Week One -- Briare to Cours les Barres

In May and June of 2007, New Zealanders Jennifer and John hired a canal boat in France and spent four weeks travelling with friends on the canal loop from Briare on the Canal Lateral a la Loire via the Canal du Nivernais, the Yonne River, the Seine River, the Canal du Loing and the Canal de Briare. Below is their log......


Thursday 19 April, 2007

Hong Kong-Paris-Briare

After all the trepidation the flight from Hong Kong at midnight was not so bad, despite a strike by Cathay Pacific's caterers in France. Now we are sitting by an open window in the hotel in Briare, in streaming sunshine, looking out over a neighbouring shuttered house and gravel courtyard, with carefully pruned trees in spring green finery and wisteria in full bloom over the gate. To get here we took the train from the Gare de Lyon, through fields of indescribably yellow rape and stone houses with high arched tiled roofs. We passed sections of canal, including one with several fishermen (surely this means the water must be free of sewage??) and another with a length of towpath, which looked quite inviting bicycle-wise, if unnervingly narrow and close to the water …

We arrived at Briare station to find a taxi sign and no taxis. After a long wait, we set off walking, and eventually managed to hail a taxi to the hotel. Later that afternoon, two ladies in a passing car took pity on us and gave us a lift to the supermarché. The checkout girl kindly rang five taxi companies to get us and our bulging bags back to the hotel, then ruefully told us none had a vehicle available, and added that there were no buses....

Friday 20 April, 2007
Briare

A day of waiting until we can go to the boat. The plan was to hire a car or a bicycle so we could look around. Briare, in addition to having no taxis or buses to speak of, also has no car hire. And the bicycle hire had shut by the time we got to it. When it reopened, they were out of bicycles. They suggested walking the four kilometres to Chatillon to hire one there, but since we had planning on cycling to Chatillon and back, there seemed little point.

In the end much of the morning was spent doing the laundry. We located the laundrette just off the main road, with a pleasant view of the canal lined with old stone houses, one of which was particularly pretty – white, square, with blue shutters and central steps from left and right up to the front door. The little blue side gate had a row of clay gargoyles along the top. I could imagine living in that house.

The laundry had two types of washing machines and one large dryer, with a separate machine into which you inserted coins according to which machine you wanted to use. It took quite a while to work out what went where. We had insufficient coins, so I got some at the nearby shop. We had no washing powder, so I returned to the shop. Then we couldn’t get the washing machine drawer to open to insert the powder. By now the machine was well underway. It was at this point that we noticed all the directions on the use of the machines were actually written in English in very large letters on the wall right in front of us, and that according to this sign, there was no need to put in powder, because there was some there already. The only remaining obstacle was the dryer, which we successfully negotiated after only one stuff-up when John put the money in the wrong hole.

There were numerous boats at the quayside, some flash, some possibly abandoned by their owners with “a vendre” signs and in need of major clean up work. One of the flashest was a handsome blue boat called Aquarelle, flying an Irish flag. John pressed his nose to the windows and reported that it had two spacious bedrooms and a large galley. The steps on the bank beside the boat clearly indicated that the owners were in the vicinity, if not actually on board.

After lunch, we returned, and this time the owner was alongside his vessel, preparing to take his bike into town. Like his boat, he was well turned out. He kindly set aside the next quarter of an hour while John quizzed him on locks (keep a knife by the rope when you go through the lock descending in case you inadvertently tie it off and end up dangling the entire boat from the bollard) and the best sort of boat to buy (be careful of the Dutch ones with only three millimetres of plastic coating over the window frames – prone to terrible condensation in winter; the boat feels very damp). Normally, he said, he’d be cruising the canals now, but his wife had teeth problems, so they were staying in Briare close to her dentist. They had got to know many people – 40 locals came to their St Patrick’s Day party on board. He advised us to talk to as many people on the canals as possible before considering buying one, and thought we were doing the right thing by trying it out with a rental first. He built Aquarelle himself. When he heard we came from New Zealand, he expressed surprise that we’d be thinking of holidaying for any length of time in France. He’d just come back from New Zealand (staying with a New Zealander he’d met on the canals) and loved Milford Sound. But it was unlikely he’d go back – New Zealand was very far away. “There are a lot of your countrymen here” he said.

The hotelier’s daughter was sitting outside when we returned, chatting softly to herself. Initially I thought she might be rehearsing a speech, but no, she was just chatting to thin air. She brought us milk (froid) for our tea, while her mama brought hot water. John sat swinging six Rickshaw teabags (which we had bought in Hong Kong) from his fingers. Our Englishness was underlined by the arrival of an elderly English couple who sat alongside and immediately ordered “thé au lait”.

Saturday 21 April

Châtillon sur Loire à Beaulieu – 6km

Boat pick-up day! Also boat stocking-up day. Walked smartly to boulangerie in order to pick up lunch in advance in form of jambon and fromage baguette. The boulangerie was open, but because it was Saturday, they didn’t have made up baguettes. Walked to supermarket and bought all the staples excluding coffee, as we didn’t know what manner of coffee maker we would have. We left the two boxes of shopping with the same supermarket lady who had rung all the taxi companies in vain. She kindly suppressed a small smile at my French. Back at the hotel the same black guy that we’d seen for the past two days sat across the road on his little red plastic stool fishing in the canal. He wore jeans, a long sleeved jacket, despite the warmth of the day, and a big rasta peaked cap, with large shades. The day before he had been accompanied by three children – two young girls, both neatly dressed, and an older boy, whose job it was to help by carrying the stool every time his father shifted places. Today there was just one of the girls, picking posies of daisies and dandelions from the grass.

The taxi the hotel had ordered turned up on time at midday, and we returned to the supermarket to pick up the shopping and give the friendly shop assistant a present of a cherry tart. We carried on to Châtillon sur Loire where the Connoisseur boatyard is headquartered. They directed us to a local restaurant while they finished getting our boat ready. But this time the Châtillon boulangerie did have made-up baguettes, so John bought one and I already had a quiche from Briare. So instead of a NZ$60 lunch we had only a cup of tea at the restaurant, which in itself set us back NZ$10.

Châtillon has a medieval section up a steep incline from the town square. At the top of the hill is a cemetery overlooking the town and surrounding countryside. The occupant of the first grave we looked at had died at the age of 100, and others were well into their 90s. A few of the houses in Chatillon have their original timbered frontages, but many have replaced their windows with new wooden frames, at odds with their surroundings.

John was keen to get his coffee, having established that we had a French presse (plunger) and the supermarket in Châtillon was due to open at 2 pm. It didn’t. Locals turned up, peered through the window, and left. Two-thirty came, with the same reaction. A diminutive woman in orange, with a pretty gold and pearl necklace, told us it might open at 3. She explained she had been sent by her daughter, who was ill, and said something about being ill herself. I made a response which she took to mean I spoke French, whereupon she launched into an extraordinary tale, without pausing for breath, for some six to seven minutes. We had already gathered from her accent that she was not native-born French, and one of the few facts that we could establish from her excitable torrent of French was that she was Portuguese, and that something ghastly had happened to her husband. At one point, as she seemed to be describing his fall from a window, her eyes filled with tears. There was mention of a gendarme holding a gun to someone’s (her? his?) neck. At the time of this incident, her son was 11, and her daughter 7, so whatever it was, it must have all happened some years ago. She clearly believed we understood all she was saying, and by now it was far too late to let her know that we didn’t. So as her energy started flagging we feebly wished her bon courage and she set off back up the hill.

