Canal du Midi for six hundred kilometres and yet cannot, symbolically, say goodbye at the mouth of the canal. So, we make do with photos beside the waterway.

The path to Sete is brand new and in perfect condition, running beside the sand dunes of the beach for nine kilometres. It's lovely! We eat a galette and drink cider in a beachside restaurant to celebrate the end of our journey. Craig and Jenny rest leaning against a palm tree. 
The Canal des deux Mers cycle journey is a lovely way to see rural France and ride beside one of the most beautiful waterways in the world. Bring a camera. And well-padded lycra.