Week Four:Montereau faut Yonne - Chatillon sur Loire

Thursday 10 May

Montereau Faut Yonne - Moret sur Loing– 14km 1 lock (Total: 415km 164 locks)

Somewhat tedious morning spent checking internet – internet cafés are few and far between in rural France – and stocking up on groceries. Yesterday I could not access my work email, so I have been sent a new password. The sun is out, and under the bridge spanning the Yonne, by which we are moored, where it meets the Seine, there are two or three jovial fishermen, each with four lines. They have caught only four tiny fish swimming in their bucket when we leave, and the same tiny fish are there when we return. One fisherman inquires where we are from, and wishes me bon appetit for lunch. When we set off under the bridge, he waves.

We are now on the Seine, amongst all the commercial river traffic. The first lock we come to holds three commercial barges as well as our puny vessel. One of them is driven by a woman, and her barge has lace curtains at its windows and herb pots on the galley windowsill. She emerges to chat with the other bargees while we wait for the water level to descend. The barge in front has a couple on board – the wife is flicking round her duster, and in her window she has a beautiful old blue pottery jug. As we set off, we become part of a long trail of barges puttering along the river. Each one has its own personality – one we pass has all its laundry neatly hung out, and a large hammock. Every barge we see is spotlessly clean, with neat paintwork. Quite a few have flower baskets and pots. We pass through St Mammes, the biggest inland port in France, with barges tied alongside each other, and a neat row of stone houses along the waterfront. There is nothing industrial looking here from the water – lots of trees and an air of pleasure boating.

We turn off into the start of the Loing Canal, and moor up at Moret-sur-Loing, just alongside an American couple on a beautiful 1925 barge called Elizabeth. Trish and Tom are from St Louis, and have been on the boat for three years. Trish shows us over proudly – she has made it all very comfortable, with lots of storage space and a full size bath that they only use with a handheld shower to save water. They bought the boat in St Jean de Losne, and winter in Rouen, going home for 2½ months each year. They’ve done a lot of the paintwork themselves, but had someone in to build additional shelving. They have a print of Napoleon on the wall – “it seemed only right, as I have always had George Washington over the mantelpiece at home” – and a large map of the canal ways with different coloured pins showing the routes they had taken. Big tubs of geraniums adorn the upper deck.

Tom tells John they paid about €150,000, and they have spent 50,000 doing it up. It is the only boat that Tom could stand upright in, being 6’4”. The boat has a holding tank, but they don’t use it, as there are only three places in France where you can unload it. They have a car, based at Briare, and do day trips.

We walk along the canal bank into Moret sur Loing, which is extraordinarily picturesque, and was home to the impressionist painter Sisley. Today there are numerous Japanese tourists on a painting tour, sitting along the towpath with their easels doing water colours. There are also a number of Americans doing the shops. I buy a large blue and white Victoria tureen for €30, which I now have to get back to New Zealand in one piece. Moret is full of interesting old buildings, with tower gates at the entrances to the town and a long, long avenue of trees leading out of town, all neatly pruned. The local item to buy here is barley sugar made by the nuns of Moret – there is even a museum dedicated to barley sugar. And another to bicycles. Clemenceau also lived here.

The Loing Canal was built very early by the Duke of Orleans. The works were carried out by infantry troops under the orders of the engineer, and completed in 1924. You can still see parts of the old system, including the old lock of Saint Mamelt, built in 1724 and modified to Freycinat dimensions in 1890, at the mouth of the Loing. It was put out of service when a new barrage lifted the general level of the river. In town, you can see by the tower gate in the Loing River markers for floods dating back to the 1700’s which are a good two metres higher than the level today. The peak was in 1880, followed by 1910.

Friday 11 May

Moret sur Loing - Nemours– 18km 6 locks (Total: 433km 170 locks)

Still in dressing gown, writing postcards in the sun, when a large dog peers in the window, followed ten minutes later by a clutch of the Japanese tourists walking along the river bank taking photos of the boats from a polite distance. Visit morning “petit marché” in town square, with grand array of cheeses and vegetables.

