French Canals

Week One -- Briare to Cours les Barres

2007-07-23T19:54:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-23T19:51:00.000-07:00

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.

Week Three: Tannay to Villenavotte

2007-07-23T19:44:00.000-07:00

Thursday 3 May

Tannay -Clamecy– 18km, 8 locks, 1 drawbridge (Total: 236km, 107 locks)

Long luxuriant shower as we are parked by a fresh water supply. We top up with gas, as the Australians cruise by, boathooks at the ready. They plan to go through first today and possibly separately. The bread van toots, so we just have time to get a baguette. We arrive at the first double lock, to find the Australians already in the second half, which means we have to wait while the first one refills. They look a little shamefaced when they see me standing on the bridge between the two locks looking down on them. “Look Fred, there’s Jennifer,” Ian’s wife hisses. Ian shouts out that his wife will open the drawbridge for us both – this is why they have gone ahead. By the time they get to the next lock, we are well behind, but the next lockkeeper insists on waiting for us, so we meet again.

But at the following lock we are able to part ways. It is just a two kilometre bike ride over the hill to Dornecy, home to two old washhouses. By now the sun is out, and the whole landscape looks clean and new, a beautiful basin holding a vast cloud-scattered sky. From the top of the hill, you feel as if you can see forever. When we arrive in Dornecy, I ask a pedestrian where the ancient washhouses are. She doesn’t have the faintest idea what I am talking about – even though as it turns out we are just a few feet away from one of them – and directs me to a hairdresser. When we do find the lavoirs, I recognise them as what I had earlier taken for some sort of hay barn or covered duck pond beside the canal. Apparently each village in some parts of Burgundy has its own washhouse, most built in the 18th and 19th centuries, when there was a new awareness of the benefits of hygiene. They were meeting places for washerwomen. The second one in Dornecy has its own little canal, with very clear running water. The lavoirs were covered in 1802 after a cholera epidemic.

A military plane flew overhead earlier today – it is the second we have seen. They fly very fast and very low and very loudly. They are a rude reminder of the outside world – like the BBC4 news this morning of some awful brutal murder in Bath. We arrive at our second post-lunch lock to find the Australians waiting. Fred has stepped ashore for the first time to help do the gates. Ian is at the helm for the first time. His eagle captain’s eye notes that their bow rope is tied off as the water level starts to sink. When the gate opens, Ian steers the boat out with one hand on the wheel and one fending off the wall. There is a huge old English sheepdog who gazes down with interest at the scene, as Ian ricochets from one side of the lock to another.

We arrive together at Clamecy, one of the highlights of the Nivernais Canal, where I insist on spending the night. John fears we are behind schedule, and is anxious to ensure we get our 20 kilometres a day done. But I think he is reading the distance calculator upside down. Tomorrow he will ring the boat base and check. Clamecy is a beautiful little town with narrow streets and waterways. The mooring area is lovely, right down town, near gardens and the old war memorial which has been remodelled after being knocked down by the Nazis. The 12th century church on the hilltop, by the town square, is quite extraordinary, particularly lace-like with all its carvings and curlicues. Unfortunately it is shut for renovations, but the exterior is enough in itself.

We take our washing to the laundromat, and painstakingly work out the instructions. There is quite a convivial atmosphere in the laundromat – a young mother with a vociferous child, a lean young man who carefully folds everything from the dryer, item by item, and packs it into his carry bag. He offers us helpful suggestions by prodding the buttons on the machine. The laundromat is situated in the heart of the historic centre of Clamecy, so the waiting time can be spent very pleasantly. There is a tabac with an internet sign – the first we have seen in many days – but when we go in, the owner shrugs his shoulders, runs his fingers over the keyboard and shakes his head with a “desolé” when the screen remains obstinately blank.

More or less opposite the laundromat is an old house with a sign saying it is the birthplace of Gerond de Villette (1752-1787), the first man to go up in a captive hot air balloon along with Pilotre de Rozier. In the booklet I get from the tourism office, which is itself housed in a beautiful old timbered building, there is a list of Clamecy’s famous sons, who also include Nobel Prize winner for literature, Roman Rolland (1866-1944). He has his own museum, which includes an exhibition dedicated to the timber floaters of Clamecy. He described Clamecy as “the town of beautiful reflection”.

