Cycling the Midi

On our second day in Beziers, after some light rain last night we woke to another beautiful morning. After breakfast I got our bikes ready for our ride along the Canal du Midi.

Settling out along the canal we soon realised it was flowing rather quickly... oops we’d missed the canal and followed the river. Crossing a bridge, we made our way back on the other side to the lock which joins the canal to the river. Ah that’s better, we recognised our return route from yesterday.

We continued for a few km, crossing the aqueduct we found yesterday and continuing to the bottom of Les Neuf Ecluses de Fonseranes. This chain of nine locks raises the canal 21.5m over a distance of just 300m! It was steep going up the towpath at this point - we pushed our bikes up.

Continuing onward through some beautiful countryside the well maintained path was great for cycling. There was quite a strong Northerly wind blowing in our faces so we’re hoping that it won’t change direction as it will blow us home! 

After a couple of hours we came to the 165m long Tunnel de Malpas. This feat of engineering, excavated in 1679 was Europe’s first navigable canal tunnel. This isn’t the only tunnel through this hill - in the Middle Ages an underground culvert was cut to drain the Etang de Montady and in the 19th Century a third tunnel was cut for the railway. We parked our bikes and walked along the very narrow walkway beside the canal. Fortunately there was a low rail to stop you falling in! Having reached daylight on the far side, we retraced our footsteps and collected our bikes.

On top of the hill there is a tourist information centre with information boards. We stopped for lunch here using their picnic table.

After lunch we followed signs uphill for a view of the Etang de Montady. This massive natural depression which covers over 1000 hectares was drained in the 13th Century to provide farmland. The area was drained by making radial ditches from a single centre point out to the extremities. The water flows to this centre point and is then drained by sixteen vertical shafts located approximately 80m apart into an underground culvert which flows through the Malpas hill under the Malpas Tunnel.

We returned to the towpath and headed back to Beziers - the wind was behind us so we made good time back to Kiki.

An hour or so sitting in the sun before our evening meal and then we were entertained by the roosting rooks again. We settled down for the night knowing that we were going to sleep well!