We endeavour to change travellers’ cheques at a bank. They are desolé, this is quite out of the question. They direct us to another bank. To get into the bank, you need to press a button to go through one door, then wait in the middle and press another button to go through the second door. There is one lady at the counter, and a small queue – a harassed young father, whose son keeps calling “papa, papa” and pressing a half-eaten croissant into his hands, an elderly man in a stained raincoat, who takes out quite a large sum of money in cash, ourselves, and a small round middle-aged lady who sums up the situation and departs. When we finally get to the counter, the lady is desolé, not only can she not help, but she doesn’t know of any bank that can. We must go to Fontainbleau, or Nemours.

We return frustrated to the market, and spot La Poste across the road. We try there on the off chance, and the lady nods immediately and springs into action, with no commission charged. We have seen many postmen on our journey, on bikes, motorbikes, and small yellow vans, delivering mail in very isolated spots, along towpaths and up country lanes, so I am quite impressed by La Poste.

John and I decide to bike into St Mammes along the towpath as far as we can to see the barges tied up there. John sees one he likes, moored to the old 1724 lock, with a car on board and a small winch for lifting it on. On the way back, we stop by the lock at the entrance to the Loing Canal and check if it will open at 1.00pm. There is a small van on the roadway by the towpath – the owner is erecting his easel, and sorting out his paints. In the back of his van there is quite a good painting on which he is working, and on the front seat there are two baguettes.

I go ahead across the old bridge into Moret, and stop by the circus that was setting up on the grassy square by the riverbank last night. “Cirque Francero Zavatta, vient a votre ville!” There is a huge assortment of animals tethered and in cages – lions, a camel, llamas, horses, goats, geese. The grass smells richly of horse manure. The big top, in stripes of red and yellow, went up overnight, and someone is blaring out through a loudspeaker about the delights that await tonight.

We set off back along the canal, back amongst the more intimate enclosing feel of the canal. In terms of the Nivernais, there are many buildings on the left bank – some very grand houses backing onto the canal. There are also still a lot of barges – we encounter three, coming the other way, and have to tie up securely to avoid the powerful sucking action of the wash, even when they go very slowly. As we near Nemours, two shots ring out in the neighbouring woods, seemingly just metres from the boat. We reach the Nemours lock, just as a barge enters from the other side. The lockkeeper smells quite strongly of whisky, and says we cannot come through tonight, even though it is only 6.00pm. So we moor up on the Loing in the centre of town, near the dodgy submerged pylons of an old bridge, classified as a historical monument. The proper mooring with water and electricity is quite small, and occupied by another Australian couple, who welcome us to join them. But we tie up against two trees further down, and to our delight, a small brown creature comes out from its hole in the bank and circles around us with four or five ducks looking for bread. The otter has a smooth head and long whiskers, and holds the bread in his paws.

As we head along the avenue of trees into town, we passing four or five young Senegalese who are erecting the stalls for tomorrow’s market, with reggae music playing loudly from their van. They dance in the square as they go about their work. Nemours, while not the most attractive town in France, has its moments. The church and the chateau are both 12th century – the chateau was a museum, but a neighbour in the small stone square in front of the building says it has been closed for three years, for “securité”.

Despite spots of rain, we dine al fresco under the oak trees. The Australian stops by, and says their boat is owned by a syndicate of five couples. Ted and his wife Carmel have been sailing the canals for four years. He sits astride his bicycle, a cloth sunhat squashed on his head, with a loose cord beneath his chin. He lives in a town between Melbourne and Adelaide and says he is the only Australian we will meet who does not drink.

Saturday 12 May

Nemours à Nargis – 19km 8 locks (Total: 452km 178 locks)

Awoke to the sound of something rattling on roof – later the Australians tell us it was youths throwing stones. The market has sprung to life while we slept – selling everything from roofing tiles to chainsaws to clothing, sewing notions, and of course food. Pork roasts, hot potatoes cooked in chicken fat, turkey, quail, guinea fowl, and ham. A cheesemonger in a big apron and fedora squats down to run his wire slicer through a huge slab of cheese. Most of the clothing is cheap synthetics from China. The market is full of local shoppers, many carrying wicker baskets for their shopping. One old man has unknowingly put his foot through a plastic shopping bag, which he trails after him.