By now it was nearly 3. The shop still didn’t open. Two locals arrived by car, one on foot, and another on a bicycle, but all left disappointed. Back at the marina, the boat people who had told us where the supermarket was took pity on John and delved into a cupboard which held a large store of coffee packets …

And so at last we are on the boat. We had an hour or so of instruction from a lean young Frenchman who confessed he’d never sailed on the Yonne River, but told us reassuringly that two 80-year Americans had recently made it without incident. During a short trial run, the Aquarelle sailed by. The Irishman returned a few minutes later, and called out that they were going back to Briare, and to contact him if we wanted any more information. All the people on board were wearing Irish life jackets, which pleased John no end. It is the law in Ireland. “We put them on in the same way we clean our teeth every morning,” said his wife – no doubt very conscious of her teeth at the moment.

So now we are moored for our first night at Beaulieu sur Loire, a short distance (five bridges) down the canal. No locks as yet, but John luckily remembered to snatch the sun umbrella out of its base before going under the first bridge. Just after we started, a heron rose from the canal bank into the air – followed by four or five others a short distance later. The bird life around here is very audible.

Sunday 22 April

Beaulieu à Ménétréol-sous-Sancerre – 27km 4 locks (Total: 33km 4 locks)

Awoke at 6.00am to chill morning, mist rising off the river. The man with the key was not there for the water supply, so we left without it. Mopped the seats to remove the dew and headed for our first lock. The lockkeeper was ready for us. “C’est notre premier fois,” I shouted. The whole thing involved a lot of hanging about and manual labour, and I nearly fell in when trying to fend the boat off. It was a relief to get it over and done with, particularly for John who had been dreading this moment and rehearsing it in his mind for months. We did five more and by the time we got to the last one we were able to depart without grinding the boat on the side. The first lockkeeper sold us a 7€ bottle of Pouilly Fumé, and the second tried but failed to sell us some eggs.

The actual cruising was lovely – by midday it was hot. The canal ran inbetween fields of yellow rape and patches of woodland full of birds. A Belleville-sur-Loire the landscape was dominated by the giant cooling towers for the nuclear power station. A small duck and her much smaller duckling swam in front of the boat and it was with great relief that we saw them emerge on the other side. We tied up for lunch while waiting for the lockkeeper to drive ahead after his. He tooted at us from the road when he passed by.

At 2.30pm we stopped for the day at Ménétréol-sous-Sancerre, where you can access water, electricity, and a shower by crossing the road and knocking at the door of the local post office rep. To make sure you get the right door, a picture is supplied of a small house with yellow shutters. It is owned by a lady with an elderly spaniel straining to get out the door, and an elderly and frail father peering anxiously from the rear. The lady kindly called us a taxi to go to Sancerre.

By this time the day was searingly hot. Being aware of the limitations of the taxi supply, we asked the driver to return in two hours, but he just shrugged and suggested we walked – it was much quicker going down hill he said – maybe ten minutes.

Wine has been made in these parts since its earliest days – it is mentioned in writings in 582. In the old days, it produced mainly pinot noire, exported by the Loire. But the vine disease Phylloxera at the end of the 19th century caused major devastation. Today Sancerre is known for its sauvignon as well as its pinot noir. It was recognised in 1936 with the AOC (Apellation d’origine Controlée) for white wines, and in 1959 for its reds and rosés.

Sancerre for both of us proved a bit of a disappointment – too touristy, even given its history and commanding view of the Loire countryside. Before the two hours was up we walked through the heat of the afternoon back down the hill, cutting across through the vineyards of Sancerre, back to Ménétréol. And it was Menetreol itself that proved the real delight.

Ménétréol was built in the 12th century around a small monastery belonging to the monks who farmed the vineyards that were already in existence. The village had more than 1000 inhabitants in the 19th century before the vines were hit by the ravages of Phylloxera at the end of the 19th century. The old church St Hilaire dates from the 12th and 14th centuries, and the surrounding houses from the 16th and 17th centuries. The village today still back onto vineyards, with the addition of the huge viaduct, which spans the valley. The nice thing about Ménétréol is that it is a working village, with scant regard for the tourist boats that tie up to its small quay.

There is a house for sale by the old church that is the stuff of fairy tales – a big square stone house with its own turret and a carved shield over its low front door. The only immediately obvious drawback is its proximity to the church, because at 7.00pm (today is a Sunday) the church bell rang very abruptly and loudly, with a hard-pulled bell. Further up the road, someone was playing some sort of Breton pipe, quite hauntingly, pausing and restarting. As I write now, we sit at the table on our deck in the softest evening light imaginable, the village rooftops sharply outlined before us, as we finish off the lockkeeper’s excellent Pouilly Fumé.

Monday 23 April

Ménétréol-sous-Sancerre à Marseilles lès Aubigny – 32km 9 locks (Total: 65km 13 locks)

Mist curling over the canal, and the disk of the sun rising through the trees on the opposite bank. The tow path is a popular spot for walking dogs, who crouch to empty their bowels on the bank while their middle aged owners wait. Buttery croissants for breakfast – the boulangerie’s Alsatian struck a mournful face round the door while the lady cut my two slices of ham, shushing him away. Took one last look at the house for sale, before returning to boat and taking a shower at the local facilities, plus refilling the water. Tidied cabin in readiness for Adele’s arrival. The local lockkeeper came by and checked what time we and the boat moored behind us were planning to leave, so we could go through the lock together. They are Swiss Germans on the other boat – a husband and wife and two teenage children. They set off first and we follow.

While we await the lockkeeper, the wife briskly swabs the boat down with her mop. A towel is suspended down the side, so that if you get off and on again you must stand with your back to the boat and press your soiled feet up against the towel. We pass through two locks together without incident, then come to rest at Herry while the lockkeeper has his lunch. “Bon appetit!” he wishes us as he ducks back into his snug lockkeeper’s cottage. The Swiss Germans rapidly set up their lunch table, then set to work scrubbing the boat with the aid of a mop and a bucket on a rope. The father cleans the windows.

We stride off into Herry just to make sure all the shops are shut. In fact we fail to find any shops at all, but then notice a tiny epicerie that sells wine and soap, our two major requirements. And it is open. Promptly at 1.00pm, the nice lockkeeper arrives in his VNF van, opens his second lock for us and waves us off. We now head for La Charité-sur-Loire where we originally intended to meet Adele, as the Paris train stops here. But it seems a bad idea to wait until late tomorrow, since it is still early afternoon. Also the town is not actually on the canal – it is a 2.5km walk away. So we decide to take the walk and then carry on.

It is by now the hottest part of the day, and no-one volunteers to pick us up as we stride at a headlong speed set by John into town. La Charité is so-called because the monks attached to its abbey were wealthy and distributed gifts to the poor. In the early days, the basilica of Sainte Croix Notre Dame must have been absolutely enormous, as it apparently could accommodate more than 5000 people. But it was burnt and pillaged by Sarrasins, Protestants and Catholics, and even besieged by Joan of Arc after it fell into the hands of the English, so there isn’t much of its former glory left. The town is reached over two bridges – a new one, and the old one across the Loire – in fact one of the two oldest bridges across the Loire, since it was built between 1520 and 1535. Not surprisingly the old bridge is now far too narrow to accommodate all the traffic heading into and out of La Charité, especially the large trucks – it is quite a hair raising experience being a pedestrian, as the pavement is very narrow and the sides of the trucks race past you mere centimetres away. A large banner across the street at the other side of the bridge reads “Camions: Danger. Deuxieme pont: securité” and you could see what they meant.

