latest progress

We stayed in Castelnaudary until the 10th when the wind moderated (30+
kmh with big gusts) as it would have made getting in and out of locks
very tricky. Castelnaudary was for us a bit bland as pretty much every
thing is covered in sand coloured stucco and the museum was closed (it
is only open from July to the 18th Sept).
One night we were woken up by loud splashes which turned out to be coypu
doing belly flops off the bank into the canal, which reminded me that
just before Castelnaudray we passed a bloke walking two rottweilers
which were taking it in turns to do belly flops into the canal - quite a
sight!
We have got so conditioned to the facilities in ports not being
available when the Capitainerie is shut that we did not bother to go on
the main quay, only to find out that they have a card system to allow
access at all times so we missed out on WiFi as well as the other
facilities (we arrived on a Friday and the capitainerie was not open
over the weekend).
Today we finished 1 lock short of getting to Carcassone: we were 2
minutes off the lock when the lock keeper passed us in his car having
finished for the day; however, it is a quiet place to moor up and we
should get to Carcassone by 11am tomorrow if all goes well so we will
have most of the day to visit the bits we missed last time we were
here. The next stop after Carcassone is Trebes and between there and
Capestang we have some knowledge of the canal as in the past we have
done 2 holidays on hired motor boats there.
The canal has changed in 2 major ways: it is more windy and it is going
through vineyards. There is not much traffic on the canal, but it is
depressing to see how oblivious people are of how to drive on the river:
we regularly see people going passed moored boats and close to the bank
at full speed which causes boats to pull their moorings and speeds the
erosion of the banks.
We have a good system for getting in and out of locks now, the only
downside is that we are slow at entering, which got us a rebuke from
another boater who was rushing to get someplace, but it was
water of a ducks back to us as our priority is not to damage Mango. We
stopped for water after that lock and let him get ahead.