The lockkeeper comes over to ask us what our plans are – he says there are two barges on the canal, and the Australians and we should travel together to avoid lengthy delays. To assist, further downstream the lockkeeper foregoes his lunch break to drive ahead to the next lock and let us through. We had planned on stopping at Souppes sur Loing which in the 19th century supplied the yellow stone which was used to build some of the most prestigious buildings in Paris, including the Sacre Coeur basilica at Montmartre. The guidebook says the stone port has now been fitted out as a boat port, but failed to mention that it is beside what appears to be a giant fertiliser factory, judging by the smell. So we follow the Australians to Neronville, a truly delightful little spot in the woods, where the Australians are meeting up with some friends coming from the other direction. The lockkeeper at Egreville, a baby lock only 48 centimetres high, shoos the duckling out of the lock. The canal is heavily wooded on both sides, and little indigo-coloured dragonflies dance across the bow.

John decides to press on to Nargis, where water is available. We did fill up at Souppes, as did the Australians, both of us waiting for a private barge to leave its mooring first. The three vessels dance around in the water, inches away from each other, Ted’s boat threatening at one stage to skewer us through the side. Ted’s wife, Carmel, shouts at him to straighten up, but Ted, being quite deaf, fails to respond till we are seconds away from calamity. At Nargis the guidebook fails to mention that the water tap is within the confines of the lock itself. On the lockkeeper’s advice, we moor up in front of the lock, which when we arrive at the spot turns out to be a sort of car park. Just after the lock, there is a very pretty spot. I cycle furiously back to the lockkeeper – mere minutes have passed – and he says we can’t pass through until two commercial barges have passed. It will take ten minute he says.

Barb and I walk into the tiny town which is totally dead, apart from the boulangerie. There is also a strange Club 45, which is under new management, and has sexy danseuses and maxi-tombola. There is a long list of rules about behaviour. The door is firmly locked. Half an hour passes, and the first barge is through by the time we return. Another half hour and the second barge turns up. I offer my services as an assistant to hasten matters. The lockkeeper is not at all keen on letting us through, and keeps checking his watch, but finally emerges from his office. He tells me he has been a lockkeeper for 30 years, and when he started there were barges all day long – maybe 40 of them. Now there are very few, and there are not enough pleasure boats, even in summer, to keep him busy. So when I ask him if the work is good, he indicates that these days it is just so-so.

While we wait for the lock to fill, the lockkeeper’s boss arrives, and my guess is that our man is telling them that there we were, in a perfectly good mooring, and now we are insisting on moving a few feet. The reason for his reluctance to let us through becomes apparent when another barge appears coming towards us. But we have achieved our aim, and are moored by a tree lined bank in the sun. Rod meanwhile bikes the seven kilometres into the next nearest village, where he encounters a wedding party who direct him to the general store, which is open. He says Les Gillets is very pretty. I rather regret that the village is seven kilometres away, uphill. We dine on the grass verge, watching the sunset, with a lot of vigorous quacking coming from the waterway on the other side of the bank.

Sunday 13 May

Nargis à Montargis– 16km 9 locks (Total: 468km 187 locks)

Rain overnight, but it stops by the time we are up. The weather is very changeable – yesterday I was putting on and casting off every few minutes a jersey and a sunhat. But overall it has been very kind to us, and only once, at the very beginning, has it been really cold. I do the morning boulangerie run – I am the only person up and around in Nargis. Club 45’s red doors remain shut, with no signs of having been open the night before – a Saturday.

We go through the first lock with another boat that had moored up further along the opposite bank last night – it has five or six young teenage children on board. A French couple run the boat – Barb says he looks like a burnt out social worker. The little kid holding the stern rope does not smile or respond to greetings, and looks sullenly at the man when he tells him what to do next. Along the canal we pass two little boats that resemble wooden huts afloat – the second has four men on board, who raise glasses of red wine as a toast to us as they go by. It is 10.30am, and they look as if they are thoroughly enjoying themselves. The new lock has a little deer lying dead by the sluice gates – the lockkeeper says he has fished out ten, at least, in his time – they fall in and can’t get out. Yesterday we saw a poor little bloated deer carcass floating in the canal. A few yards later we pass a floating red plastic sack containing what is most likely an animal – but I have recurring images of body parts.