But even clinging to the side of the bridge, La Charité looked quite beautiful from that vantage point, with piled up tiled roofs and the church rising proudly up in the midst of them. Inside, the church was cool and simple in its construction, with bright stained glass windows through which the sun shone, splashing long streaks of bright colour onto the stone flags of the floor. In the streets outside, there were several expensive second hand bookstores, for which La Charité is known, but they were all shut. John was keen to get back to the boat, and press on, but no taxis were in evidence. The kind lady in the pharmacy where John bought his sun lotion (NZ$30!) rang a taxi, but there weren’t any. We prepared to walk back through the heat, but a customer who had overheard the conversation generously offered us a lift.

We gratefully accepted, then found we had to wait half an hour while the pharmacist filled his prescriptions painfully slowly. Just when John was at exploding point, the guy emerged and we climbed into his 4-wheel drive. He had lived in Lille, he said, but liked small town life in La Charité better. He was opening a shop – he didn’t say what it sold. He dropped us right by the side of the boat and within five minutes we were off again, heading for Marseilles-lès-Aubigny.

Three locks separated by stretches of canal, then two immediately after each other. There was no-one manning the first, so I walked on ahead and found the wife mowing her lawn, with three dogs barking furiously. Her husband had driven to the next lock, she said, so we must wait. Eventually he returned – a portly white haired chap with a strong smelling cigar clamped between his teeth. He did not return any greeting, or offer to take the rope, so we managed as best we could. Once through, we saw his VNF car rocket past the next lock. So we entered it and sat waiting, till we were eventually joined by a second boat and the lockkeeper returned. His mood had not improved. To show willing, John leapt manfully onto the lock side and narrowly avoided putting his back out by winding the back gate shut and the front one open. The lockkeeper made no gesture of thanks as we departed. “Surly old fart,” John said.

We have now settled for the night at Marseilles-lès-Aubigny, and a good choice it is – wide waterway with a row of houses on each side, a wide grass verge, and trees. It is all very quiet, apart from the church bell tolling the hours. A mother duck swims with a least 12 little ducklings. Tonight it is sausages for dinner. John is cooking after practising his bowlines. He has secured the boat with one, tied the only way he knows how – around his waist, then dropped to the ground so he can step out and loop it over the bollard … Adele has rung on her new phone – her old one worked in Hong Kong but not in France. She arrives tomorrow, maybe at Nevers, and will take a taxi according to her instructions: 400 metres past the town hall, and just beyond the large blue barge Alphonse Marie.

Tuesday 24 April

Marseilles lès Aubigny à Cours les Barres – 5km (70km 13 locks total)

Light breeze this morning ruffles the water. Crawled out of bed, dressed in yesterday’s and day before's clothes, and set off in search of boulangerie.

Marseilles is located between the canal and the Loire, at the confluence of the Loire lateral and the old Canal de Berry, which was taken out of service in 1954. It is an old barge town, which reached the height of its activity in the late 19th century, when dozens of little barges from Bourges and Montlucon tied up here. The village shops were all turned towards the canal, and this is where the tiny boulangerie is to be found, beside a small but useful grocery. The proprietor of the boulangerie is not what you might expect in such a small country town – she is of a certain age, with long blonded ringlets, smudged lipstick, and a low cut bodice which she hoists up to contain her breasts. She looks as if she has had a very hard night, and struggles to work out the cost of two croissants, two brioches and a baguette, totting up the figures on a piece of paper and rechecking it on her fingers. The bread is still warm to the touch.

The lockkeeper is stationed at his post when I return across the lock gate to the boat. The section of the Canal de Berry which crossed the village has been filled in now, and all that remains is an old lifting bridge. In its heyday it carried more than 250,000 tonnes of lime, cement, coal and porcelain to the Paris region. Now the site is marked by moorings for pleasure boats, neighbouring the ablution block. The showers work after you insert a small brass disk which can be purchased from the town hall which is, of course, closed. Luckily the grocery shop stores them too, plus several other items we need. But not all, so the lady directs us to a neighbouring village four kilometres away which has a supermarket.

This is the first test of my newly-learned cycling skills in traffic. I am confident enough now that I can take some pleasure in the journey past the rape fields and the village outskirts. On our return we check out the Auberge Le Poids de Fer, housed in the riverside building where Cistercian monks collected tolls for each load of iron ore. The restaurant is run by a Mr Delayance, who cultivates the appearance of a windswept film star – dark good looks, shaggy hair, two day stubble, and an open necked shirt loosely laced up the front to expose curling chest hair. The small menu is displayed in front of the old stone house. It is a lovely building in a pretty setting.

The only shopping we have failed to find is John’s peanut butter – buerre de cacahuète – but at the supermarket the proprietor explains that the French do not favour peanut butter – it makes you fat.

While waiting for Adele, I sit out at our plastic table with the sun umbrella, on the grass verge, feeling, as John said, very middle aged. John cycled off to look at Raimondo’s boatyard, which converts old commercial barges into pleasure boats. You can see the flash of the welding from the canal. Just as we were about to embark on a luncheon baguette, a taxi drew up, and out stepped Adele, having caught a train to Nevers. She had looked up Marseilles on the internet, and found the Alphonse Marie – the barge next to us, which serves as a gite and restaurant and hosts party groups from Paris. But maybe that is a seasonal thing, as the only resident while we were there was an elderly man pottering around the upper deck.

We set off a short distance along the canal to Cours-les-Barres – just three bridges away. An English couple are moored there in a Penichet classic, the boat John hankers after. They kindly let us look over it – huge showers compared with ours, large galley, spacious sleeping quarters and wood panelling, but in fact the living area lay-out of ours is more comfortable and open to the breeze.

While we chat, a loose-limbed bloke in black trousers at half mast and a dark shirt ambles down to the canal bank, sits on the grass, and stares at the boats and their occupants. We walked off to the village, and when we returned he was still there. The Englishman is quite disconcerted by him – he comes to tell us the eclusier (lockkeeper) has been by to discuss tomorrow’s requirements, then he remarks on the Frenchman. “It is quite unpleasant,” he says fretfully. Adele postulates that the guy has just had a row with his wife and is taking time out. But I am not so sure. He walks past the boat in a distracted fashion, and his trousers are still at half mast, tightly belted in, with his underpants on full display. He is too old to affect this for reasons of fashion. We sit out on the canal bank for dinner and while I am cooking the Frenchman returns and asks for money for cigarettes.

As we finish dinner, the English couple return and sit with us into the evening, watching the stars come out. The conversation turns to navigation – he was a navigator in the British merchant navy, although both Peter and his wife Bobby were born and met each other at the age of five in Dar Es Salaam. We talk of the exhibition currently showing at New Zealand's Auckland Museum, Te Vaka Moana, and how the early explorers in the Pacific used all their senses to navigate. Peter disagrees – he says this is all nonsense – all navigators get to know the sea and wind patterns and astronomy, and navigate according to that. They are off to the Camargue after their canal trip – John puts them off a little with his talk of nuclear power stations, tame gypsies with horses for hire and total absence of flamingos.

Peter shows Adele how to find true North by the Northern Star before returning to his boat. He is wearing a New Zealand Icebreaker jacket, purchased on holiday in New Zealand. Both he and Bobby are shocked to hear that Icebreaker now manufactures in China. They say in the UK they avoid buying goods manufactured overseas.

“Are those frogs?” Adele enquired, cocking an ear to the canal as we packed up. “Yes, but you are not allowed to call them that now”, said John.

Wednesday 25 April

Cours les Barres à Nevers via Le Guetin – 21km 5 locks (Total: 91km 18 locks)

Fluffy little cirrus clouds dot the sky above the Mairie. Peter and Bobby set off toward Briare – we exchange addresses, and Peter invites us to sail with them in Cornwall. We set off through peaceful wooded countryside, with herons, ducks, and our first otter – blunt head and mouth – for company. The first lock for Adele is a baby one – for the first time I get on shore in advance and help the lockkeeper open and close the gates. Adele finds it all an anti-climax.

