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| Another shady mooring – Sunday at Armeau |
When I took Buddy out for his Sunday morning constitutional,
I came across a purple emperor butterfly flitting around a bramble bush. These are beautiful butterflies that are also
found in the UK and the males have a glorious purple sheen. It is one butterfly that I have never managed
to get a decent shot of, and Sunday was no exception ☹
We were heading to Armeau for the day and, as we wanted to
avoid travelling in the afternoon, we set off at nine. We turned up at the first lock at the
allotted time of 10am and the gates were opening as we arrived. It was our
first sloping sided lock since the end of March, and we were glad we were the
only boat going down. The reason for
that was that there were a couple of sliding pontoons that we could just fit on
otherwise we would have to tie up and keep ourselves away from the sloping
sides by using boat poles at each end.
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| Going down on the floating pontoons |
There are some more sloping sided locks further downstream
and these don’t all have floating pontoons so we will have to use the boat pole
option.
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| Looking back at the sloping sided lock |
It was another very hot day but there was a welcome breeze
on the water. We are in an area of
arable land and many fields are already golden and we saw combine harvesters bringing
in the harvest.
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| Golden fields on our cruise |
There are quite a few butterflies, dragonflies and other
insects visiting our flowers as we cruise along and today, we saw our first
white admiral of the year. This is one
of my favourite butterflies and I particularly love the way they glide through
woodland glades.
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| White admiral taken a couple of years ago near Stratford upon Avon |
We passed many groups of swimmers in the river but also
several people in wet suits using surf boards who were getting quite a pace on
using just their feet.
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| One of the prostrate surf boarders |
We arrived at Armeau before noon and found the mooring was
free and it was just long enough for our boat.
It gave us a pleasant view of the village and was also in partial shade
from some trees.
We spent nearly all afternoon sitting in our picnic chairs
under some shady plane trees near the boat.
One of the things we did was to review our plan of getting to Paris
where we have booked moorings below the bastille for three nights from 8th
July. We soon realised we were on a bit
of a mission and have to cruise for about four hours a day to make it. This is after saying we must have a trip
where we are not on a mission and can spend time staying at places and taking
in some sightseeing. Oh well, we’ll have
to have a different approach to planning after we’ve done the Paris trip. With the weather this week we wouldn’t be
able to do any sightseeing anyway, so it hasn’t really mattered so much.
While we were sitting outside, we saw a summer brood map
butterfly flying around. This butterfly
doesn’t occur in the UK and is unusual in being the only European butterfly
that has completely different forms between the spring and summer broods. The summer brood looks a bit like a small
version of the white admiral.
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| Our summer brood map |
Later in the afternoon we had a slow walk around the
village, making sure that Buddy could walk in the shade and not on the baking
tarmac so as to protect his paws.
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| Armeau – no one around and no cars on the main road other than a tractor |
We didn’t find a lavoir and the church was locked so we
couldn’t get inside and cool down.
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| The modernish church built about 150 years ago |
What we did notice were quite a few boundary walls had small
doors that didn’t reach the ground and they were too low to be windows. They were all shuttered up, as were most
houses to keep them cool, so we couldn’t work out what they were.
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| The strange window doors |
Although we saw hardly any movement all day it was lovely in
the evening as it seemed every family in the village came out for a walk along
the river as the heat died down.
During Sunday we cruised 13 kilometres down two locks.
At about three in the morning it sounded like we were being
pelted with bricks and we suddenly realised a thunderstorm had started. We had forgotten the hatches and doors were
open until my feet started getting wet, so it was a quick run around the boat
closing everything up. The lightning was
continuous and quite spectacular across the water, but the storm only lasted
about half an hour but at least it felt like things had freshened up on Monday
morning. In fact, temperatures are
forecast to be down to around 30 for the next week so that should be a lot
better 😊
The locks on the Yonne don’t open until 9.15 in the morning
so we had arranged for the lock at Armeau to be ready at that time on Monday
morning. The gates were opening as we
arrived five minutes early and we were off for a 22-kilometre cruise to Sens.
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| Leaving our Sunday night mooring and heading for our first lock of the day at Armeau |
It was a far more human-friendly day weather-wise and we
enjoyed our cruise with a good breeze and half cloud cover. We were expecting to moor up for the éclusier
lunch hour just before the last lock of the day and once again we saw no other
boats on the move all morning.
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| Going through Villeneuve-sur-Yonne |
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| Karen looking happy that it was a cooler day |
As expected, it transpired we wouldn’t arrive at the last
lock of the day until just gone noon so we decided to head for it and see if we
could find a temporary mooring outside.
Many of the locks on this river do have a short length at the heads and
tails where small boats can tie up, so we kept our fingers crossed.
As we approached, Karen used the binoculars
to see if there was such an area and suddenly realised, she could see the top
of a boat which was coming up the lock.
I slowed to a halt someway from the lock as it was quite
exposed and didn’t want to get into any difficulty negotiating a boat at the
entrance. It was just as well I did as
it was an 85-metre commercial, about the largest to be seen on this river,
although nothing like the ones we’ll meet on the Seine.
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| Waiting for a commercial to come out of a lock |
After a cheery exchange of waves with the driver we
headed into the lock and tied up on the one and only floating pontoon, expecting
to have lunch while we waited until 1.00pm.
Karen was getting lunch ready and I was on the lockside with Buddy when
the éclusier came up and said he would let us down. I thanked him profusely as it meant we would
get to Sens before the sun came out fully during the afternoon.
There was only one spot available on the longish quay when
we arrived at Sens. We were quite
surprised as all other places have been empty or practically empty and with so
few pleasure boats on the move, we expected the same. To be fair, part of our plan is to move
before lunch so that we have more chance of finding mooring spots which,
apparently, get harder and harder to find as we get nearer Paris.
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| Moored opposite St Maurice church in Sens |
While mooring up we noticed that there were quite a few
speed type boats being driven up and down the river.
They were hired out from a base about ½ kilometre
away and the families aboard were having great fun.
What amazed us (and had forgotten from some
UK rivers) was the amount of wash they created and how our boat was rocked around.
Another commercial came past soon after we moored up and its
wake hardly affected us compared with the speedy type boats.
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| Very little wake as he passed |
The afternoon became quite hot again and we took advantage
of the tree lined promenade which runs around the old town by taking a slow
walk around it.
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| Good old plane trees providing maximum shade |
The promenade follows the line of the old city walls of
which there are very few remnants left other than the occasional tower.
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| Part of the old city wall |
Halfway around we took a detour into the old town to have a quick
gander.
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| The covered market |
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| The ornate city hall |
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| Beautiful Burgundian roof on the cathedral |
When we got back, a widebeam was setting off and as they had
a better spot, we decided to take it.
They were a couple we had met in St Florentin and had just been to Paris
and were now heading south.
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| Our mooring at Sens with what look like ‘git’ gaps as we call them in the UK |
As you can see above there were very few bollards so the
number of boats that could moor up were limited; if a few more had been added
or even mooring rings then more boats could be accommodated. In case you don’t know, git gaps are where
people selfishly moor bang in the middle of a spot that two boats could moor in,
thus reducing the number of boats that could potentially moor on visitor moorings
in a town.
On Monday we cruised 22 kilometres down five locks
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