We lose the children’s boat at Cepcy, a pretty little town which has the first pound of the old Canal d’Orleans. They will spend the night here. The man says they are on the canals for two weeks. His gestures indicate that he has his hands full. After the two weeks, he says, he will sleep. In the early afternoon, we arrive in what looks like the Zone Industrielle of Montargis. But very quickly it turns into a charming town – an extraordinary way to enter a city. It makes you wonder what it must be like to take a canal boat into Paris. There are two locks before you reach the new mooring, the second of which is a very impressive 4.8 metres. The lockkeeper lowers a large hook to pick up our ropes.

After mooring, Rod and Barb unload their suitcase and we set off for the railway station, which takes us into the grimier end of Montargis. We fill in the time till their departure with a cup of coffee at a downmarket corner bar aptly named Le Terminus. Rod asks the lady behind the bar if our table can be wiped down, and she responds that she has wiped it down, but the traffic causes constant dust. That is the end of the conversation. After Barb and Rod’s departure, we make our way back to the boat through the centre of town, which has successfully reinvented itself as a modern town based on an ancient structure. There are, for example, two glass-sided pedestrian bridges which work very well in the town’s architectural context. We pick up more bread from an artisan boulangerie where you can actually watch the bread being made, and see a group of ten or 12 people crowded round the window of a praline chocolate shop – a speciality of Montargis.

On our return to the boat, there is a message from Mike, our friend in England, saying his mother (94) has been unwell, and he has had to cancel his trip to join us. This is very disappointing news, as we had both been looking forward to seeing him and returning his hospitality of two years before. By the time I have spoken to Mike, Barb and Rod have already booked into their hotel in Paris. The boat seems quite empty without them. And we have a day in hand. John prepares dinner, while I pop in to see Ted and Carmel who have arrived at the same mooring. Their boat has a lower level galley and dining area, which is a bit upright and uncomfortable, but you do get a great view of the ducks swimming past inches below you.

John collects me when dinner is ready, and we sit out the front under the soft blue and pink sky, perfectly reflecting in the surface of the water. The quality of the light is quite different from New Zealand or Australia. Dogs and their owners walk past, with a quiet greeting or nod of the head. Throughout this trip, we have been amazed at the way almost all passers-by, fishermen, lockkeepers, cyclists, you name it, cheerfully wave and call out a polite greeting depending in the time of day.

Monday 14 May

Montargis (two nights)

On morning boulangerie run, I pass a large, handsome brick building which was, and may still be, a hospice. Opposite is the funeral parlour, with an array of plaques and ceramic floral displays in its window. Many of the plaques feature photographic etchings of fishermen, or hunters with their gun over their shoulder. One has a large deer with a placid gaze.

Over breakfast we see a small British narrow boat approaching at high speed. Its owner, in a blue Breton cap, heads straight for the mooring, colliding head on with a sharp thud. John leaps out and reaches over for the bow rope, which lies in a pile of knitting and knots, with one large knot in the middle holding the rope together. The stern swings out wildly in the wind. The owner, seemingly unperturbed by the prospect of colliding, first with the boat in front, then with us behind, tosses John the second rope and leaves it to him to bring the boat in and secure it.

The Stella Maris has definitely seen better days – large patches of rust are visible on its body work and its front fender resembles a marine growth of some sort. A small herb garden sprouts luxuriantly on the roof. The owner springs forth and announces he is off to find an English newspaper. He says he got the Financial Times in a small village the day before – “hardly the financial centre of France”. An hour later we meet him in the street, a Guardian tucked under his arm.

It is Monday, and nearly all the shops are shut. We fill in time till the tourist information office opens with a visit to the Eglise Ste Madeleine, which is well worth it – we have seen a lot of churches in recent days, but the interior of this is stunning, with the intensity of colour in the 19th century stained glass windows. One of the windows has a small pane telling the story of the archbishop of Sens who, in the 16th century, became angry at the number of swallows inside the Montargis church, whereupon all the birds immediately disappeared. The windows were made by master craftsman Leopold Lobin.