The next lock makes her change her mind – indeed, all our minds. It is Le Guetin, our first with a traffic light, and it is deep. I leap off onto the bank ahead into a patch of stinging nettles and calf-high buttercups and walk up across a road onto the lock side – the gates are open, although it is hard to tell from the water approach. The lock must be some 25 feet deep (it is actually 9.5 metres) – the boat looks a very long way down as John inches it in. For the first time, it is necessary for the lockkeeper to pass down a hook on a rope to pick up our rope. A small crowd gathers to watch behind security railings as the gates shut behind the boat and water comes surging out of the gates in front, spraying Adele and filling the air with a somewhat swampy aroma. It is a very grand sight to behold.

From that lock the boat moves straight into a second, slightly less deep lock, and on release from that, travels along a narrow causeway above the Loire. This is known as the Pont Canal de Guetin. From this point there is a paved cycle track to Nevers which Adele takes for the exercise. At the entrance to the Nevers embranchement, there is another novelty – a large scaffold-like device, from which a blue rope is suspended over the canal. There is a diagram of sorts beside it. John remarks that it looks like a hand holding a piece of pipe, with a bag of crisps alongside, the sum of which equals five. We moor up, as it is not yet 1 pm when the lockkeeper will return after lunch. But as we inspect the lock, we realise it is self operated, and watch as a boat on the other side reverses to a similar scaffold arrangement and tugs on the rope. Sure enough, the light changes from red to green, and the gates open to admit the boat – a sharp looking craft with high seating for steering.

The owner and his wife chat as we help them secure their vessel. They are from Denmark, and are planning to sail to the Mediterranean after leaving the boat at Nevers for the winter. You pull on the rope for five seconds, he says, and to operate the lock you lift the blue bar halfway along the lock wall. On no account touch the red bar. This is for emergencies only – he did it once, and had to wait for two hours while someone came to release him.

Armed with our instructions, we successfully negotiate the lock and enter the embranchement that leads us to the marina at Nevers, where we can get mooring, a shower, a washing machine, a swimming pool and the opportunity to walk across the bridge to the faience china museum I have been wanting to visit. Within minutes of our arrival, we establish that the showers aren’t working, the swimming pool is closed for cleaning, and the museum is also closed “for the next few years” for renovation. There is no boulangerie in the immediate vicinity, and the other attraction that drew Adele to Nevers, the La Marine Restaurant famed for its Loire whitebait, doesn’t have any. Despite these setbacks, we spend a pleasant, if hot, afternoon striding into Nevers past the large and inviting looking, but very closed, swimming pool, awaiting its summer clean.

There is a camping ground overlooking the river – one couple have laid out matting on the grass beside their camper van and set out their folding chairs. It is very hot crossing the bridge and making our way through the old part of Nevers to the Saint Cyr-Sainte Julitte Cathedral which is described in the Office de Tourisme booklet as offering a “combination of architectural history”, having been built between the 6th and 20th centuries. The main tower is like an over-decorated wedding cake, with carved effigies protruding from every surface. Inside the cathedral it is blessedly cool and much plainer, apart from the modern stained glass windows in rather misplaced lollypop colours that were commissioned after the original windows were destroyed by bombing in WWII. They have been the subject of some controversy, and I am with the critics.

In the Palais Ducal there is a strange exhibition featuring an aquarium holding Loire fish, some fine examples of faience, some tins of the local nougatine de Nevers sweet (a favourite of the Empress Eugenie) and Roi Négus (a soft caramel sweet created in 1902 to commemorate the visit of the King of Ethiopia), some picture books donated by an assortment of sister cities, some Roman remains and some sports items celebrating Nevers’ sporting achievements …

Nearby are some faience shops with modern items, which are expensive and poor substitutes for the antique items. Having exhausted John’s patience, we sit in the shade with an ice-cream, before tackling the supermarket and lugging the shopping back (there being no taxis) to the boat. John then asks to use the marina washing machine, which causes more consternation on the part of the captain, since the machine initially fails to work. Followed by a failure on the part of the dryer.

We eat on the dockside at the marina. The English couple next to us have a 26 metre barge – they bought it in Holland and converted it at a cost of €150,000. He is an engineer who works on oceanic research ships. It took them two years to do the conversion, but they say they are very comfortable now. The barge has twin rudders and “can turn on a Euro”. The wife stays, while the husband goes off to work every second month.

Week Two: Nevers to Sardy les Epiry

Thursday 26 April

Nevers à Decize – 33½km 9 locks (Total: 124½km 27 locks)
Rain in the evening, pattering on the cabin roof and a much cooler start to the day. Damp washing positioned around the cabin as the Nevers marine dryer did not work. Nor did the captain turn up at 8.30am as promised to let us use his shower. Adele cycled off into town to get breakfast while I endeavoured to clean the boat. Returned through the two self operated locks by 9.30am and embarked on a straight ten kilometre run before the next lock. “This is a bit like war”, John said. “Long periods of doing nothing, then brief periods of terror”. The rain has stopped, but the sky is still over-clouded, and the air is much cooler. When we pause to wait for the first lockkeeper you can clearly hear the loud whine of racing cars on the circuit at Magny-Cours, over the birdsong and the crowing roosters on the adjacent farm. This accounts for the racing car in that strange exhibition in Nevers. Adele mistook the rooster for a turkey – “Ooh, turkey would be nice”, she said. Earlier, as we passed a field of plump white Charolais cattle with calves, her mind turned to the local beef. The riverbanks are full of buttercups and the red poppy I picked yesterday has come out in a belated acknowledgement of ANZAC Day. It is a beautiful deep red with four black patches inside and a green centre.

We wait at the next lock for the lockkeeper, after which time it is 12.00pm and time for the lunch break. We take ours moored to the bank. At 1.00pm, the lockkeeper’s van appears on the towpath and we are in business. The following lock we wait again – this lockkeeper is in charge of three locks, so he is absent tending to the two ahead. Adele approaches his house, and is put off by a large barking dog. After some 15 minutes the lockkeeper’s wife emerges and confirms he will be back in 10-15 minutes. Adele fills in the time with some yoga and daisy chain making on the canal bank. When the lockkeeper finally arrives, he offers eggs for sale – he keeps chickens out the back, and a fine looking vegetable garden.

Both Adele and I are instructed in the job of opening the sluices in the front lock gates of the next two locks. The lockkeeper is a lovely, rotund guy, who says we make his life easy. The pleasure boats come through from April to November, but not so many at this time of year. This year it has been unseasonably warm. In winter, it is only commercial vessels. He lives in the first lock house, with the chickens, the second belongs to someone on holiday, and the third is used only at the weekend. We present him with one of Adele’s gift plastic tikis, which pleases him.
As we approach Decize there are yellow irises on the canal bank, and the scenery, already verdant, seems to subtly soften. There is one of the scaffold arrangements at the canal turn-off to Decize – to keep straight ahead would eventually take you to the Mediterranean. Although the lock is self-operated, there is a lockkeeper to help us through and to advise where to pick up fuel. This entails backing into a narrow space between the Crown Blue Line rental boats (the sister company to Connoisseur) to get fuel. The Crown Blue rep tells John it’s ten degrees warmer than usual for this time of year – and by now the sun has come out again and the temperature has risen dramatically. It was 26 degrees in the shade today, and a great pleasure gliding along the canal, with dappled sunlight through the trees. It is a quite extraordinary peaceful experience.

