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| Moulin de Bardin 17th c buildings |
Grey clouds, chilly start, sunny spells and heavy showers later. Up early to get to the first lock for nine. The neighbours started later as we didn’t want to do the deep lock together. Past the line of moored boats and the Police station, just one boat on the pay section, a large new DB called Maria, very bare and uncluttered. Under the bridge and into a section with high sloping walls with buildings on both sides. Lock 34 Reinette (1.9m) was automatic, under CCTV surveillance and set by the keeper at the lock above. I lifted the blue bar, which was on the left wall, and we shoved over to the right as there was no bollard for our centre rope on the left. Came up steady and a short pound lead to the deep one, formerly two locks, lock 33 La Marolle (4.90m). The resident keeper was a pleasant young man who lowered a hook to put our ropes on bollards so we reverted to lines fore and aft. Ground paddles on the automatic Briare locks squeeze the boat on to one wall or the other. As there is little commercial traffic it’s not easy to tell which wall, as there isn’t one that is shinier than the other where the water has forced a full length boat to rub against the wall. Lock 33 was manually operated and the water kept the boat hard against the right wall, flattening the only sausage fender that Mike hadn’t repaired! It was 9.45 a.m. as we tied on the old silo quay beyond the pay moorings (which were pretty much full – at 12€ a night there must still be some rich people about). Mike went to buy a loaf and I did the chores. Charley came past at 10.10 a.m. and said they would see us later at Montcresson or Montbouy. I made a cuppa and we set off again at 10.45 a.m. 4 kms to the next lock. A large Tarpon cruiser set off behind us and soon overtook us with wall to wall wash. What speed limit? We trundled on doing our usual 6 kph. A young man in a single-seater rowing scull went past. Took photos of the old Bardin mill buildings with a connecting bridge. It has a water wheel which was powered by the Loing and dates from before 1639 when the canal company bought it. Shortly after a small French yacht overtook – more waves washing the towpath! A Dutch péniche houseboat called En Route from Dorinchem was moored in one of the old oil berths just before the lock. Mike asked the skipper why they’d put no mooring signs halfway along the middle berth which said no mooring for 50m and thus prohibited any full length boats using either of the other two moorings. He said he didn’t know but at least one boat a week stops there and ignores the notice. (He must be moored there permanently then, his Dutch registered car was next to the boat). The two boats that had overtaken us had the lock, so we threw a rope on a bollard on the old quay below the lock and I took a walk up to 32 La Tuilerie (the tile works) (2.00m).
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| La Tuilerie, lock 32 Canal de Briare |
Told the keeper we only needed one gate opening. The Dutchman had said the keeper had been busy this morning, seven boats had been past before us. The lock had ground and gate paddles at both ends but the keeper only used the grounds. He told us we’d have to wait until 1.00 p.m. to get through the next, the other two had made it through and were continuing (the next four locks were automatic). He opened the other gate as we left so we guessed there was something coming down. A large Dutch cruiser from Sneek went past heading for the lock we’d just left. It was midday so he’d probably have to tie up for lunch. We moored below lock 31 Sabloniére (sand pit) and had lunch. At 1.00 p.m. the keeper from lock 32 came up in his VNF van and worked the lock for us. The sun came out as we went along the 1.9 kms pound to the Chesnoy flight of four locks. The Tarpon had tied up over lunch above lock 31 (the yacht had continued uphill) and had set off when the keeper arrived at 1.00 p.m. so we were surprised to see it sitting in the lock waiting for us – until we saw the VNF man on a moped.
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| Empty lock house Sabloniere, lock 31 Canal de Briare |
Well, at that point all ideas of a nice easy passage up the automated locks went out the window. The keeper had to tell the French crew (two men and a woman in their sixties) to move forward so we could get in behind them. I’d stepped off below on the lock approach and climbed the steps to drop a rope down for Mike as the locks are deep ones. They replaced the original five locks, a staircase three-rise with a single chamber at the top and one at the bottom of the flight, (of which nothing now remains except the original lock house), when all the locks in France were lengthened to Freycinet standard (38m long) around 1890 and they decided to build a new flight of four to replace them as staircases were more difficult to lengthen than singles.
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| Souffre-Douleur lock 30, another empty lock house (with camera) |
Up lock 30, (3.8m) Souffre-Douleur (suffer pain? What a name for a lock - where did that come from?) 29, (3.5m) Moulin de Tours. The fancy new lock cabin had broken plaster around the door, so I asked the keeper what had happened and he said thieves had broken in to get a generator. Silly place to leave a generator, but shows how the situation in France regarding theft is starting to get worse. Up 28, (3.8m) Chesnoy and 27 (3.8m) Montambert. As soon as the gates closed and I lifted the blue bar the VNF man said au’voir and was off back downhill on his moped. As we left the lock a large steel cruiser with a Danish flag on the bows arrived. He waited for the red light to change to green then had extreme trouble getting his 4.5m wide boat into a 5.20m wide lock! At one point the boat was almost across the lock mouth, AND there was no wind blowing! It was 2.25 p.m. as we set off on the “grand biez” the big pond, 8.5 kms to Montbouy.
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| Chesnoy, lock 28, empty lock house. |
We’d told the keeper we were either stopping at Montcresson or Montbouy as our friends with Charley had come up earlier. He looked at the log in the cabin at lock 29 and said they’d gone through at midday. I steered while Mike went inside to get a cold drink of water as it was starting to get hotter and the first hireboat went past, a Nautic heading downhill. Nothing was moored on the quay (no facilities) at Montcresson so we carried on. Hotel boat Merganser II went past churning up loads of leaves and twigs from the bottom, which tinkled around our prop for the next five minutes. A new looking silo and an old quay in an arm off the canal looked used, but no boats were there now. It was 4.00 p.m. when we arrived at Montbouy. Tied up in front of Charley just as it started to rain.
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| Montambert lock 27 - lock house lived-in! |
They'd come up the automatic locks unhindered by the VNF, stopped for a bike ride around Montcresson and had been tied up at Montbouy for two hours! An ex-hire boat owned by an English couple who keep it at Rogny and also have a house near there were moored behind Charley. They’d told Nick that there was a firework display on at Rogny over the weekend which was very popular, 30,000 people attended last year. He also said the moorings, water and electric at Chatillon-Coligny were free. Gave Mike a hand to get the bike off between showers and he went to get the car, dressed in waterproofs for the first time since the Netherlands (he said). I got on with the chores. When he came back he said he went the wrong way to start off with and ended up in a farmyard, then he went into Chatillon – still the wrong direction and he’d got the map! So he found the post office as we were due to collect some post from there this week, then he came back through Montbouy and went on to get the car from Montargis. A large Dutch boat called Meeuw (Mike thought it was a Motor Torpedo Boat - but surely nobody could afford to run one of those these days!) had moored in front of us so we had an audience while we put the bike back on the roof. The Internet was on GPRS, the slowest we’ve had for ages 53 mbps. OK for emails, no blogging or picture uploading.
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