We also pass by the pralines Mazet de Montargis shop – a lovely old building selling the praline chocolates for which Montargis is famous. If they weren’t so expensive – NZ$13 for a tiny box – I would have sampled the lot. The tourist office directs us to the nearest laundromat, and to a large supermarket, which turns out to be so far away that we give up before we find it. The walk takes us past the massive school for future gendarmes – another handsome brick building with a large quadrangle where no doubt the young gendarme cadets march up and down. There is a young woman in army fatigues standing stiffly to attention by the entrance. So we return to the smaller supermarket in town, where three or four of the local drunks have gathered at the door in the hope that shoppers will give them a few coins. The supermarket security man endeavours, in vain, to move them on. “Nous sommes tranquils” yells one of them at him angrily.

Montargis is crisscrossed by small canals. It is here that the Canal du Loing becomes the Briare canal. The history of the Briare canal goes back to 1604, when the engineer Hugues Cosnier undertook the construction of a canal to link the Loire and Seine valleys. The technique used for the locks was inspired by a hydrology treatise by Leonardo da Vinci. Begun in the reign of Henri IV, the work was interrupted by the assassination of the King in 1610, then picked up again by two entrepreneurs with private investment money. The first barge made the voyage between Briare and Montargis in 1642. The Briare canal was the first summit level canal in Europe, and the first to use a staircase of locks. These were men of great vision.

Tuesday 15 May

Montargis à Chatillon–Coligny – 33km 8 locks (Total: 501km 195 locks)

Clear morning after yesterday’s rain. John inadvertently fires water hose into main cabin, resulting in a more thorough than usual floor clean. Pretty tree lined passage out of Montargis. I am sorry I did not find out more about the Chinese history in Montargis – apparently it was home to “important Chinese personalities of the past from 1910-1920 who spoke openly of their plans to reform (China)” and who became active leaders in the Chinese revolution.

We pass through Amilly, just outside of Montargis, which has a great looking little restaurant by the lock. The lockkeeper accompanies us to the four automatic Montcressan locks, which together raise us 14.8 metres. This is the last house we come to – it has a little gnome at the door. He says he has been an eclusier for four months – before that he was a delivery man, and he has also worked in a library, a factory, and as a school assistant. He likes this job because it provides housing. He said there were few commercial boats these days – there used to be a petrochemical plant in Amilly, but it closed down. We are glad of his help – the locks are all 3.7 metres, and if you were by yourself, it would be quite tricky to get your rope around a bollard.

We stop at Montbouy for lunch and an erratic cycle along the rutted lawn mown towpath back two bridges to the site of a Roman amphitheatre. There is a lot of it left – it is strange to think there were probably more people around here in the 2nd and 3rd century than there are now. You can still see the small enclosures where the animals were kept. The amphitheatre was found by engineers digging the canal.

There are two deep locks leaving Montbouy – a 5.1 metre lock, followed by a 4.9 metre lock at Lepinoy. The lockkeeper lowers a hook to collect our ropes. From the bowels of the second lock you slowly arise to be confronted by a tin stork with a ribbon round its neck, set in a pretty garden. A pleasant five kilometres further along the canal is Chatillon-Coligny, which has great mooring facilities and a little souvenir shop in the capitainerie, selling local honey, wine, saffron jam – this area is big on saffron – and a few nondescript handicrafts. Armed with a local map, we set off in search of the local supermarket, and pass the local archaeological museum, housed in the west wing of the old Hotel Dieu (hospital) founded at the start of the 16th century. It contains the coins found at the amphitheatre in Montbouy, showing it was in use from the 2nd century to the start of the 4th century.

Every village in this area has some Gallo Roman remains – there were big baths with hot and warm rooms and cold baths, its walls covered with pink veined marble plates. A reservoir with a mosaic was also found in the Loing valley. But the area was settled long before the Romans – there are prehistoric axe heads found some 20 years ago. Some of the most interesting exhibits come from the Celtic cemetery at Cortrat, containing about 20 tombs which yielded some finely made jewellery. What was surprising is that in the 4th century BC the men were between 6’ and 6’6”, and the women between 5’8” and 5’10”.

