The Lot (France’s longest tributary river) had been decommissioned in 1926, locks had been abandoned and hydro-electric barrages built when Christian Bernad started campaigning in 1971 for its restoration and re-opening. Our esteemed colleague and friend David Edwards-May conducted one of the significant founding studies into the feasibility of this plan.
1999
On the lower river, nearer the junction with the river Garonne, the high hydro-electric barrage at Castelmoron had a deep lock created to one side, and just above the village a new inland port was dug out and built – called Port Lalande. Port Lalande opened in 1999 has 55 mooring berths and was originally a base for a self-drive hire fleet.
2010
We first arrived ten years later, more than 10 years ago, in June 2010 after having made the passage from the Canal de Garonne at Buzet-sur-Baïse, down the Baíse river to the river Garonne then joining the Lot at Nicole and upstream to Castelmoron and Port Lalande. We thought that the river, the countryside, the villages – and Port Lalande itself – was magical.
(above) As can be seen even though boats from elsewhere on the French waterways network could get to Lalande in 2010 we had the quayside to ourselves! The Port Lalande hire boat base had closed but there was another, further upstream at Saint-Sylvestre.
We have now returned to Port Lalande every year since 2010, temporarily or as year-long berth-holders, with a gap of three years when we lived full-time in England.
The harbour and its surroundings, and its wonderful quayside mooring, has become our favourite place in France – and we have travelled over 10,000km throughout the river and canal network. In fact, we tell people throughout the world about how quiet and pretty the Lot is, and about the unique location that is Port Lalande.
There has been lots of interest and activity on the quay over the past years . . .
Away from The Port
Of course, we don’t stay full-time on the Port Lalande quayside – we visit other Lot villages up and down the river for periods of time during the summer and we moor inside the port when we re-visit our families in England, during the year and during the winter months.
Room on the Quayside
Our quayside is still as quiet and little used as it was back in 2010. In recent years we have welcomed a permanent larger neighbour – the restaurant-excursion boat Lou Vent d’Olt – but even when we’re moored there, there is still room for other boats, and fishermen!
Quieter and quieter . . .
Unfortunately, the need for us (very happily) to move along, or move from, our quayside to accommodate visiting boats gets less and less necessary. Our ‘lower Lot’ has recently had some good news, with the re-opening of a long-closed lock further upstream at Saint-Vite. But overall the amount of activity gets less and less. The Covid pandemic has led to lock-downs, curfews and restrictions on entering France, travelling generally and of course, navigating the waterways.
No more boats . . ?
More significantly, access to the Lot from the canal network is now impossible, so there is no ‘new life’ – new boats and visiting boats – being breathed in. Even though we love how quiet the river has become, it’s not a healthy tranquility from an economically sustainable point of view. Currently (April 2021) excluding fishermen’s small craft, there are no boats that could feasibly be expected to travel here from downstream (for example, Clairac) and very very few from upstream (for example, from Saint Sylvestre where the hire boat base has closed).