For dinner we go to the Auberge de la Chapelle near the mooring – a hotel with a restaurant in an old chapel. We make the mistake of having a pre-dinner snack of duck paté with a glass of wine. The €16 menu embraces an amusé bouche, a hefty wedge of terrine, a large helping of burgundy beef and cassis ice-cream. The Australians have arrived before us, and next to us is a table of three Brits who sound as if they may be food critics. The food is, to our taste buds anyway, excellent value for money. We stagger back to the boat, John clutching the remains of our bottle of wine. We miss out on the cheese course – the British table spend ages examining the offerings on the cheese trolley, which are many, sniffing, and enquiring as to its origins. The maitre d’ at the restaurant has the most enormous girth, a testament to the quality of his food.

Friday 4 May

Clamecy - Cravant – 42km 20 locks (Total: 278km 127 locks)

We spring up early for John to secure first position in the queue for the lock opening at 9 am, and me to go to the boulangerie. Overnight the Avenue de la République has been transformed into a festival of colours – large models of cakes sit on top of the bus stop, and a purple cow peers into a shop window. John jumps the gun and gets into position a full 15 minutes too early, galvanising the Australians into action. The neat little Dutch boat, Patjak VI, with its dark green bodywork and beautiful roping fender, stays demurely by the lock. Its owner wears a crisp blue and white striped tee-shirt – I am in the third day of mine, and my trousers (white) have numerous oil stains from the lock work.

The passage out of Clamecy passes under the Bethleem bridge, at the centre of which is a large statue “aux flotteurs de Clamecy” which gazes down the length of L’Yonne River. He is a short chap, dressed in cap and working clothes, holding his tools of trade. There is an inscription by Romain Rolland and Colas Breugnon – “Ils seront dans son histoire sa noblesse aux rudes mains”. And overseeing him, at the head of the lock several hundred metres behind, is a bust on a high pedestal of Jean Rouvet, the inventor of, I think, the commercial exploitation system of le flottage du bois. He stares sternly and proudly ahead while behind him, in the lock, imprisoned, are our three boats – us, the Australians, and the Dutch boat. Two policemen turn up to collect the mooring fee from the night before. €5 for a 10.5 metre boat. They issue a receipt, and then we are released.

It is a perfect day – warm, sunny, clear blue skies. The initial stages of the day are a bit tricky – two weirs to avoid – but we proceed without incident through seven locks and moor just before the lunchtime lock at Lucy. A large barge is sitting in the lock, ascending, and moves out, shouting at us. It is not apparent why, until the barge passes our moored boat, creating a strong wash that pulls the boat away from the mooring pegs, uprooting them as it goes. We fear we have lost one mooring pin, until John spots it overhanging the edge of the bank. He has been pulled down the bank, his foot entangled in the rope. A lesson learnt. So we move on into the lock to await the lockkeeper’s return after lunch. All around there are green fields, and about half a kilometer to our right, set against a bank of trees, with a wheat field in front of it, is a large chateau – Chateau de Faulin – shimmering in a heat haze. While we saved the mooring pin, it is now apparent that we lost the hammer. The lockkeeper has a quick check of the shed to see if there is something there to take its place, but returns shaking her head. “Desolé”, she says, and can offer no advice on where we can buy a replacement.

Luckily, a couple of locks ahead, we see a Connoisseur base, so while the lock goes into operation, I sprint over to the base. In answer to my urgent “hello?” a man appears from out the back, and without any questions asked goes in search of a mallet. “Problem if you lose them in the water is that they sink,” he says. He is English. When I explain we started in Chatillon, he snorts “they take all my kit”. I spring back to the boat, just in time to climb back on board. The countryside around this area is quite dramatic – limestone cliffs. Under 20 kilometres from Chatel-Censoir, there is the town of Vezelay, in whose basilica St Bernard urged crowds to take part in the crusades. It is a holy site for pilgrims. But John is determined to make up time, so we press gamely on, managing a peek in passing at the 16th century stone bridge over the Yonne at Mailly-le-Chateau – one of the oldest in the region. It has a chapel dedicated to St Nicholas, patron saint of timber floaters and bargemen. At the side of the canal, several teams of workers up and down its length are laying down a new cycle path, making irritating high pitched squeaks of warning as they reverse.

