Overnight stoping places on the Rhone, Arles to Port St Louis

[pcatterall]

Planning to overwinter on the hard at Port St Louis.
The journey from where we are ( in the canal at Bellegarde) is a little long....canal..lock... Petite Rhone... and the Rhone itself ( for me on my own) It would be nice to stop over at Arles or around there. The guide suggests that there was a stop over opposite Arles but that it was closed for renovation ( due for completion by 2011 !!) All other information seems equally out of date. Has anyone any recent experience please?

 

[Cardo]

Planning to overwinter on the hard at Port St Louis.
The journey from where we are ( in the canal at Bellegarde) is a little long....canal..lock... Petite Rhone... and the Rhone itself ( for me on my own) It would be nice to stop over at Arles or around there. The guide suggests that there was a stop over opposite Arles but that it was closed for renovation ( due for completion by 2011 !!) All other information seems equally out of date. Has anyone any recent experience please?

We came down that way towards the end of June, so reasonably recent experience!

Arles itself is rubbish. The old halte nautique was washed away and all that's left is a single pontoon covered in small fishing boats. As per Grehan's site, there is the option of entering the canal d'Arles a Fos and mooring up just in there.

The alternative is going upstream to Ecluse de Beaucaire at pk 264.5 and tying up to the new waiting pontoon. Or just upstream of that at pk 261 is a set of pontoons that offer decent looking mooring, however they are a little exposed of the winds are up. Further north is Avignon, with its halte on the wall at pk 241.

 

[Cardo]

Apologies, just realised you're going south.

We saw absolutely naff all between Arles and Port St Louis. Maybe the canal idea is best?