Also in the museum is an exhibit on the extraordinary Becqueril family – Antoine-Cesas, Edmond, Henri and Jean – who are buried in the town cemetery. All four were scientists. Edmond worked on the phosphorescence of rare metals and the salts of uranium, which enabled his son Henri to discover natural radioactivity in March 1896. In 1902 he won the Physics Nobel prize, along with Pierre and Marie Curie.

Had planned on dining on Coq au Vin at nearby restaurant, which was open last time we looked, but at the appointed hour, was closed. So we have quiche and salad on our little front deck, listening to the sigh of the breeze in the plane trees that line the mooring.

Wednesday 16 May

Chatillon–Coligny à Rogny – 9km 6 locks (Total: 510km 201 locks)

Rain during the night and early morning, but by 10.00am it looks as if it may clear. We use the mooring shower, which is designed to irritate. You insert €2 in the door, which gains you admittance into a nice clean new room with shower and basin. So far, so good. But the shower operates only by pressing a stiff little knob at waist height, which must be held in all the time, else the water stops. So you end up holding it in with your back. There is no shelf for soap or shampoo, so every time you lean down to soap yourself, the water stops.

We are a little later in setting off than we had told the lockkeeper and no sooner have we cast off than there is a harp honk from behind and Adrienne appears – the sister barge to Nenuphar. She takes precedence, so we have to wait for over half an hour before we can go through the first lock. By the time we reach the second, it is 11.50am, and the lockkeeper says he is going for lunch. We moor beside the remains of the old Briquemault canal and during the enforced break I manage to pick some of the wild yellow irises which have been tantalisingly out of reach for most of this journey.

The lock opens and we pass through, but the lockkeeper says we must moor up straightaway, as there is a very large boat coming. It is “Bon Vivant”, another barge holiday boat targeted at Americans, three of whom are sitting in lounge chairs chatting on the deck. John and I smile at them as they inch past. One of them stares right through us, and the other two ignore us. One is making notes in a folder, so presumably they are captains of industry. Their wives are visible inside the cabin. The captain waves cheerily, as does the steward, so at least that is something. The Bon Vivant is the same size as the locks – it takes careful manoeuvring, and much spinning of the wheel, to enter the lock head-on in a straight line. After it passes, we move ahead to the next lock. The same lockkeeper asks if we are American, when I note the self importance of those on board. I say we are from New Zealand – “ah”, he says “the land of rugby”. So far that has been the sole identifying feature of New Zealand in the minds of everyone we have met. “I don’t like rugby, ” I say, and he says he doesn’t either. He has been a lockkeeper for four years, and enjoys it. He says the canal closes for only six weeks in winter, but the work is year round. He says it costs €4,000 per person per week on the Bon Vivant, everything included. But the Americans we saw were paying no regard to their surroundings whatsoever, so I am not sure it was money well spent.

At Moulin Boulé we moor up to take a look at the flight of four locks dating back to the 17th century – Moulin Boulé is the last lock before Rogny-les-Sept-Ecluses where the canal finally leaves the valley of the Loing and climbs to its highest point before beginning the descent to the Loire. We moor up in the small port, at the high price of €11, which includes transport to the Chateau de Saint Fargeau and to the supermarket. The chateau is ten kilometres away and does look stunning, but after seeing numerous chateaux on our last visit, we decide to give it a miss. Or John does anyway, as it is too late to go today, and we have booked the lock staircase for 10.00am tomorrow.

Rogny is quite small, but interesting. I climb the hill to the church, which dates from the 12th century, and is set in a pretty square with lots of trees and old cottages, one of which is barely visible beneath showers of roses. But the main attraction of Rogny are the seven locks that give the town of 740 inhabitants its name. Part of the original canal, the locks, originally 28 metres long, were extended to 32 metres in the 1830’s, then finally replaced by the six separate 38 metre locks at the end of the 19th century – the ones we will go through tomorrow.