The Dutch boat stays behind after lunch, but the Australians and we carry on. Ian takes his turn at the helm, his navigational skills marginally improving as the days go by. Fred tells us Ian is pushing 80. He too is worried that he’ll never complete the loop in the time available. So both Fred and John are very happy when we reach our last lock and gain admission into the small mooring at Cravant after a record 42 kilometres. It is quarter to seven – 15 minutes before the locks shut. We started on the dot of nine this morning, with just the enforced hour for lunch.

John has a lie down, and I go for a brisk stride into Cravant, just across the Yonne bridge. At this hour there are small clutches of boys and girls swooping around the narrow streets on bikes. The boulangerie is on the verge of closing and everything else is already shut. A young woman tells me there will be a Saturday market, but is very small – just vegetables and fruit. I go for a wander through the streets and tick off a number of the recommended sights, including a nice old 14th century tower that once formed part of the town's medieval fortifications. Today it has been absorbed into the housing around it, and provides nesting crevices for pigeons. The town’s residents seem quite house-proud – lots of potted flowers – but when I return along the Route de Paris to the boat, I wonder how many of them would gladly take that road to the bright lights of the capital.

John absolutely buggered tonight – we have chicken salad, as the rain briefly comes and goes, accompanied by a sudden sharp wind that tugs at the mooring ropes and then dies away again. We try the Quincy 2004 wine that we bought at the Decize market, which is lovely, and listen to John’s I-pod music.

Saturday 5 May

Cravant - Auxerre – 19km 10 locks (Total: 297km 137 locks)

Up early to make dash to boulangerie. The butcher’s, boulangerie, post office and general store all open, with morning chorus of "bonjour madame", "bonne journee", "merci madame", "au revoir", "bon vacances". The market is just being set up – as the lady told me, it is tiny, and is actually run by the general store just a few metres down the road. Receive text from Barbara to say their train to Auxerre leaves Paris at midday. We make prompt start, passing two swans sliding down the canal on our way to the first lock of the day. No sign of movement from the Australians, so maybe today is the day we part ways. I shall be quite sorry after yesterday’s gruelling run. We had at last developed a pattern of helping each other efficiently through the locks.

Our first lockkeeper is a young woman – we get chatting and she says that while the cottages are very pretty, they are small and not so comfortable. At the second lock, Vincelles, I get off to help, plunging through the lockkeeper’s pretty little garden. The lock opens onto a section of the Yonne, which makes it impossible for the boat to stop and pick me up again, so I am obliged to jog along the towpath for some distance until I reach Vincelles and its wharf. By the third lock I feel as if I have done a day’s work. The lockkeeper there has a car boot full of wine and sells us three local Chablis (we are near the town of Chablis) at a discounted price of €6.90 a bottle.

It is an overcast day, and cooler. My white trousers are wound over a chair on deck to dry, after being washed in the remains of the dishwater. Consequently they are spotted with croissant crumbs. At Vaux the lockkeeper’s five year old son, still riding his bike with trainer wheels, gamely closes the lock gates on one side while his father works the other. The little boy holds his tongue out to catch the rain that has now set in. In the previous lock, we saw in the middle of the weir the two arms which used to guide the logs of wood towards the flash lock. In the days before the canalisation of the Yonne, downstream navigation was made possible by artificial flash floods. On a weekly basis, weirs on the Yonne and three other rivers were opened in order, and barges, timber rafts and passenger boats cast off together, carried by flood water to the Seine. Our Connoisseur guide book says that while this worked well for timber, it made things difficult for river boats filled with wine, cereals and even passengers.

In 1838 an engineer setting out for Paris from Auxerre in a six ton launch wrote that for 30 hours he navigated the Yonne with a motley collection of craft “constantly at the point of being sent to the bottom of the river. I attached myself first to a boat, then to a timber raft, pushed aside by one of these, the gunnels of my boat were jammed on an Auxerre passenger boat and I found myself suspended from this craft. My boat was only saved by the fact that the gunnels shattered …. I saw timber rafts climb on top of other ones, break into pieces and fall apart, boats climb onto rafts. I was deafened by the cries and shouts of the barge men, each one trying to save his skin as his neighbour’s expense.” After the flood, the flash locks were closed, followed by a rapid drop in water level. Boats which couldn’t keep up were grounded, and had to wait for the next flood.

