The Burgundy and North to Reims

It has been quite a few weeks since our last blog and what a few weeks it has been!  We did at one point contemplate not carrying on with blogging but having re-read some of our earlier stuff and the memories they kindled, we decided that we just had no option but to keep on writing.

So, we left Tonnerre after waiting a few days for the weather to improve (the very first bridge was going to be a ROFF – Alex had been up and measured it).  Our first attempt at mooring at Tanlay was rather hampered by a land and aquatic fun day for the village youngsters.  The best moorings were full of kids in canoes but we managed to squeeze in on the opposite side in the shallows – only 2ft from the quay.  The chateau at Tanlay was pretty impressive with some amazing trompe d’oeils.  Our very next mooring in the middle of nowhere left us so far from the shore even our 8ft gangplank wouldn’t reach, but we had no passing boats thankfully and enjoyed a spectacular thunderstorm overnight.

Another ROFF to start the next day but around lunchtime the day looked a bit overcast so we put the roof back on.  Lucky we did, because as we travelled up through the next few locks together with a hire boat full of lads, the rain began to fall in earnest and suddenly blew into a minor hurricane.  We all got absolutely soaked, as in ‘up’ locks we have to be on deck holding and adjusting our ropes, and while we all had a good laugh about it, the fat Madame Eclusiere couldn’t crack a smile.  She was of course soaked too but . . . miserable cow!

On exiting the lock and before the next suspect bridge Alex spotted a lone bollard.  We moored up for the night and there was even plenty of depth – a rarity on this canal.  That evening as the sun came out again we walked up to the local village.  But in the morning, the approaching hotel boat had one hell of a job getting past us and lining up for the lock: not that he seemed over concerned: all part of the job I suppose.

In due course we got to a mooring at Pouillenay, where the notice board offered us two delightful and historic villages and towns to visit, Flavigny at 5kms or Semur at 10kms.  Flavigny won for obvious reasons, but we didn’t realise that 3 of the 5kms was steeply uphill, and the rest steeply downhill.  The village itself was just great, totally unspoilt and complete with its protective surrounding wall intact.  We sat in a café in a square having drinks and pouring over our map for a better way back – longer but flatter – definitely better!

We also noticed that there was a bus to the town of Semur which also passed through our next proposed mooring at Marigny.  So the next day we moored up for the night and asked our kindly lockkeeper if the bus was still running to Semur.  (We had given him a jar of Riccall chutney for his efforts that day in working the locks.)  And he said (all in French of course) “Be ready at 12pm and I will give you a lift”!.  So he did just that in his lunch break, and collected us again just after 5pm – so kind.  We had a nice day in Semur but got soaked again when we ran into another rainstorm.  This time though we were trapped on the Petit Train, with no hope of keeping dry.

Our next mooring at Port Royal has to rate as another one of the best.  The moorings were adjacent to a beautiful Chambre d’Hote village house which operated them (water and electricity included) in what had once been a thriving village with charcuterie and boulangerie, now sadly all closed, but mine host happy to provide baguettes and croissants in the morning.  The restaurant across the road run by Basil Faulty’s French cousin did excellent Charolais steak and chips, with massacred French beans as the side veg! - surprisingly common in France.

A few days later we were finally at Pouilly with the 3km restricted-dimension tunnel to negotiate ahead of us.  Alex spent the day installing lengths of split plastic pipe over the handrails at the front to protect them from the tunnel walls (a good use of time as it turned out) and fixing some old 4 foot long 8” x 2” baulks of wood which we had once used as glissoires years ago, through the bollards front and back.  He used luggage ratchet straps to fix the wood at an angle between the bollards so that each protruded about 50cms each side to keep us near the middle of the tunnel.  As it turned out it all worked well, but the handrails only cleared the roof of the tunnel by about 6” each side so it was slow but steady as you go.

At Vandenesse we had to leave the lovely moorings after just one night as the town was about to hold a firework party, so we moved on a couple of kms and moored between locks on a post and a makeshift G clamp on the armaco just behind the barge IBAIA.  We met the new owners Richard and Lynda and we all walked up to Chateauneuf in the warm sunshine.

Our descent of the Bourgogne Canal from the tunnel went without many incidents, most of the bridges being JUST high enough, and with the number of hotel barges on this side, the depth was absolutely fine.

We did come across one unexpectedly low bridge between two locks near Epoisses, which were being worked for us by an eclusier and had to do an emergency stop.  The lockkeeper came scooting back on this VESPA and we explained we just had to take 5 minutes getting the roof off.  “Pas de problem” he said, and watched as we did it giving us a thumbs up when the job was done.  The fisherman beside this said bridge never raised his eyes!  (Of course, he’d seen it all before!  Yeah!  Typical!)

Finally we got down to St Jean de Losne and a long wait in the basin waiting for the lock out onto the Saone.  The town quay moorings were predictably full, but the ‘secret’ hidden ring on the sloping wall of the launch ramp which Jill and Robert of DANUM had told us about, was free so we hooked on there.

We had now completed the Canal de Bourgogne, one of the jewels in the crown of the French canal system, and we would be travelling north again by the Canal du Marne à Saone, now called the Canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne (we prefer the old name).  There is much to commend the Bourgogne with isolated stretches and few boats but the manual locks, operated by roving eclusiers make it difficult to make unplanned stops, as the VNF like to know what your movements are at all times, and you don’t know what you might like to do or see if you haven’t done that particular canal before!

At Auxonne we stopped for lunch on the town quay and Alex fashioned an ingenious (Louise says) system to get water from the push and hold tap close by.

