Port

Gadouch

Name: Gadouch
Address: Lux, FR

1.0Lux, France

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Type: Harbour

Canal port on the Canal du Midi in Haute-Garonne, on the summit level of the Seuil de Naurouze between Toulouse and Castelnaudary.

Guide

Approach and anchoring

Approach along the Canal du Midi. The port lies on the bief de partage fed from the Montagne Noire, between the Gardouch lock downstream toward Toulouse and the Laval lock upstream toward the summit. Canal draught 1.4 m, air draught 3.2 m. Speed 8 km/h.

Practical

Quay with water and electricity. Bakery and grocery in the village of Gardouch at 500 m. SNCF station of Gardouch on the Toulouse-Narbonne line at 700 m. Canal cruiser hire base operates from the port.

Ashore

Seuil de Naurouze, the watershed point of the Canal du Midi at 189 m altitude, at 8 km east, marked by the Riquet obelisk erected in 1827. Lac de la Thesauque reservoir at 6 km, fed like the canal by the Montagne Noire waters. The Canal du Midi towpath is open to cyclists as part of the EuroVelo 8 Mediterranean route.

History

Gardouch sits within a few kilometres of the Seuil de Naurouze, the watershed between the Atlantic and Mediterranean basins that Pierre-Paul Riquet identified in the 1660s as the key to feeding the Canal du Midi with streams from the Montagne Noire. The canal was opened through here in 1681.

Story

The Ore stream feeding this reach is one of the rigoles designed by Riquet to bring water from the Black Mountain to the summit level, a hydraulic system still operating more than three centuries later.