With just two locks to go, it is time for the lunch break, so we wait outside the Preuilly lock for one hour with the tourist boat Hirondelle II. Our last lock, at the very gates of Auxerre, is run by an official city lockkeeper in a proper VNF rain jacket. He instructs us how to behave in a lock and takes our ropes, and we dutifully obey and listen. Straight ahead is the Cathedral of St Etienne with its 13th century stained glass windows. And we have the best address in Auxerre! We are allowed to take the only free mooring, right by the Passerelle bridge, next to a fine Linssen boat owned by an English couple who sail the French canals every summer. The wife told us they spend a lot of time protecting the rope fender.

Auxerre is a handsome town – we can just walk across to it on our own personal pedestrian bridge. We find an electronics store with large flat screen TVs showing the America’s Cup – New Zealand is in third position. We walk through the St Etienne Cathedral, which is under restoration – the wall at the back is a scintillating white. The interior is cool and austere, and the windows are dazzling rich reds and blues, with intricately detailed scenes. The organ, which is not visible due to the renovations, is playing all the time we are there. After prolonged wandering we also find the Leblanc-Duresnoy Museum, which is housed in an 18th century private mansion. It has a porcelain collection, with lots of lovely faience ware, some of it quite religious and other pieces of naïve folk humour. Downstairs there are tapestries depicting the early dealings between the Jesuits and the Chinese emperor Kangxi. They depict the astronomical instruments of the Jesuits, which exist in Beijing today. There is a sign saying there is to be no photography, but on the first floor there is a woman carefully photographing many of the large dishes.

Outside the museum John gets a text from Rod and Barbara saying they have been held up in Paris, but have now arrived. We make our way back to the boat, which Barbara and Rod have already found – they are sitting on the bank in the rain. I thought they had recognised the New Zealand flag on the back, but in fact it is the only Connoisseur boat here today, and that is what alerted them. And no sooner have we found them, than we also find the Australians, who slept in and set off at 10.00am. They have decided to retrace their steps rather than continue around the loop. Fred confides that Ian is tired, and they worry that he might not be able to cope. So they will spend three nights in Auxerre, and then return slowly, staying at little villages en route. We all shake hands and wish each other well.

Barbara and Rod set off to look at Auxerre, and John and I tackle the local supermarket which is enormous, with everything you could possible want. To get to the supermarket, you walk through the park behind the marina, which is home to ten or 12 mainly young drifters with bedrolls and beer cans. For dinner we wander through the rain and end up at one on the waterfront, returning across the bridge which offers a fine view of the illuminated cathedral and the St Germain Abbey, silvery against the night sky. Another boeuf bourguignon in the interests of research …

Sunday 6 May

Auxerre - Joigny – 32km 11 locks (Total: 329km 148 locks)

Another cool grey day, but no wind. Barb and I set off for the boulangerie which we have been told is open and will surprise us, and so it is, and so it does, with its delicious and beautifully crafted pastries and cakes. Outside the window, with its mega strawberry and chocolate gateaux, there is a man with a basked of lily of the valley posies, which he is selling for €1. The grocer’s will not open till 9.00am, so we wander slowly back through the town, and come across the statue of St Nicholas, patron saint of river men, looking out from his niche in the wall over the river.

The first lock is enormous, built for river traffic. The lockkeeper warns us that today is election day, so there will be a two hour lunch break to allow the lockkeepers to vote. All throughout this trip we have seen the election posters outside the village town halls, all tidy and centralised, rather than the plethora of hoardings you get in New Zealand. The two candidates, Nicholas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal, were in a TV debate the night we stopped in Tannay – we saw locals huddled around the TV at the restaurant, chatting animatedly. The two lockkeepers John has asked both support Sarkozy.

It is so cold my breath fogs up my glasses. These river locks are huge – like municipal swimming pools. Barb says hopefully that she thinks the sun might come out. She sees her first otter swim across in front of us, and swans preening on the bank. This morning we saw the body of a tiny bird in the streets of Auxerre, face down, little legs stretched out behind it. Maybe it died of the cold. But when we stop for lunch the grey clouds suddenly and quickly recede, and within a few minutes the temperature rockets.