The final lock is a strange one – it is a bit like one of those infinity pools, so that when you move into the lock, it looks as if it is the same level as the River Loire beyond. In fact it is some 15 feet higher. There is a pole set inside the wall of the lock, so that you can slide the rope up and down. Once we’re through, we are into the Loire, with small children on the right bank shouting at us and waving their arms. There are sandbars here, and no doubt that is what they are warning us of, but John safely follows the guidelines in the chart we have, although we have some dodgy moments and some sharp exchanges. The mooring near the centre ville is delightful – much nicer than the other option which was the Crown Blue Line base. Adele was put off that by the proximity to the fuel tank, and the fact that the Crown Blue Line guys were casually smoking as they pumped the fuel.

Decize is a pretty little town, with old stone ramparts and an avenue of trees planted in 1770. The town feels very open, with several nice looking boulangeries, including one with a slot machine arrangement allowing you to buy bread at any hour. John has been pining for tea out of a mug all the time we have been away, but it has so far proven impossible to find a mug to buy. In the Decize pharmacy there are two perfect mugs on display, which came free if you buy a box of diuretic teabags. I ask if I can buy the mugs, but I can’t. Next door, however, is a cake shop with mugs filled with chocolates and they do sell the empty mugs for €3 each. I buy two.

We eat out tonight at a local restaurant on Charolais beef – far too much food for €23 – then walk back to the boat in the dark as a thunderstorm develops with dramatic lightning displays that fill half the sky. John counts off the seconds before the thunder is heard as it moves in closer and pattering rain begins.

There was an English couple in the restaurant tonight, in their fifties. He was silent, and she moaned at him in a deep, foggy, very English voice about how she had to look out for everyone, and had no time for herself, and she was fucked if she was going to carry on. She was quite drunk. When she disappeared to the loo, I asked her partner to explain a couple of items on the menu, taking them for local English residents. But his French was no better than mine. When she returned, we could hear him telling her quietly about my inquiry, and their voices dropped, as I think she hadn’t realised there were any other English speakers in the place. “What else did she want to know?” she enquired. As they left, they paused by our table, he to wish us goodnight, and she to stare at the door ahead. “The veal is very good tonight,” she offered. At the door, you could see her struggling to maintain her balance. I liked the timbre of her voice – it was quite unusual, but Adele said it was a smoker’s voice, and John said her voice was contaminated by her words.

Friday 27 April

Decize à– Cercy La Tour 15½km 5 locks (Total: 140km 32 locks)

According to the paper, the racing cars we heard from Magny-Cours was Formula 1 racing for the Grand Prix. It also says this is the hottest April since records started in 1922. We go into the Decize centre ville – a short walk from the quay – for the Friday market which sells fruit, vegetables, roast chicken, slices of potato basted in chicken fat, goats’ cheese pies, port ribs and other delights, as well as wine from Sancerre. The population of Decize seems quite elderly – numerous grey-haired ladies with shopping bags. John buys himself a mug of his own choice then sets off on his bicycle in search of a bread knife.

Adele and I climbed up to the church, which is a bit spooky inside – dark, in need of some resurfacing, but with some nice mosaic work and stained glass windows, including one commemorating the 1858 apparition in Lourdes – it shows a young woman gazing up at a sort of sunburst. After we walk through the avenue of trees we come across the rest of the market – bottom-of-the-line cheap clothing from China. When John returns, he has a large bag containing two knives and another mug which takes his fancy even more. My only purchase is a little plate with a goat on it, for €5 from an antique shop. There was a splendid framed print of a saint with some unfortunate draped over his knee, and what could have been a dead baby on the ground, that quite took my fancy, but it was €75.

Decize is on an elbow of the Loire. It takes some careful navigation to round the corner and enter the Nivernais Canal – said to be the prettiest in France. The lockkeeper for the first two locks is younger than most – he says we are the second, and probably last, boat through today. In summer, he says, you might get 15-20 boats a day. I tell him we are from New Zealand, and he is quite taken aback. So far. He asks if we speak English as our first language there. And is that where the All Blacks come from?

The next two locks are operated by two women who wind the sluice gate mechanisms together, chatting animatedly while they do so. In between the locks there is a tarmac cycle track which Adele and I take. I can now manage to cycle with enough confidence to take pleasure in the surroundings – a big stone house with a large barn, its tiled roof collapsing, and a stone tower – a great project for renovation. In one field there are horses with four or five new foals, and yellow irises along the river bank. The primroses are just about finished. By the time we arrive at Cercy La Tour, the little town is bathed in the golden light of late afternoon. This is a pontoon mooring, on what is now a small section of the River Arun, with two children throwing what looks like the remains of the day’s boulangerie stock to the ducks, who are so stuffed that they don’t even look at it. We walk up to the old church on a terrace overlooking the surrounding countryside, where there is a large plain square dominated by a large, plain church with a locked door, dating from the 12th century.

Opposite our mooring there are two fishermen, one of whom is very well set up with a tent and hammock. All along the canals we have seen fishermen, many of whom nod or wave. Some have several rods out at once, with little stools and lunch provisions. The canals are full of fish – you see numerous quite large dead fish rubbing up against the sides of the canal (John says they hit their heads going through the lock sluices) and live ones jumping every so often. We wonder how sanitary the fishing is, since the canal boats empty their waste straight into the canal, but maybe there aren’t enough of them to prove a health hazard.

Dinner of cooked pork and potato slices on the roof of the boat, overlooking a large stone stable with seven fine chestnut horses in the paddock in front, following each other in a long line around and around the perimeter of their space to graze as darkness falls. A pair of ducks nibble at the bank right beside the boat, then settle down on the pontoon.

Saturday April 28

Cercy-la Tour - Fleury 22 kilometres, 10 locks (Total: 42 locks, 162 km)

Brilliant sunshine through the mist of the river creates a golden haze. An early fisherman pushes off from the bank in a little rowing boat, a dark silhouette against the gold. We walk around to inspect the weir, then stock up on fruit tarts and beer before settling off – it is Saturday, and from here on there isn’t much in the way of shopping opportunities. Cercy is small, but has excellent patisseries and a good butcher’s shop which is filled with customers.

We are now back on the Nivernais, running parallel to the Arun River. Yesterday’s lady éclusière is waiting – on closer inspection she is missing several front teeth. She has chipped red nail varnish and works the sluices with one hand, fag in the other. The countryside beyond is idyllic – undulating green pasture with fat Charolais and few buildings. At the next lock, Chaubigny, the lockkeeper – also a bit challenged on the teeth front – takes our number. He handles several locks, it seems. His stone lockkeeper’s cottage is very tidy, with two wells in the garden.

Further along, we pass a chateau hidden behind a stand of trees, on a rise overlooking rolling countryside with cattle and horses. The lockkeeper says La Contesse lives there – Isenay – but laughs when I ask if he knows her. The chateau is called Tremblay. There is another further along, at Pannecot, but it is not open to the public until June. The lockkeeper here is a rotund lady in a pink top and cycling shorts that hug her figure. She is in charge of the prettiest lock-house we have seen – her home at the Anizy lock has bright blue painted shutters, matching bicycle, flower pots and watering can, with various pieces of antique agricultural equipment on display. Her vegetable garden is very well tended, with lettuces, and she sells honey and pollen. At the previous lock, also under her care, the shutters are painted a stunning magenta, with a big bank of magenta-coloured ground cover flowers beside it. Ice-creams are available there - €1 for and ice block and €2 for a cone.

Two firsts today: John did his first lock single-handedly and we saw a large brown otter sunning himself on the bank and scratching himself. As John draws near on the boat, the otter dives into the canal, and swims strongly away. We decide to press on to Fleury, and Adele and I cycle along the towpath, the banks bursting with forget-me-nots, leggy buttercups, stinging nettles, and a starry little white flower that I do not recognise. Fleury announces itself with a large green shed, besides which sits an old man in a straw hat fishing, and talking quite loudly to himself. “Merde,” he says as he pulls in an empty line. “Voila,” he says as he throws his line again. We moor opposite, and the next time I look up he has caught a small yellow fish.