The old locks, now a deserved tourist attraction, sit beside the first dividing pound of the locks in use today. You can walk right along them despite the risk to life and limb – something you would never be allowed to do in New Zealand – and admire engineer Hugues Cosnier’s vision. Work began in 1604. Twelve thousand volunteers were paid in tokens that they could exchange for food, and another 6,000 troops were needed to protect them. In 1608, Henri IV paid a visit with his Queen. Then came financial difficulties and the Thirty Years War, before in 1638 La Compagnie des Seigneurs du Canal became the owners of the project, which opened in 1642, when the first boat from the Loire to the Seine descended 34 metres on the Rogny staircase. Right up to the 19th century, boats were pulled by men – animals were used when the loads got heavier.

By our mooring, ducks fight over bread and territory and local teenagers assemble for several hours by a pizza van that attracts good custom. The local youth amuse themselves riding up and down on the high pitched motorbikes and scooters that seem so popular in France, and the less wealthy ride bicycles, practising wheelies. John says that in his day you wouldn’t have been seen dead on something that sounded like that. He wanders over to the pizza van out of curiosity, and discovers there is a 1½ hour waiting time.

We go to the Auberge des Ecluses for dinner. It is amongst some of the best food I have eaten in my life – duck breast in blackcurrant sauce, followed by chocolate fondant in orange coulis. €51 including wine and beer. We return at 10.00pm, and the pizza van is still going strong, with a new collection of youths gathered around. We walk along to where the Adrienne is moored – the few Americans on board (the US flag is flying) are gathered around the circular bar in the lounge. The curtains are drawn at the side, and a security light flips on as we pass. It all seems a trifle silly.

Thursday 17 May

Rogny - Briare – 19km 14 locks (Total: 529km 215 locks)

Our last full day on the boat! First chore of the day was getting to the Rogny Post Office which opens from 9.00am-12.00 noon Monday to Friday. We arrived too late yesterday. Today I am there at the dot of 9.00am, peering through the curtains but a passing lady kindly tells me the post office is shut today, Thursday. I return at 9.30am and inspect the closed door again. Yes, it says quite clearly it is open Monday to Friday.

We line up with a French boat to go through the locks at 9.55am, and emerge from the sixth one at 11.05am, after an hour spent closely examining the algae on the lock walls. The boat in front has a boathook stabber on board, and runs the engine all the time. At the fourth lock, a large purpose built Desertman truck draws up, with a four wheel drive quad bike on a specially designed hydraulic lift at the rear. A Frenchman in a beret leaps out and strikes up a conversation with the boat in front – they are apparently headed for the Mediterranean.

In the past hour, we have risen 20.6 metres, and are now at the highest point of the Briare. The next locks are descending. At the Gazonne lock, we have to wait for another hotel barge to pass through – the Anna Maria, which caters for cycling/barging holidays and is carrying a group of Canadians from the Niagara area. It is drizzling a little, but they are all on deck with their raincoats on. The French say we will go through one more lock, then stop for lunch. They started in Normandy, and are headed for Bordeaux, a trip that will take them through Avignon and Carcassonne. Two young men, one still in his teens, are fishing beside the lock – a large fish, easily two feet long, lies beside them in the grass.

The drizzle continues, and the French boat decides to stop off in Ouzouer-sur-Trézée, which has a nice little port. They say they hope to be in Bordeaux by 1 June. We carry on to Briare, where we began this trip, taking the right fork into the Pont-Canal through the guard lock. To the left is the old arm of the canal leading to the port of Briare, now called Henri VI canal. There are three locks to go through to reach the port, and we are not able to spare the time to go back through them all onto the main Briare canal tomorrow morning. So instead we moor up just beside the entrance to the beautiful and awe-inspiring Briare canal bridge, across the Loire, right opposite the hotel we stayed at when we first arrived.

Briare was once the point where small river boats unloaded their cargo, which was transferred to the big canal barges bound for Paris. The former headquarters of the Compagnie des Seigneurs du Canal du Briare – France’s first limited liability company – now houses the Briare town council. Opposite to where we are moored is the old pumping station which used to pump water from the Loire to the dividing pound of the Canal de Briare. I remember looking at it when we first arrived and wondering if it was a brickworks.