Taking advantage of the two hour break, we cycle to Appoigny, but Barb is uncomfortable in the traffic and chooses to walk the bike much of the way back. The road is quite narrow, and there seems to be some sort of caravan convention as seven or eight cars are towing large white caravans. We locate the 24/24 supermarché, but despite its name it shuts at 12.30pm on Sunday, so no milk.
At Monetau, we encounter our first sloping sided lock, which works brilliantly – floating pontoons on the sloped side gently descend with the boat. Not at all the nightmare that John had envisaged. The course today alternates between stretches of canal and stretches of the Yonne. The canal is much more sheltered – even in the sun, there is a chill in the air on the river. “Crikey, not another flipping lock,” says Barbara as we encounter our eighth one for the day. At the ninth, La Graviere, we wait for a boat to emerge, and a swan eyes us up from the far bank as we stay midstream. He swims out to us with determination, and Barb gets the hint and feeds him over the side of the boat. He takes bread from her hand and dips it in the water to soften it.

When we enter the lock, the lockkeeper’s 9½ year old son takes the ropes for us and works the automatic devices. The final run into Joigny, some way past the entrance to the Burgundy Canal, is along a wide stretch of the River Yonne, the wind rippling the surface. The boat feels more like a ferry than a canal boat, bumping up and down. We moor at the marina, from which we get a wonderful view of Joigny on the opposite bank, vineyards on the hills, which rise steeply behind. Barb makes herself a cup of mint tea, using only hot water and the wild mint we found on the lock side, which she claims is delicious, and after that we walk into Joigny’s old side, which is quite remarkable in its way for the sheer quantity of medieval housing in one place, winding up the hillside. Wandering through the streets, it is a bit disconcerting to hear the murmur of TVs from behind ancient doors and windows. We count five Turkish kebab shops in one small area, and another two small grocery shops run by Turks. Neither stocks fresh milk.

The two churches are both interesting – the St Jean church was started in 996, and has an old tomb dating back to the 1100’s. The St Thibault church was first built as a chapel to receive the remains of St Thibault. It, like many other churches we have seen, is under restoration and the part completed is a startling white. Opposite, somewhat incongruously, is the Bar St Thibault. When we exit through the gate at the rear of the town, there is a fine avenue of trees, and more avenues of trees along the waterfront. It is all very charming. Walking back to the boat on the opposite bank, the objects I took for bollards turn out to be signs identifying the various river birds. Back on the boat, Barb says it has been one of the best days of her life, and talks about running a business with a canal boat, targeting the New Zealand market. Something we have begun to think of ourselves. Dinner on the pontoons, with setting sun.

Monday 7 May

Joigny à Sens – 32km 7 locks (Total: 361km 155 locks)

John gives me my morning cup of tea with a pretty little garnet ring for my birthday. Barb and Rod give me chocolate from Maxims in Paris, and a pretty little blue and white condiment set. Barb is upset that the little tray is broken, but I can fix it when I get home. We buy almond croissants for breakfast and tarte citron for afternoon tea. John fills up with diesel after lengthy discussions over whether or not the marina can sell it, because they have no meter on the pump and it is for Locaboats. Overcast and a bit rainy again, but not as cold. We nudge into a bank so John can move out of the rain to the inside steering position, and Barb takes the opportunity to plunge through the stinging nettles to pick wild blue irises to replace the fading bunch of assorted wildflowers I have picked over the past two weeks. Five dogs appear out of nowhere barking loudly, happily on the other side of a fence. Barb makes a quick leap.

Our first lock is sloping on both sides, but the pontoons make it straightforward. When the water levels sink, you can see the old steps, now heavily caked in mud, like fat slices of chocolate cake. The lock opens into a very attractive stretch of river, with fine strands of trees on both sides, and groups of fishermen. The lock man tells us that Sarkozy won the election – he does not appear particularly moved by this news. The second lock appears unmanned – Barb knocks on the door and eventually the lockkeeper appears, slightly unsteady on his feet, or perhaps that was the effect of the wind. The lock takes forever to lower a metre and a bit, and we think he has not opened all the sluices, possibly as punishment for our looking for him.
We stop at Villeneuve sur Yonne for lunch and take a quick hike through the town. The Church of Notre Dame, a solid, square edifice, is securely shut. The lock out of Villeneuve remains closed at 1.00pm, with no sign of anyone. At a quarter past, I walk down and up the stairs to the office. No-one answers. I go over to the house, and can see a young man sitting with a cigarette at his table. He comes to the door, and says the lunchtime lasts till 1.30 – the first lock to do so in 150 locks. At half past, he saunters, slowly, to the gates and spends five minutes clearing away debris. Then, when the lock has drained, he spends more time on the telephone …

