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| Chateau tower near Cercy |
Hazy cloud first thing then banks of white cloud and sunshine but much cooler. Mike went up to say au’voir et merci to the lady keeper at Cercy. Gave her one of my cards with the blog site on it so she could have a look at our photos of the Nivernais. The ex-Rive-de-France hireboat that had been moored in front of us for the last three days went up the lock at nine. Madame ‘phoned Roche for us and we winded with the gentle flow of the little river Aron and set off downhill at 9.15 a.m. For the first time since spring we wore our fleeces as it was quite nippy. Through the open floodlock back on to the canal, 7.7 kms to lock 32 Roche (3.07m). I went inside to make a cuppa just as the first boat of only two we saw moving all day on the Nivernais and the Loire (until we stopped on the Latéral) a LeBoat hung back at a bridge to let Mike through first. Unusual for a hireboat! Our lock keeper came up the towpath on his scooter to find us. (They’re not used to our speed of boating, hireboats and most private boats travel in excess of 10 kph) An American couple on bikes had stopped to ask us the usual questions – how did you get THAT here?
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| Ecluse de Roche, extended from 30m to 38m late 19c |
The keeper had turned his scooter around and gone back to the lock to open one gate for us. He was quiet and didn’t speak much. Mike wound a bottom end paddle for him and got back on board. I took a photo of the extension of the lock. The keeper closed the gate behind us and refilled the lock before riding the 3.3 kms down to Champvert. Lock 33 (2.27m) was ready for us and two blokes were nattering on the lockside, a fisherman on a scooter and an older guy on a bike, the latter helped open the other bottom end gate for the keeper as there was a hireboat coming towards the lock as we left it. It was 11.35 a.m. Guy came out of his house as we passed. We said au’voir and told him we were sorry couldn’t stay again this winter. The keeper who was in charge of the last two locks called to us as we went under the railway bridge by the rubber works to say he was off to lunch (11.50 a.m.) and would see us at 1.00 o’clock.
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| Ecluse de Champvert |
OK, we’re in no great hurry. He said the lock, Vauzelles 34 (2.40m), was full so the boat could sit in the chamber while we had lunch, which is what we did. It was getting warmer so the fleeces came off. While I made lunch Mike took the echo sounder’s transducer out of its tube to check to see if we had another growth of mussels on it – we hadn’t – must just be the mucky bottom that wasn’t sending signals back that was causing the thing not to work. (It worked OK later as we crossed the Loire) The keeper was back at one. He showed us he had a puffed up eye from a wasp sting the day before. He’d been riding his scooter between the two locks and a wasp had gone between the peak of his crash helmet and down his glasses then stung him. Nasty things. We noticed today he was driving his car! Down Vauzelles then past all the moored boats at St Leger des Vignes. Three British boats were moored together, Frank’s Belle Etoile and two cruisers, followed by a bunch of three tjalks, one of which was for sale. Aster ( the last surviving example of the wooden péniches that worked the Nivernais) was still sitting in the dry dock, but now floating.
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| Last winter's mooring place at Champvert |
I told the keeper it was a shame to see it sitting there and he said there was a chance someone might buy it. It belonged to the Department of Niévre and they used to operate it as a trip boat. We saw it the first time we crossed the Nivernais on the summit at Bray with passengers on board and the skipper heaving on the long ropes that operated its bow rudder. Down on to the Loire, nothing moving and no boats moored either. Slowly we chugged upriver with a gentle 2 kph flow against us. The bottom lock of the two automatics leading up on to the Latèral, Decize N°16ter, was full. I pulled on the hanging string to set the locking sequence going. Slowly it emptied and the gates opened. I lifted the blue rod to set the lock mechanism going again and Mike threaded the centre rope through a vertical bar in the lock wall. I held the rope while the lock filled, the paddles opening in three stages. Several gongoozlers stood on the bridge over the tail end of the lock watching. I fished a rosette of a water chestnut plant out of the canal and put it in some water on the roof, there are lots of them growing just in that one pound. We trundled on up the canal past the LeBoat base where they had eleven boats not out on hire and two British boats moored on one of their pontoons, narrowboat Albert and a Burgundy cruisers boat called Isabella. I pulled the string again and St Maurice lock 16bis emptied. A VNF man was on the lockside by the control rods. I was expecting there to be another slider bar but there wasn’t so
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| Spring called La Baudienne at Champvert |
I handed him my centre rope and he went further forward with it until Mike shouted can we have that further back? He was on the ‘phone so there was a bit of a delay while we sorted the rope out and another VNF guy took it and dropped the loop on a bollard while Mike reversed back to the bottom end gates. The keeper lifted the rod and left. Again the lock filled in stages and I held the centre rope while the lock filled. We left the lock, now back on the Latèral à la Loire where we turned right to moor on the quay by the VNF water tap. There were three boats well spaced out along it so we winded and moored by the piling nearest the hanging string for the lock, leaving plenty of space for hireboats to crashland behind us to take on water and in front of us to get to the string to operate the lock to go down to the hirebase or on to the Loire. Before we finished tying up the hireboat at the far end (by the car parking area) loaded up with groceries that they’d just bought from Intermarché and set off. We said we wouldn’t bother moving to the far end as although it would be closer to the car for shopping the following morning it was nearer a busy road bridge. A hireboat that had paused while we were winding went on downhill, but returned a few minutes later and the crew asked the usual questions (in English, this time where were we from) as they passed us and went to twing the string (must be due back at the hirebase tomorrow). I set the satellite dish up and forgot about setting up French TV although I had put the aerial on its mast. St Antonious, a converted péniche, went past just after four and didn’t slack off for the moored boats. Mike returned at 4.30 p.m. and I gave him a hand to put the bike back on the roof then we tried tuning in French TV – rubbish for TF1 on analogue and no digital TNT either. More and more hireboats turned up to go down to the hirebase
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