The first thing we do is dash off to the Maison des Deux Marines, a museum about Briare, the Loire and the canal. We were uncertain that it would be open – everything seemed shut – but it was, and it also sold VNF maps of the French waterways. We also learnt that the reason everything is shut – including the Rogny post office – is that it is Ascension Day and a public holiday. The museum has a lovely model of the canal bridge, which was built by a waterways engineer Léonce-Abel Mazoyer, with Gustave Eiffel responsible for the steel work. It was the first time mild steel was used in France – this being the only material light and strong enough for a structure of this size. Opened in 1897, the bridge was blown up to slow the advance of the Germans in WWII, but quickly rebuilt. It was the first canal structure we saw, and it makes a fitting end to our holiday.

We are now at the start of the Canal Lateral a la Loire, which follows the river over its length, and was completed in 1838. The Loire Lateral links Briare with Digoin. It has a gentle slope – no more than 140 metres in nearly 200 kilometres, and only 47 locks. A mere nothing, considering we did 14 today alone from Rogny to Briare, ascending 20.6 metres and descending 28.95 metres.

After dinner, finishing up odds and ends, we walk along the Canal Bridge over the Loire. John has difficulties with heights, so he does not venture far across the bridge. I wonder if he will be okay tomorrow.

Friday 18 May

Briare à Chatillon – 6km

Brilliant morning, warm with sun to come. Get up early for boulangerie run, then set off immediately across the canal bridge. It felt truly magnificent, like some kind of royal procession. The detail on the bridge’s ironwork is so graceful, it is exhilarating. The boat felt as if it was gliding along of its own accord, suspended above the Loire. When we looked back, the aqueduct stretched like a long silver ribbon behind us. It brought us out into a stretch of some of the prettiest open countryside of the whole trip, lush green fields and trees full of birds. On the towpath by a grand house with grey turrets we saw a plain brown bird with a little crown of feathers that we thought might be a female peacock. Then John pointed out that on the roof sat the male peacock, facing away from us, his tail draped over the grey roof tiles as if he owned the entire place. It was a very fitting end to the trip – an image that will stay with us.

At the Connoisseur boat yard, Bruno the boat man heard the tale of the Australians who started at Chatillon en Bazois, got as far as Auxerre, and returned, fearing they would not complete the loop in three weeks. Bruno said he didn’t understand why anyone would try to do the loop in three weeks. “It is a cruise, not a race,” he said. He also made us feel good by saying he envied and admired us for having done it – very few people do, he said.

What will we remember the most about the canals?

- The way life slows down – you can walk pretty much as fast as the boat goes.
- The lush green of the countryside.
- The birdlife -- especially the herons.
- The huge sky over open countryside.
- The friendliness of everyone we encountered.
- The fishermen.
- People walking dogs of all shapes and sizes.
- The spring flowers that grew wild in profusion.
- The lockkeepers’ cottages, all different.
- The commercial barges on the Yonne and the skills of the bargees.
- The boulangerie morning run.
- The history of the canals.
- Being together and absorbing the journey.
- The transition from the canals to the rivers

-The grandeur of the converted barges.
- The glimpses of other people's lives on the canals

And a handy hint -- buy what you want when you see it -- the shops will surely be closed next time you pass by

FOOTNOTE

The hire companies suggest a three week schedule for this loop. Whilst it is possible to do it in three weeks you would be flat out every day with little or no time to relax and certainly no time to take a couple of days off to tour a favourite town or region. We took four weeks and even so felt pressed for time.

Also the hire companies will only give you the boat at 4.00pm on the first day and it has to be returned by 9.00am on the last day. As the locks open at 9.00 am and close at 7.00pm this effectively means you lose two days of your trip, for which you have paid. And if you are on the canals on a public holiday, you effectively lose that day, as the locks are shut. We questioned our company, Connoisseur, about this, with a view to a possible refund. They said they would contact the head office in the UK and come back to us. We have yet to hear back.