France; Canal Boat Trip, Day 4 - Cours-les-Barres to Herry

8 May

From the journal:

“We awoke this morning to a world that was wet, wet, wet – and very windy. After eating breakfast in the warm and snuggy salon on our boat, we noticed that another Crown Blue vessel which had spent the night tied up at Cours-les-Barres was about to depart. Oh my, oh my! Like our boat, I think it was only a couple onboard that vessel, and I’m pretty sure they were German. The “skipper” managed to reverse into the starboard side of our vessel twice, and then crashed very heavily into both banks, around again, crunch into the jetty. They were then heading for our vessel again, and I noticed the lady on board had the mooring spike ready to push against our boat. I shouted at her not to do that. Unbelievable! We watched, stunned, as they did a couple more 360 degree turns, him getting more and more angry and her getting more and more voluble.  Phew, were we glad when they eventually headed off in the opposite direction to where we would be going. We really couldn’t even say if that is where they wanted to go; we sort of feel that in the end he just powered ahead, irrespective of what way the bow was pointing. Imagine meeting people like that in a lock; very scary prospect.

Lovely Cours-les-Barres

After securing the boat, we rugged up, grabbed our brolly and went for a nice long walk through this lovely little village. We were just blown away – it is so charming, so beautiful, and so much what we had wanted to see in rural France. Perfect! 

Found a great little patisserie/boulangerie and bought some wonderful cakes – Paris Brest (oh, to die for, honestly). We have to give a big thanks to the travel guides we read before coming to France because they all pointed out the importance of manners, and the need to greet people when you enter a shop.

We were always careful to offer a “Bonjour Madam” or “Bonjour Monsieur, Dames” to all present as we entered a shop, always careful to say hello to people before actually saying what we needed or asking for directions. It pays off: you are then always greeted with a smile, great helpfulness, and, on leaving, a “Bon journée”, which of course sounds so much more genuine that the horrible “Have a nice day”.

Yay, a non-Gothic church.

We took a few photographs so we will have some pictures to remind us of this town, which also has a wonderful, warm feeling to it, unlike Nevers. Wish we had more time here.

Heading off, we noticed our friend, the heron, was with us again. Every day as we set off, he joins us, doing his job of flying ahead, stopping for a while for us to catch up, and then heading off up the canal again. I don’t know if this happens with all cruisers, but it’s just fabulous each morning to look around and see him there, as if he has spent the night waiting for us.

We will be back one day, Cours-les-Barres

Passed some great scenery along the canal, including a couple of really blow-you-away chateaux, particularly the Chateau de St Léger, just outside St Léger-le-Petit. Stunning.

We didn’t manage to take photos on today’s run as the weather was positively diabolical – cold, windy and oh so wet. We still wanted to sit up on top, though, in the outside driving position, and – confession time – I spent half the day with a black garbage bag tied onto my head as a rain bonnet.  I was really wishing I had one of those old bonnets, honestly – or perhaps a shower cap. Actually, that’s probably a good idea for future trips.

A quite funny little incident happened at the lock at ecluse 28, Argenvières. The lock-keeper had been really helpful and extremely nice at this and the previous lock which he looked after, and so we offered him one of our little Aussie souvenirs, a boomerang fridge magnet. It was the soft, magnetised rubber sort, not a metal thing with a magnet on the rear. Well, he turned it over and over in his hands, not knowing quite what it was. He then thought he had figured it out, and, thinking he had discovered its purpose, held it against his shirt sleeve, assuming it was some sort of badge/patch to be sown there. I had to hand him the bow line, go inside the vessel and demonstrate its use by sticking the magnet onto the boat’s fridge. I had been saying “Pour le frigo”, but either I had the wording wrong or my accent made it totally incomprehensible. He then seemed really pleased with the gift, but I couldn’t help feeling that he didn’t know what a boomerang was. Note to self: stick with kangaroos and koalas.

Our travel guide, Monsieur Heron

We had planned to stop for the night at La Chapelle Montlinard, but that place was awful beyond belief. A few boats were tied up there, but right next to the mooring area was a huge, neglected old factory, complete with broken windows and all covered with graffiti. Yuk!  Needless to say, we ploughed on. It was a real shame as we had hoped to visit La-Charité-sur-Loire ( how could you not want to visit a place with such a lyrical name?).