But at Etigny, we are excited to come across a commercial barge, with another headed our way, creating significant wash. This is the first time to be in a lock with a barge, and suddenly these huge river locks seem much smaller. We assume the barge man has kindly left the one puny little pontoon for us, but the lockkeeper says we must moor onto the barge itself. We succeed in mooring onto the aft, until the barge man directs us forward so we go through the procedure all over again. The barge is enormous – the driver sits high above his cargo in a raised glass cabin from which he waves cheerily as he lets us leave first.

Another barge passes us on the way to the next lock – it is a family-run commercial barge, with a children’s playpen enclosed in a 2-metre high steel fence, complete with swing, at the front, and lace curtains hung in the windows. Our barge, Puebla, overtakes us before we reach the lock, and we moor against it with more confidence this time. Peering into their cavernous holds, you can see exquisitely neatly coiled ropes at the far end, beyond the piles of gravel it is carrying. But certainly no lace curtains.

We arrive at Sens at 4.15pm and tie up. Sens was a major Roman centre. Harold from Florida in the canal barge behind helps tie us up in the wind – he says he shares his very handsome barge with ten others on a time share basis. Florida is too hot, he says. We sit down for a cup of tea, and Barb produces a brilliant raspberry mousse cake with a thin jelly layer on top that is just divine. I have three helpings. Then we tackle Sens, which has an all day market on Monday. We catch the end of it. Barb buys a top and a €3 cotton tee-shirt. The fruit and vegetable market, housed in the covered market, is almost over. We spend so long in the market, and in the St Etienne Cathedral, that we are too late to go through the adjacent museum with the cathedral treasures and the orangerie. But the lady at the counter reluctantly agrees to let us rush right through to the garden in the remaining ten minutes, which also gives us the chance to take a quick squizz at the exhibition material, including the fragments of Roman mosaic flooring, en route.

We follow the walking path suggested on the tourism map, which brings us to a large car park, in search of La Poterne,

the remains of the town wall. We ask a young mother where it is. She inspects the map closely. “It is here,” she pronounces as she looks at the map again and nods. “We can see it with our own eyes,” she jokes, and laughs. We never do find La Poterne.

But on the way back to the boat we do find a fun fair which stretches for three blocks and is great fun. The French version of sausages on sticks in New Zealand – deep fried dough items – kebabs, ice creams, lucky dips, numerous merry go rounds of varying degrees of sophistication, happy kids, bored looking attendants – it is all great. We wander into town for dinner, and find an inexpensive place near the cathedral. And after dinner, we walk back through the fun fair in the dark, until rain returns and we run back to the boat and sit with a glass of wine and Nina Simone, watching the rain on the wet cobblestones of the quay. It has been a lovely birthday.

Tuesday 8 May

Sens - Villenavotte – 6km 1 lock (Total: 367km 156 locks)

We need water if we are to have showers. Sens was supposed to have water, but the only means of getting it was a hose hanging from the middle of the bridge when we arrived. As there was no visible means of connecting to a hose some ten metres above our heads, we gave it away. So the next idea was that first thing in the morning we make a dash to water some six kilometres down the road, but we all sleep in. And it is raining. We do the boulangerie run and discover that 8 May is also a public holiday marking the end of WWII. So everything is shut, including the museum, which is a shame, as it held a collection of paintings I would like to have seen if we are to spend some extra hours in Sens. One of the few things open is the laundromat, so that is where we end up.

And I discover looking at the by now somewhat tattered tourist map that there is a park which comes highly recommended. It is described as being between the city and the start of the countryside, and there is an arrow pointing the direction to take. Clasping the empty laundry bags, Barb and I set off with Rod to the park via the library, where Rod hopes to find internet access. It is closed. He retraces his steps to the laundromat, and Barb and I press on. Forty five minutes later, it becomes clear, as we survey open countryside, that there is no park here. There is no-one around to ask, until an ambulance driver passes by, and tells us that the park is in a completely different direction. On closer inspection of the tourist map there is another arrow that I completely missed. Doggedly determined now to find the park, we walk another half hour and eventually track it down. It is frankly not worth the effort, but we enthuse to each other all the same over the fragrance of the roses, which are just starting to come out.