The Fleury lockkeeper’s house has been converted into a small restaurant selling crepes, drinks and ice-creams. We book for dinner, despite having the makings of at least three dinners in our fridge. It seems churlish not to. After sorbets, we bike to the two tiny nearby villages, consisting of just a few houses each, set in lush green countryside that is sheer delight to see. We have shifted our mooring to just beyond the lockkeeper’s cottage and the lock, and in the later afternoon sun we sit reading. The only sound is birdsong and in the very far distance a chainsaw. The sun stays warm and golden until 8.00pm when it finally vanishes behind the trees. We move the few yards along to the lockkeeper’s restaurant, which turns out to be the central attraction in town – ten cars arrive one by one, couples, families, and a group of young people who stand by the lock in pairs. One young guy pees into the lock. When we go into the restaurant to pay our bill, the table of ten youths are drinking coke. The food is plain and good – steak, shallot sauce, chips and salad, all for €45.

Sunday 29 April

Fleury - Baye – 29km 20 locks incl. 2 doubles and 1 triple (Total: 191km, 62 locks)

Now have far too much food on board, after eating out last night. Had planned sausage for breakfast in the absence of any boulangerie, when a little Avis hire van drove along the towpath and tooted. It had gone before we had a chance to say bonjour, and we assumed it was just a van going by, possibly in search of a fishing spot. But a few minutes later he returned, and asked if we wanted baguettes. He opened up his back doors, and there were racks of breads and fragrant croissants and pastries. He tried to sell me a pommes de terre tart – the regional speciality – but I declined on account of all the food we had. He asked if we were headed for Chatillon en Bazois, and said he would see us there tomorrow. We set out our breakfast table on the towpath, and then have to pick it all up and move it to the grass verge as two elderly men and a grizzled old lady drive by unsmilingly on their way to a fishing spot. After filling up with water from the lockkeeper’s cottage, we pass the fishing trio, who have found themselves a sunny spot on the bank, where they have each laid out lines and set up little folding chairs. Mission accomplished, they are now relaxed enough to wave as we pass by.

At Villard we go through our first lock with what looks to be an abandoned cottage – a great opportunity for someone maybe. It has a well, and a farmhouse behind. It was built in 1836 – all of the cottages seem to have been built in that year or the next. We drop Adele off before a bridge by mistake, thinking it is the next lock and she has to slide down a bank of grass to get back on. When the actual lock appears, John spots what he says is a huge brown rat sliding off the stonework of the bridge into the river. But it was in fact a small otter. An old man sits hunched in a wheelchair in the doorway to the cottage, with his dog. He gives us the faintest of nods. On the opposite bank, the garden is full of plaster statuettes – small boys holding flower baskets, a Bambi, gnomes on a toadstool and several ducks, plus several antique cooking utensils. Perhaps they reflect the tastes of the old man rather than his strapping son the lockkeeper.

For lunch we stop at Chatillon en Bazois – a dramatic entrance through two small locks and past a large chateau on the waterside. We moor past the town beneath the walls of the chateau – apparently home to just two people, according to the lockkeeper. While John cooks sausages, Adele and I cycle to the Maison de Bazois museum, missing it cleanly, and arriving instead at Alluy, a deserted, rundown looking, shuttered village, at the centre of which is a locked 12th century church. Iron boards have been secured around the rounded wall to help preserve it. The sign says there are ancient frescoes inside, which have been undergoing restoration because of humidity damage.
On the way we pass signs about timber floating routes. The origins of the Canal du Nivernais are closely linked with timber floating which was carried out on all the rivers of the Morvan up to the end of the 19th century. The logs were thrown into small streams and descended towards the Yonne, where they were assembled into rafts to travel into Paris. Towards the end of the 18th century, stocks of timber on the Seine slopes were running out, so in 1784, to reach the Bazois forests on the Loire side, it was decided to dig a channel. The works were interrupted by the Revolution, and taken up again in 1809. Following the construction of the tunnels at La Collancelle, the Canal du Nivernais was finally opened for navigation in 1843. Boats were hauled by horses, donkeys and mules. At Decize, there was (and is today, but not in service) a chain tug.

On the return trip we find the Maison de Bazois, a museum built to resemble a lock, telling the story of the canals. It is closed on Sundays. Today is a Sunday.

The road is a main country road and it is a little nerve wracking when large vans speed by. I have to keep my nerve and be careful, reminding myself to stop if necessary. We set off on the dot of 1.00pm to catch the next lock. There are calves in the fields in a loop of the canal, who skip and jump after each other. They remind me of the little girl at the restaurant last night who danced by the lock to music in her head. The countryside is extraordinarily verdant, with fishermen along the towpath, occasional cyclists, walkers, all of whom wave cheerily. At one lock, there are swallows nesting in the lock doors, diving in and out of the shadows. The cottage has a china swallow on its wall over the door, and a black china gecko on the other side. And indeed there are two geckos scurrying over the white gravel path – brown and lean, with black spots.

By the time we get to the double lock, there are claps of thunder to the east and violet clouds heading this way, but they pass us by with barely two drops of rain. The locks come thick and fast today, some quite deep. The lockkeeper at the four step locks says he has been working at this for ten years. You have to be a mechanic as well, but not much goes wrong with them. A family of black Africans – Senegalese? – stop and watch. The wife says they live near Nevers – it is a pretty city, but very quiet, and it is hard for them to adjust. It is alright if you are on holiday, she says. New Zealand is on her list of places to visit. She wonders why we want to spend so much time in the countryside and so little in Paris – there is so much to do there – the Picasso Museum gets a mention. The father asks John if he is German, then if he sailed the boat from New Zealand.

It is noticeable how few herons there are now compared with the early stretches on the Canal Lateral a la Loire. There they would perch by the canal side, wait until the boat arrived, and then take off very elegantly to a spot ahead, where they would repeat the exercise.

After 20 locks, including two doubles and one triple, we reach Baye, a windy lake and boat base. Memories of Wellington … the base is at the entrance to the Collancelle, the alternating, one way tunnel system which we will tackle tomorrow. Feuillete ham for dinner, bought at the market two days ago. Thunder in the distance, and a grand sky.

Monday 30 April

Baye -Sardy – 7km, 16 (descending) locks in 3200 metres – the Sardy staircase. (Total: 198km, 78 locks, 3 tunnels)

Adele bounces up early to put the washing on. I go to check, and encounter a stern lady who observes me closely from behind a curtain. I buy a small boat and lighthouse in a tiny bottle from the main office and we sit in the sunshine waiting for the washing to dry. From our table we can see the light in the tunnel entrance has turned green. Early this morning a boat turned up at the entry before the lights came on. He hovered about for a while, then honked his horn, then stood about, and finally pressed ahead anyway, strictly against instructions. While we wait, Adele and I take a walk through the most glorious country lane, high grass and lacy flower caps beneath oak trees, an old stone house with a fat black rooster and a white one, and behind it a long sloping field of wheat with a vista of countryside. It feels like walking into a film set of a historical romance. I imagine in winter it also all looks very grand in a bleaker way.

We have a slow start today, as the lockkeeper thought we were going through at 9.30am, so waited for us before letting the little electric tourist boats through. Now we must wait till midday to make our start. We have time to look over a Tarpan boat for sale for €109,000, that sleeps ten. The captain says there are too many cabins – you could turn one or more into a library or some such. John keeps eyeing it up and wandering casually back to the office to re-read the advertisement, cup of tea in hand. If we sold our flat, he says, we could make an offer.