Then at the next lock just before our turn on to the Marne à Saone, the rain started again.  We took pity on a middle-aged couple of cyclists, who were sheltering under the bridge over the lock, and invited them on board for a warming cuppa and shelter.  They gratefully accepted and we took them with us through the next couple of locks to our mooring at Maxilly.  We managed quite a good chat with our limited French and they were delighted to have spent a short time on a barge for the first time in their lives.

The next day the first thing we met was a fully laden peniche.  Crikey!  We thought they had pretty well stopped using this canal!  But it was one of very few we met up with on the canal.

That night we moored in front of an Australian couple on a cruiser, who had seemingly moored right in the middle of the long quay, leaving us just enough room to get in in front of them.  The guy took a rope for us, as the moorings were rings and that is helpful, and we motored forward on that to get the stern into shore and our other rope on, whereupon Mrs came out very flustered and said in no uncertain words, that we were too close to her boat.  Fine!  We’ll move back a bit to give you 2 metres clear instead of one – not a problem, if that’s what you want.  No need to get your knickers in a twist!

She was just as twitchy the next morning when we left, convinced that we would scratch her precious cruiser.  Needless to say, we didn’t fraternise with them, but thought it unusual behaviour for Ozzies, who are usually so friendly.

We now had more of a target for meeting Mary and Martin who were due to visit us for a few days’ cruising.  There was definitely a station at Joinville, where two trains a day still stop on the line that runs down this canal. We had plenty of time to get there for their arrival, but in the meantime we found ISKRA at the Chaumont mooring, together with a South African boat called SEA HAWK.  We had kept in touch with John and Hilary since we met them 4 years ago on the Canal du Centre and had even visited them at home near Nottingham, so it was great to catch up.  And we also got to know Alan, Liz, Richard and Lorraine of SEA HAWK and had drinks with them.

We spent the next few days leapfrogging with these two boats till Friday when we got to Joinville at lunchtime.  We knew in advance from them that there was room for us on the quay so that was a relief.

Louise had been longing to have her hair cut and on Friday afternoon went into town and had the job done.  Liz and Lorraine coincidentally had also gone into town for the same purpose though to a different hairdresser.  Seeing Louise’s new short hair, Alex decided he had better try on Saturday morning for a ‘coupe normal’ too.  Having ridden all round the town twice looking for the best deal (!) he suddenly saw a little coiffure on the corner which looked his kind of place.

‘C’est combien pour un coupe normal?’ €11.  Great, and she could do it now.  Best haircut he’s ever had so when he got back to the boat and told John about it, John set off hotfoot for the same place.  A great deal for Chaumont – 12 boaters and 5 of them had spent money on hairdressing in the town!!

Mary and Martin duly arrived late on Saturday night and the next day we set off for the mooring at Bayard which only had room for one boat. Unfortunately SEA HAWK had beaten us to it so we motored on to Chamouilly.  The next day was a short one into St Dizier, though this did require a quick ROFF at the railway bridge (not unexpected) and a treat for Mary and Martin who had never seen the procedure before.

St Dizier is not a bad place despite the rather dilapidated moorings, and we had a nice amble round and lunch courtesy of Mary and Martin (another thank you to them) in one of the pleasant squares.  It is the birthplace of Hector Guimard who designed those famous cast iron entrance porticos for all the Metro stations in Paris in the 20s, and also many balconies, gates and other functional or decorative ironware in St Dizier and elsewhere.  Much of this was evident, not unnaturally, in the town and we waited till 9.30 the following morning to have a look at the town museum where some of his work and other artefacts are held.

Apart from ISKRA and SEA HAWK, we saw only a handful of other boats on the canal, so we were not surprised to see them at Orconte when we arrived.  What did surprise us though was that by 7pm that evening another FOUR boats had joined us on the quay and a hotel barge which had wanted to moor up had to decide to motor on a couple of kms up the canal for his mooring spot.  Weird!  Amongst those four boats was another we knew of old - AILSA - with Mike and Sally aboard.

Finally we got to Vitry-le-Francois and managed to moor behind a VNF workboat above the lock into the town.  This was an excellent spot as it was close to the station for Mary and Martin to catch their return train next morning and peaceful being away from the town centre, the only downside was the loss of the sun behind a huge silo in the evening.

Vitry marks the end of the Canal de Marne à Saone and we had loved it.  In some ways it is better than the Bourgogne partly because all the locks are automated and therefore don’t need roving lockkeepers watching your every move, and also because the canalside vistas of countryside seem wider and more spectacular.

From here we are on the Canal Lateral a la Marne - a more industrialised waterway – but attractive nonetheless.

We gave Chalons en Champagne a miss, as since the last time we were there, the moorings have been updated with a new capitainerie, finger pontoons, water, electricity, and of course costs, and much less quay space suitable for barges.  SEA HAWK and ISKRA had managed to squeeze in but there was no room for us, so we carried on to one of our favourite moorings at Condé.

At Condé we were joined by Hubert on his barge DEWAALST whom we had first met at Auxerre and later at Clamecy, and he came for drinks with us.  We saw him again a couple of days later when he pulled in to our mooring north of Reims just before we set off for a morning shopping trip.  His new inverter had stopped working: so Alex had a look and managed to get it going again, and also suss what had caused the problem.  One very happy Hubert went on his way, and we went off and did our Lidl and Leclerc shopping.

We are now about to join the Canal Lateral à L’Aisne to Compiègne, another new canal for us, and then head north for our winter moorings back in Seneffe.