 And so we came to Herry, a delightful looking village, where we gratefully tied up and were able to get below, into the warmth, out of the awful weather. A welcoming hot shower, fresh, dry clothes, a couple of hot coffees, and we felt wonderful again.

Soft jazz on the iPod, a bowl of yummy potato and cheese soup accompanied by toasted baguette spread with lovely oozy camembert, fine chocolate, and a bottle of wine, and we were in heaven.”

See you tomorrow.

France: Canal Boat Trip, Day 3 - Nevers to Cours-les-Barre

7 May

From the travel journal:

“The day started beautifully with a delightful Welshman speaking to us as we walked through the carpark towards the steps, ready to walk into town to do our shopping. He and his wife, Hazel, are retired and now spend nine or so months of the year living on their charming boat, and the other three months back in Wales. They just cruise around all over the European waterways, but Nevers is their “home base”. We asked him for directions to the nearest store, but he said that he and his wife had noticed my bad limp and so he offered to drive us to a good sized supermarket so that we could do a big shop. This was an absolute God-send as my ankle was really painful. It was just lovely to find such unexpected kindness; it really restores your faith in humanity.

I really wish I’d caught his name, but it was one of those situations where you know you have been told but don’t like to ask again. Anyway, he – lovely man – drove us to a large supermarket where we were able to really stock up, including buying a couple of thick jumpers. The weather had been so warm, verging on hot, in Paris that we assumed it would be like that down here in Burgundy and not brought enough warm gear with us.

Heading back to the main canal.

When we got back from the shops we realised that we didn’t really have time to explore the city, and I wasn’t really in a position to do so, and so we filled up the water tanks, thanked those kind boating neighbours, and set off. We couldn’t really hang around, because tomorrow is the 8^th of May, which of course is a holiday in France to celebrate the end of WW2, and even the harbourmaster – a very helpful chap – at Nevers couldn’t tell us whether or not the locks would be operating, so we couldn’t take the risk of being stuck somewhere and not getting to the end of our cruise on time. It’s a shame really, because this place seems so interesting, and the port facilities here are really excellent. Ah, we’ll be back another time, I’m sure.

Lovely canal-side houses

Because we had set off so late, and because there was a really slow, rather long boat in front of us, we didn’t make it through the second automatic lock out of Nevers before the lunchtime closure, and so we tied up to a little jetty and enjoyed the warm sunshine and a delicious, simple lunch – our favourite, Paris ham, cheese, tomatoes, baguette, and of course wine.

Wonderful scenery.

After leaving the Nevers area we came in due course to the absolutely amazing Pont-Canal du Guetin, a “canal bridge”, or pont, high up over the Allier River. 

Approaching the Pont-Canal du Guetin

This pont-canal is not only really beautiful – classic, elegant design – but quite an amazing experience, sailing slowly along that ribbon of water and looking down over the side of the pont to the river far, far below. The pont-canal leads to an incredible, and quite challenging double lock, which drops you, in two stages, under the main road of this incredibly pretty village of Guetin.

And across we go. Fantastic!

As with so many locks, locals and passers-by stop to watch the boat go through the lock. It sort of makes you try that little bit harder to get the ropes secured properly and to actually look as if you know what you’re doing. It’s really fantastic, though, being on a boat going through a lock and having an interested audience smiling and waving at you from a bridge or a canalside. It’s a great chance to call out a friendly “Bonjour”, and to hear back “Bon voyage” as you depart the lock – really a lovely aspect of a canal trip.

We then had one rather small lock to pass through on the way to our destination, Cours-les-Barres. Going through this lock, which of course would seem small anyway after the huge drop of the double one we had passed through, provided a great little bit of entertainment as there was another vessel there, crewed by two elderly couples, one French and one Italian. They had, I think, had quite a bit more vino than us to drink and were very merry. We called to each other, chatting in our variety of languages and accents, hand-signalling when communication was difficult. When they realised that we were all the way from Australia, they started kangaroo hopping around the back deck – the ladies immaculately groomed and sporting enough jewellery to sink a smaller boat, the men looking a bit dapper, all doing Skippy impersonations. 

By the tie-up point at Cours-les-Barres

After passing more stunning scenery, and catching glimpses of chateaux on hillsides, we pulled up to the quay at the absolutely picture book pretty village of Cours-les-Barres for the night.  

What a beautiful spot - invites a walk.

Once the boat was secured, we were off and wandering. What a lovely place, and what a perfect spot to spend the evening.”

Catch you later.