The little electric boat re-emerges at 11.40am. Just after midday, the entrance light is still red. We check for the fourth time with the captain’s office, and this time she says we can go -- despite the red light.

There are three tunnels, set between deep narrow cuttings, one after the other. The first is the longest at 758 metres. It is quite eerie travelling along in the darkness, with only two spotlights – both of ours point the wrong way onto the deck – for light. There are two holes in the ceiling of the tunnel for air and light, which send a cascade of cold water droplets onto us as we pass beneath. Footpaths on either side make navigation more difficult, given the narrow space. One footpath has a handrail, so it would be quite straightforward to tow a boat through if it broke down. Which we fear we have halfway through the second tunnel, when the engine starts making hammering noises. John thinks initially we have piston trouble. We emerge into the light and rev the engine. The knocking noise continues then abates – John decides it is the alternator.

The deep cutting between each tunnel is a delight – like something out of the Heart of Darkness. The trees reach over to meet above our heads, there are even New Zealand-like ferns and a couple of small waterfalls. Swallows dart in and out of the entrance to the tunnels. We emerge into the tiny port of La Brulé at 1.00pm, in time to see the lockkeeper’s van disappear. There is a descending staircase of the locks ahead. We sit and wait. Eventually Adele and I make a recce.

Eight locks down, we find the reason for the delay. A Tarpan – the same one that honked its horn in front of the tunnel entry today – is circling the pond between the seventh and eighth locks. On board are two elderly gentlemen, one in a straw hat, the other in a cap. Inside the cabin can be seen the grey heads of their wives. The man in the staw hat stabs wildly at the bank with the boathook. Initially Adele and I think they are planning to moor. But no. The other spins the wheel like a roulette wheel and the boat bounces off one bank and heads at full tilt for the other. The second gentleman applies full force to his boathook again. The boat is facing away from the next lock entrance. Between the two of them, they manage to manoeuvre it more or less into position and shovel it into the lock.

The lockkeeper, who is looking somewhat fraught, is on his own. Adele and I go to his assistance to speed things along. The boathook gentleman, after we have helped secure his rope, stands at the ready, his implement in hand, like a soldier with a rifle bayonet. As soon as the lock doors open, he prepares to stab the far wall. His captain alerts him to the fact that it is actually the near wall that proves the problem. Adele volunteers to help out with the next lock, while I return to tell John the news that we face a long wait – maybe three hours. But when I return, John is already underway with the help of two more lockkeepers – a nice young chap in a battered Renault with a large black and white dog who travels with him, drinking lock water from what looks like a small tin urinal, and an artistic looking chap with grey hair in a pigtail, on a bike.

The artistic chap lives about a third of the way along the 16-lock system, in a little cottage surrounded by various colourful objets trouvés, including two huge ammonite fossils about a metre across. He has put dolls into the doorway of a couple of small sheds, peering out at passers-by. He sells honey and framed photos, but his little shop is closed. Through the window it is possible to make out that some of the photos are of Afghanistan.

I help out, and get a lift in the Renault between locks. By now the sky has darkened and for the first time in our trip it starts to rain steadily. The lockkeepers advise us we have no chance of making Corbigny, as we started off far too late and there are many locks still to go. Which means we will have to moor at Sardy, at the end of the 16th lock, where our guidebook tells us there is water and other services. Only the guidebook is wrong. There is nothing, the lockkeepers tell us. The artistic chap kindly offers to ring the one restaurant at Sardy les Epiry, and the boulangerie, so they can deliver something to the boat. He books us in at the restaurant for 8.00pm and says the owner will pick us up. All of which is fine, except they tell us we will have to stay at Sardy for the rest of today and all of tomorrow, which is May Day and a public holiday -- meaning all the locks will close --in France.

After another lock or two on the downward staircase, Adele returns to see what is happening. She undertakes to set off in the rain on a bike to Sardy, to buy whatever she can if there is an epicerie. I carry on helping John through the remaining eight or so locks. At the third to last one, there is a shop selling the work of a local potter. Three or four tourists arrive along the towpath in a car to watch the boat come through this lock. I find a little pottery jar that takes my fancy and take it outside to show Adele, who has just arrived back on her bike with a small meat pie, a small quiche, and a loaf of white bread. There was no epicerie, but she had found the boulangerie.
A man with the tourist group spots me with the jar, and comes over. He points to a bell by the door and says I must ring it if I want to buy something. He retires a short distance away, back with his fellow tourists, while I ring the bell. Nothing happens. I borrow €5 from Adele and ring it again. This time the same man returns. “I rang the bell,” I said, “but no-one came”. “I am here,” he said.

So now we are moored at Sardy, a tranquil spot overlooking on one side a stand of trees, and on the other a field of sheep. The few rooftops of Sardy les Epiry are visible in the near distance. Two other boats are moored here, one of them belonging to the Tarpan crew. The rain has stopped, the sun is out, and we are drying out clothes and the chart.

At 8 pm sharp a car draws up to pick us up for dinner. It is actually quite a long way to Epiry – four kilometres up a gentle rise, but a long way for Adele when she was cycling on her battered bike with no gears. We pass through the big smoke of Sardy les Epiry, and head off to the right to Epiry. The restaurant is actually a small bar, the main room of which is almost entirely occupied by a table football game and a large cage containing a parrot. Two young men are energetically playing against each other at the table, slamming the ball back and forth. We are ushered into the room next door, which is used as a storeroom for a large cupboard, an organ, an old TV, an out of use coffee machine, and a horse figurine. We are given a €20 menu fixé for four courses – Adele has snails, but John and I get takeaways for the entrée. The lamb I order is delicious but John and Adele are less enthused by their entrecote.

Throughout dinner the parrot shrieks “allo”, “bonjour” and “d’accord”. The owners try to hush it by saying “au revoir” every so often. After dinner we are given the takeaway entrees and the cheese course, all neatly wrapped in foil, and driven back again.

Tuesday 1 May

May Day public holiday

Slow start to the day, as we can’t move more than a few yards. Our friend Barbara has sent a text message saying she and her husband Rod arrive in Paris on Thursday. We are prompted to get up by the toot of the boulangerie van arriving at 8.30am on the towpath. We buy bread and eggs, croissants and pain de raisin. No sign of life from the other two boats tied up nearby, but the occasional cyclist passes by and one or two people walking small dogs. As we sit at the picnic bench having breakfast, the old man in the straw hat emerges from the Tarpan and gingerly descends their gangplank clutching a rubbish bag. He says they are from Fremantle, and can he borrow a bicycle pump. They picked up their boat at Chatillon en Bazois, and are doing the whole loop. John has already been planning how to get away early tomorrow morning, so as to avoid travelling in tandem and being held up.

Adele and I cycle into the tiny village of Sardy les Epiry. There is a small stone church which shows signs of neglect – cobwebs, peeling paint, extending even to the wooden confessional box, which has cobwebs in all compartments. But the stained glass windows are vibrant in the sunshine. There is a small monument to victims of WWI – 20 men of the village were killed. When we return, the Connoisseur technician has arrived to fix our fridge. He says the rain got into the line. In response to John’s query, he says a second hand boat like this would cost between and €25,000 and €40,000. We give him one of Adele’s last two gift tikis, which I think pleases, as well as confuse him.

The wife of the man in the cap – the captain – from Fremantle also comes by. She fears they’ll never reach their destination on time given their slow progress. This causes John to undertake major calculations on our own journey – he says we must do 20 kilometres a day, and I mustn’t expect to be able to spend too long anywhere.

