Hello ! I am delighted to welcome you to the second edition of the lock-keeper, our GoBarging newsletter. Last month in our first ever edition, we ran a competition to win a luxury cruise for two on L'Impressionniste in France, and I am happy to announce the winner in this edition - more on that in the pages below. We had a tremendous response, hundreds of you entered the competition, and passed the message on to friends who entered too, so thanks to everyone and I hope it was a lot of fun. As usual, it is always difficult to choose a winner, and no doubt many people will be disappointed, but the good news is that we are running a new competition in this month's edition, and we hope to continue this in coming months. We have joined-up with fromages.com to offer a superb Provençal cheeseboard from their luxury cheese range, to let the lucky winner savour the tastes of a selection of cheeses from this wonderful part of France. You'll find details of the competition in our fromages.com feature below. The competition will run until Friday 29th August. Why not send this newsletter to a friend and get them to enter the competition too. If you both enter and you are the lucky winner, then your friend will also receive a luxury fromages.com cheeseboard. We also have some new stories for you, a couple of feature stories by writers who have enjoyed their vacations aboard Anjodi. We hope you enjoy this second edition of the lock-keeper, and we look forward to seeing you at www.gobarging.com, where you will find out all about GoBarging and keep up to date with the latest news as it breaks.... please read on and welcome aboard, best regards, Derek Banks - Chairman

Lori Tobias writes about her turn at the wheel on Anjodi, and her visit to Carcassonne... ....In the morning, we awake to the sound of the Homps church bells tolling in three part harmony. After breakfast, we set off, McColl at the wheel, for Carcassonne, a walled city established in 600 BC and featuring 52 watchtowers and three kilometres of massive stone walls. Soon, its peaked black and red tiled roofs and stone turrets rise from the golden hills, and the modern world at hand suddenly seems quite insignificant. The drawbridge entrance is guarded by a stone sculpture of Lady Carcas, from whom the city takes its name. As the story goes, in 760 BC, the fortress came under siege by an army intent on starving the people out. In a desperate bid to save the city, Dame Carcas instructed the villagers to fatten a pig with the last sacks of grain, then throw it over the wall. On sight of such a healthy pig, the attackers reasoned the villagers must be a long way from starvation and gave up the siege. To celebrate Dame Carcas had the village bells rung all day. And so the city got its name, Carcas and sonne -- French for ringing the bells. Inside Carcassonne, cobblestone streets wind past shops and cafes, leading to the cathedral at the city’s heart, the Basilique St. Nazaire. Its 14th-century stained glass windows are said to be some of the oldest in France; its Gothic architecture, among the best in the region. Read more about Lori's adventure here. Win a luxury Provençal cheeseboard from fromages.com. Our latest fun competition offers you the chance to win this fabulous cheeseboard. All you have to do is find the cheese, hidden somewhere on L'Impressionniste, then answer three simple questions about fromages.com - answers all found on their great cheese website, enter your details and that's it, you are in the competition. Tell a friend, and if they enter too and you win, your friend also receives a luxury Provençal cheeseboard, sent direct to their home address. Try this wonderful taste of Provençal life, enter our competition.

Up a lazy river, champers to hand. The boat's luxurious, the service impeccable. Cassandra Jardine and family impersonate the super-rich on the Canal du Midi - story by Cassandra Jardine. ..."Frankly, it's the perfect holiday," I announced to my husband while we were still moored on a glassy lagoon at Marseillan, by the Mediterranean coast. "Mmm," he muttered, already perfecting his impersonation of the kind of big shot who cannot remember when he last fixed his own drink. The first point to note about these hotel barges is that they bear the same relationship to a narrow boat as a Mini Metro bears to an S-Class Mercedes. For one thing they are wide - 16ft 6in as opposed to 6ft 10in - and long - more than 100ft - so the total volume is nearly three times greater. That provides plenty of room for the essentials - from large stocks of Champagne to storage for the Louis Vuitton trunks favoured by those who tend to take these holidays. The idea is that a week on a hotel barge should compete, on price and comfort, with a four-star hotel, luxury villa or the rental of a small chateau. From the moment guests are picked up on a Sunday afternoon in the barge's minibus, there is no need to lift a finger, except to request another drink. Wonderful food appears (duck, terrines, local cheeses, plateaux de fruits de mer), rooms are tidied discreetly, and our captain, Gordon had booked the locks so we glided past the self-drive boats and bagged the best moorings... Read the full article, Up a Lazy River here. What we do on our weekends - taken recently at the Henley Regatta - The Gobarging team check out the rowing. As well as being a keen rower, Derek Banks enjoys a glass of France's finest champagne with his wife Debbie Lloyd-Jones, whilst friends Ivan and Katherine Jones look after the propulsion and stereo system. Both Actief and Magna Carta are available to take in the rowing at this world class International Rowing and Social event. (Photograph by Phillip Shephard-Lewis / Daily Telegraph July 19th 2003)

Luxury Holiday Competition winner At last, the part you have all been waiting for.. The winner of our luxury holiday for two is Earlene Fiori from Fresno, California Earlene was one of many people who got all the answers correct, and everyone had a great reason why they should be the lucky winner, so we decided the fairest way to decide on the eventual winner was to draw a name from a hat. Earlene referred a friend, so her sister Helen Johansen from Seattle, Washington gets to come along too. Earlene, pictured left with husband Rick, was delighted when we contacted her, and it just happened to be Earlene's birthday that day too, some co-incidence and a wonderful birthday surprise... When my sister, Helen, called me on my birthday, “Go check your email,” she ordered. So I went to the computer to check my email. There it was. An email that announced that I had won the GoBarging barge trip. I had only enough breath to whisper, “I won.” It still seems unreal, I had won — and won big: a dream vacation that gives me an excuse to return to France. Next year’s itinerary visits a region of France that has long interested this admitted Francophile who read Came a Cavalier when 12 years old and dreamed of visiting France everafter. After we barge in Provence, we plan to stay a week in the Loire Valley as well. When I finally visited France eons later, in April of 2003, I found the reality far outdistanced the dream. And now I will return with my husband — this trip too, a culmination of a dream. The scenery, the excursions, the wine tasting, the meals, the biking along the path as the barge moves slowly through the canal all sounds inviting and relaxing. My husband and my sister are my wonderful traveling companions so that’s a bonus. Since my sister lives a thousand miles from us, we don’t see her as often as we would like and sharing the barge trip will be an additional treat. My husband is amused by my excitement but also looks forward to his first visit to France and first barge vacation. He wants to hear about the fishing excursions. We'll catch-up with Earlene and her family when they cruise on L'Impressionniste sometime next year, meantime, why not enter our Provençal cheese competition and win a luxury cheeseboard for you and your friend.

That's all for this second edition, and hopefully the above articles have whet your appetite for that well-earned luxury cruise..! Please visit www.gobarging.com and have a look around, or follow the individual links above, and of course - don't forget the GoBarging Competition !! The next edition of the lock-keeper will be out in September, and we'll announce the Provençal cheeseboard winner then. If you have any suggestions, feedback or barging stories to tell us, then please e-mail us. We'll be glad to hear from you and share your inputs in the lock-keeper, there will also be some spot prizes for good submissions...

back to home page