Returning to the boat, we pass the small grocery shop that was open in the morning, but has now shut, dashing our hopes of fresh milk. Rod, however, has had more success, chatting up the locals in the laundromat, then carrying the washing back to the boat wrapped in a towel, since he had no laundry bags. For lunch we have brie on baguette – a Normandy brie that emits a powerful smell every time the fridge door is opened – so much so that after lunch we put it in the tool box on deck. John watched the barge behind us set off today with a second barge attached to its front end – the Pueblo, presumably a sister to the Puebla we hooked up to yesterday. He said the driver, maybe 25, controlled the whole operation expertly with a mooring rope in one hand and the rudder in the other. He put his engine in gear, which caused the two linked barges to move out sideways. He then flicked the rope off, reversed to get enough room to pass us, and once he had enough sea room, took off under the bridge, turning up his rock music to full blast. This impressed John mightily – the fact that he could control that entire arrangement with one piece of rope.

In the late afternoon we head off through the lock we had booked for 10.00am, as the lockkeeper smilingly reminds us. We are only going six kilometres, as far as a restaurant on the bank with its own private mooring at Villenavotte. The restaurant is also a two star hotel, Le Manoir de l’Onde, with high eaves and a little turret. The owner comes over and helps us tie up and immediately inquired if we were dining in. John and I go round to the quite sumptuous restaurant through the wood panelled reception and take a cautious look at the menu. It is rather more than we wanted to spend, so we ask if we can order a la carte. The owner, who seems quite cheery and possibly slightly tipsy, is amenable.

Across the railway track that was alongside the road behind the hotel is the village of Villenavotte. A hotel resident from Alsace comes over to us and says that in villages across France today people laid wreaths at war memorials to mark the end of World War II. Maybe they did in Sens, but if so we missed it. Although the cathedral did ring its bells in a long, slow, funereal peel at mid morning. With the thought of finding the village war memorial, Rod and I cross the railway line and climb a long flight of steps to the village on the hillside. There are stunning views from the top of violet skies and endless green wheat fields swaying in the breeze. The man from Alsace had said the village would be shut, and so it is, but there are no shops there anyway. The church is shut, and we can find no war memorial. There are some very large houses behind high walls. Some have garden gnomes – a popular garden feature in these parts.

At 8.15pm we arrive at the hotel restaurant which has a covered terrace overlooking the river. It is all very froufrou, with about seven tables, all very hushed. There is one rather tense lady with a bandaged wrist and laryngitis serving by herself. She tackles it table by table, leaving us till last, since we arrived last. When she serves the main course, she has to orchestrate as near as possible the simultaneous removal of the silver covers. We confuse and annoy her visibly by ordering a mix of a la carte selections off the prix fixe menu. Barb, who is keen on her fish and her vegetables, orders veau de mer. When it arrives, it has the texture of brains. There is nothing fish-like about it. We think she might have mistakenly ordered the ris de veau – veal sweetbreads. She gamely tackles it, but its identity continues to trouble her. Meanwhile, in the sitting room, where earlier diners are enjoying their coffee, the hostess is grappling with a dumb waiter that emits loud groaning noises as it disappears with the used plates and reappears with the covered orders.

At the end of dinner (I have a quite tart, but delicious gratin of red fruits) we are the only diners left. We go to pay the substantial bill, and find the hostess with her own dinner at the reception desk. Back on the boat I try to text Adele, but end up talking to her, to figure out what veau de mer is – Adele and her friend Mo run through the possibilities, and offer suggestions such as whale. Barb retires to bed none the wiser.

Wednesday 9 May

Villenavotte - Montereau Faut Yonne – 34km 7 locks (Total: 401km 163 locks)

The chef appears early with a large box containing two loaves of bread – one sliced, loosely wrapped to maintain its moistness, and the other a bit blackened on top, plus a pile of croissants and pains de chocolat, still hot. “Voila,” he says as he hands them over. We had been anticipating a breakfast of yesterday’s bread, so this is a lavish feast. After filling water and thanking the chef profusely – it was all free – we set off for our first double sloping sides river lock minus a working pontoon. We manage despite the breeze to moor to one bollard with enough rope to allow us to descend without hitting the slope.