After a light lunch, we set off on bikes along the towpath to Corbigny, our original destination yesterday. It is eight kilometres away – my longest cycle journey yet. On the uphill sections after the towpath Adele and I have to push our bikes. John sails ahead on his, which has gears. Corbigny is largely closed for the holiday, but there is a patisserie and a general store open and a noisy procession of quad bikes driven by mud spattered riders, maybe celebrating the May Day holiday. Adele checks out the transport options back to Paris tomorrow. She will stay with friends then travel on to Croatia for a few days before flying home.

Corbigny has a fine old stone church, first built in 1131. A notice on the wall documents its history – it has been rebuilt several times after fire, pillaging, desecration of one sort or another. It is not certain how much of the construction dates back to 1131. The Hugenots are listed amongst those who damaged the church – this whole area seems to have been strongly Protestant at times. There are some beautifully crafted windows, and what look like private family pews at the front of the church. The entrance is composed of tiny black and white square tiles, which look as if they have been trodden on by many feet. After a quick look at the exterior of the abbey nearby, and a pretty little dovecot attached to the side of a nearby house, we set off on the return journey. The one way traffic system in the centre of the town seems to encourage speeding traffic.

By the time we get back go the boat my bottom is killing me – it defeats me why someone hasn’t invented a more comfortable bicycle seat. The fishermen who arrived on the canal bank this morning are still there, sitting patiently beside their cars and sun umbrellas and picnic arrangements, the wife reading in a fold-out chair. Earlier John saw the husband catch a fish – the wife’s duty was to secure it in a fishing net, but as she struggled to reach the fish, it managed to slip away.

John has attached a message to the galley wall with gaffer tape. It says “20km per day”. We sit on the bank at our table for dinner – Nicoise salad made by John. It is Adele’s last night – we shall miss her company. She and I have perfected our methods of leaping off the boat and tying up, apart from one occasion when I succeeded in lassoing her around the neck. We have opened and closed many lock gates and trudged through stinging nettles up to the next lock. Only once did I hear her say “not another frigging lock”.

Wednesday 2 May

Sardy les Epiry -Tannay – 20km, 21 locks, 5 drawbridges (Total: 218km, 99 locks)

Up at 7.00am with the alarm clock to secretly move the boat (as secretly as you can with the engine going) to a spot close to the first lock so as to be in advantageous position when it opens. When we are settled in our new spot, there is a loud rumbling noise. Adele flies out of her cabin thinking another boat is trying to pass, so she can alert John who is in the shower. But it is merely a large tractor on the towpath.

At 8.30am there is a tap on the door. It is the Australians asking if they can move in front of us. They have no bollards to tie off on behind us. As they start manoeuvring, the boulangerie van arrives. They wave urgently from offshore. Adele helps them come back in, as the ladies urgently call out “jam”, “croissants”, “quiche” from the boat, and fling out a shopping bag. In the event, we get in the lock first, with the Australians behind, one armed with a boathook on one side, and one on the other. There are two lady lockkeepers – one says in broken English that she has been doing it for ten years, but this is her first lock for this year. She likes it, as she likes meeting people and practising her English.

Progress is reasonably smooth – we go through ahead and use the middle bollard, the Australians bang and bounce their way in behind, stabbing at the lock gates and the walls with dangerous abandon. For the first couple of locks, they sit on deck clutching their boathooks and breakfast bowls. Their Tarpan is much less well suited to the locks – the sides are high, with high railings, which make it difficult to get on and off quickly, if not impossible. Our sides are generally level with the lock on entry, and there are no railings apart from the holding rails. The lady lockkeepers help out a bit by pushing the Australians off when they bounce in too much.

The sky is overcast, threatening rain, and I offer Adele a large black rubbish bag which could convert into a rain coat if she cut a hole for her head. She declines. She is going to Paris. She will change into Parisian gear on the train. She does not plan on wearing a rubbish bag. Her plan is to walk the two kilometres into Corbigny from the double lock, but as it turns out the lockkeepers offer her a lift into town on their lunch break. So we tie up to a tree, and Adele disappears in the white Voies Navigables de France (VNF) van. She will meet Barbara and Rod in Paris tomorrow night.

Ahead we face five manually operated drawbridges before Tannay. Given that so far today Adele and I have done most of the necessary manual labour assisting the lockkeepers, with no help from the three able bodied crew on the Australian boat (one of the women is suffering from bruised ribs), we walk up to their boat to inquire how they planned on tackling the drawbridges. They say they were unaware that there were drawbridges. In the first lock after lunch, they spear the side of the boat with a resounding crunch. I leap off at the first drawbridge and start winding it up. The Australians drop a man on the bank opposite to me, so I have to lower the bridge again to let him across. It is quite hard work and takes the two of us. He says it will be easier to lower, so I leave it to him and get back on board. We arrive at the next lock and look back to see them still battling to get their man back on board. Their boat is now facing backwards, and heading rapidly for the opposite bank.

At the tiny settlement of Gravier, I get off and walk through the few houses. There is a large stone building in spacious grounds, with an iron spiral staircase at the rear, all fully enclosed. Nearby, three youths in blue overalls rake the soil. There is something about the scene that puts me in mind of the book I am reading, Sebastian Faulks’ “Human Traces”, much of which is set in France. It is about mental illness, and I wonder if this building is some sort of sanatorium. I ask the younger of the two lockkeepers, and she says yes, it is a centre for boys with – and she taps her head. She has told John she handles 17 locks – most of the eclusiers we have met handle only three, but maybe there are different arrangements on this side of the canal loop.

Small screams sound from the Australians. The man with the hat stands on the prow, one arm lifted, and finger pointing like a pilot on the Yangtze, directing his friend far too far over to the right. His name is Ian. He joins me on the towpath for the next drawbridge. He says he is a farmer – beef and dairy – and cannot get over the amount of feed here. In Australia they have had severe drought. I ask him what he thinks of the beef and he says the Charolais he has had have been very good. He says he loves New Zealand, and tried to emigrate there in the 1970s “but it was not to be”. Ian’s one boating skill seems to be his unerring ability to lasso the bollard from afar, just as he would lasso a steer back home on the farm.

It is much cooler today, but still pleasant drifting past trees overhanging the water, their reflection broken by floating leaves. Daddy long-legs skitter across the surface, making a tiny imprint on the water. There are loads of sycamore seeds floating along. Ian and I tackle the drawbridge at Dirol, where there is one particularly picturesque old wooden bridge, beside an old house with a perfect round tower at its side, typical of the Tannay area. The lady lockkeepers bid us goodbye at their 17th lock – in summer, they say, they handle only one or two. We are now down to one lockkeeper, so I assist in shutting the gates, opening the sluices and opening the front gates, with the odd drawbridge thrown in.

Tannay, our resting place for the night, has water and gas, and a splendid supermarket, the only problem being that the latter is two kilometres up a steep hill and shuts at 7.00pm. It is now around 6.15pm. We steam up the hill and reach the top just as the Australians cruise by in a car waving cheerfully. They got a lift with a local lady who was walking along the canal, complaining that her toilet was blocked. Fred, the boat captain, unblocked it, and was rewarded with a lift. The local lady lives in a wonderful old stone house, complete with tower, right beside the last drawbridge, at the entrance to the Tannay moorings. So we all arrive at the supermarket at more or less the same time. They joyfully tell us they have a lift back, so I ask if they will take all our shopping. There is a moment’s hesitation, then they agree, leaving us to bike down the long hill back. Tannay looks to be an attractive town, with extraordinary postcard views over the Yonne River countryside.

We dine at the restaurant over the road from the boat base – pork with shallot sauce, and entrecote. Awful wine, bread and apple tart, but very good main course. Clear starry sky – hopefully the sunny weather is back.