At Pont sur Yonne we pass the remaining three arches of the old stone bridge that was blown up in 1814 to stop the advance of Austrian troops. A little further along, is the Aqueduct of the Vanne which was built in 1874 and carries more than 120,000 cubic metres of water a day towards the Montsouris reservoir in Paris. Behind us comes a commercial hotel barge – a thing of beauty called Nenuphar, skippered by a windswept and interesting young Brit, in navy blue polo necked sweater and jeans. The barge is empty of passengers, but there is a young woman with pink gloves, and another insouciant young man with a fag at the front. The skipper says he’ll go out first, since they are so much further forward than us. “You can overtake us later if you want,” he says crisply. “If you can catch us up.” He smiles.

At the next lock we do catch up, and he says he skippers for a company targeting the American market – they generally stay on board for six nights. “Is it horrendously expensive?” I ask. “Yes,” he replies. Their season starts on May 20. It is an all year round job though, with refitting during the off-season. While we are in the lock, a car draws up and disgorges four of the barge staff, a washing machine, and large piles of grocery bags which they swiftly unload onto the barge. But when the lockkeeper goes to open the gates, one jams and we squeeze out leaving the barge inside.

Just before lunchtime, we moor up before our first 3.8 metre double sloping sided lock, the barge behind us. Before the barge can get underway, a small private boat zips pas us both and snaffles the pontoon. This is bad maritime manners on two fronts. The owner nips out on shore with his little dog for a toilet stop. There is nowhere we can conveniently tie up with the length of ropes we have, so with the barge’s agreement we tie onto him. The Englishman says he has been doing this work since 1990 – his family is in England and he lives in Burgundy. You needed papers when he started, but it helped to take the instructor out for a nice lunch. He didn’t even have to go into a lock or turn the barge around in his test. But now things are different. He reckons the Nenuphar is worth US$1m.

In the next double sided sloping lock, the little French boat again nips in front but discovers there is no pontoon. He ties up on the left, and then moves over to the right, discombobulating Nenuphar. When the lock opens, he jockeys for position and belts ahead, heading for La Brosse. We pass giant square barges, carrying gravel, which is unloaded on the bank in great piles. When we reach La Brosse, the little French boat is already moored in the lock, impatiently awaiting our arrival. The little dog – a Chihuahua – is let off again. Barbara recalls how as a child she knew a family with Chihuahuas. She dropped one and broke its leg, which subsequently had to be amputated. At a later date, she did a flip in the family's garden, falling on the other Chihuahua and killing it outright.....strange but true.

The Frenchman’s Chihuahua sits in the cabin window, barking as ferociously as it can manage at the neighbouring boats. When the gates open, the Frenchman noses up against the barge and is out before the gates are even fully open. The barge guys shake their heads in bemusement. Where can he be going? There is yet another lock ahead. The Frenchman waits again, and yes, he fires off abruptly as soon as the gate opens, his little dog yapping excitedly. But the race is over, as we are now at our destination, Montereau-faut-Yonne, situated at the point where the Yonne falls (fault) into the Seine. And so we say farewell to the Yonne – in the guidebook it warned that while the river has been tamed by modern weirs and electrified locks, the river can be “capricious and impetuous” in spring, but the worst we have experienced is a chill wind from time to time.

We cross the bridge into the grubby centre ville, calling in at the museum of faience. It is sad to see the old photos of the ceramic factory, with all the workers leaving at the end of the working day, and then photos of the final demolition of the factory in the 1950’s. In its heyday, it made some lovely stuff, and you can see the love and imagination that went into the design of the pieces. We check out the internet café – Barb and Rod still can’t get their laptop to work, but do manage to check their emails. Barb is worried about finding work in the UK, and is a bit tearful thinking about the big change they have chosen to make in their lives by leaving New Zealand for up to five years. But they have some nibbles on the work front, and I am sure it will all be fine. And if it isn’t, that’s fine too. Look at Napoleon, whose statue is at the confluence of the Yonne and the Seine. “Le boulet qui doit me tuer n’est pas encore fonds”, he said. Right here, in Montereau.

Week Four:Montereau faut Yonne - Chatillon sur Loire

2007-07-22T22:48:00.000-07:00

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.