One thing I’ve forgotten to mention is that we’ve been
pleased to see plenty of our three favourite common water birds since we’ve
been here: herons, kingfishers and great crested grebes. We were chuckling away while watching a pair
of grebes at Gurgy on Saturday evening.
If you know these birds, you will know they can stay under water for
what seems an awful long time. They swim
under water for long distances so it’s a bit of a guessing game as to where
they will resurface. One of the pair was
staying under for longer than the other and the one that surfaced first seemed
to have a really worried look on its face while it desperately looked around
for where its mate would surface.
On Sunday we headed for Auxerre and on Saturday afternoon we
had let the lockie at the first lock of
the day know that we would be arriving at 10.30am, having forgotten that we
would lose an hour’s sleep overnight.
Anyway, it was yet another gorgeous morning and we were happy to be
setting off bright and early (for us anyway).
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| Cruising through Auxerre |
Just after leaving Gurgy we went under the A6, better known
as the Autoroute du Soleil. We’ve been
down this road many times on our way to the south of France and as soon as we
get onto it, the name always gives us the holiday feeling.
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| Not a particularly inspiring bridge carrying the Autoroute du Soleil over the Yonne |
Monéteau was the only town we passed through before reaching
Auxerre and it was at the lock in the town where we saw the only other boat on
the move during the day.
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| Passing through Monéteau |
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| Waiting for a boat to leave the lock at Monéteau |
One difference we have noticed is that weirs are not well
protected. In the UK the weirs have
booms and other barriers that would stop boats that get into trouble. The French weirs all seem to be unprotected,
so you need to be sure to read the waterway guide to know which side of the
river the weirs are on, especially when they are around a sharp bend.
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| The weir above Monéteau lock which is on the left |
The locks on this stretch were closed for lunch between 12
and 1 so we pulled up at the only place we could find to moor before the fourth
lock of the day. Our first load of
washing finished as we moored up and with the warm weather and a slight breeze
it was nearly all dry by the time we set off again.
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| Moored for lunch at I’lle Brûlée |
After setting off again it wasn’t long before we were at
Auxerre and going through the last lock on the River Yonne. Just above the weir is a long line of moored
barges which looked in a rather precarious position but they’re clearly OK as
they looked like they were on permanent moorings.
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| Barges moored above the weir at la Chaînette lock |
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| Heading into Auxerre |
We decided to carry on and moor by a park on the south side
of town. We had met several people who
had told us the moorings were pleasant there and ideal for dog walking.
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| Carrying on through Auxerre |
The Canal du Nivernais starts at the southern end of town
and we had a little difficulty finding the entrance, but all was well in the
end and we were soon passing the welcome sign:
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We will be going down the length of the canal until it joins
the Loire at its southern end. The locks
are a lot smaller on the canal than those on the River Yonne, so it suddenly
felt rather tranquil as we went into the first lock at Auxerre.
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| Canal sized locks of the Canal du Nivernais |
We started to moor up soon after going through the first
lock and were immediately inundated with offers of help to moor. The park was full of people picnicking and
barbecuing and many wanted to help. It
took a while to find a spot to moor up as there were so many lumps of rock
close to the side, but we got there in the end.
We had a quick drink on the back deck before setting off for
a walk around the park and the town. We
were just about to leave when an English couple came up to us (Hilary &
Roger? Why are we so bad with names?); they have a Dutch barge moored in
Auxerre and they and other residents had heard an English narrowboat was on the
way up, so they were looking out for us.
It’s awful but neither of us could remember their names but we had a
good chat about their adventures – they started over here in summer last year.
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| Our mooring for Sunday night by the park |
On Monday morning there was a knock on the boat, and it was
a couple of VNF éclusiers wanting to know when we would be setting off. We’re obviously going to have to get used to
thinking about timings, but we said we would stay for the day and set off at 10
on Tuesday morning. We had a long list
of jobs to do that meant it would be best to stay in town for the day.
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| Our Monday morning view from the back doors |
The first job was fine – off to Leclerc to get supermarket
shopping for a couple of weeks. We left
Buddy on the boat as we were going to have a lot of bags to carry back as well
as a rucksack each.
We then set about our respective job lists. One of my items was to fix the 12volt socket
behind our sofa. I replaced the socket
with one that I knew worked OK but that too didn’t work so it was obviously
something wrong with the circuitry at the point. I couldn’t find anything wrong with the
cables that were visible so I put everything back and moved the job to Steve’s job
list. Steve is my electrical son and
basically the most practical person in the family.
Putting the working charger back into place I dropped the
wires behind the wall cladding which meant I then had to get access through a
larger hole by removing a 240-volt socket.
Long story short, I got everything back together and then realised I had
blown two 12-volt chargers. Then it was
back to Leclerc to replace them only to blow one of the new ones as I had
obviously rewired the socket incorrectly.
So that job resulted in a second socket out of service, two new chargers
purchased and three blown.
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| Walking over a disused railway bridge to Leclerc with our boat looking rather small on its lonesome in the distance |
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| Looking across the weir to Chalkhill Blue on the far side |
When we looked around Chris & Sue’s boat a week or so ago,
we were impressed with their magnetic bathroom door catches. We had bought some so that we could stop
using old fashioned doorstops that we kept kicking out of the way and thus
leaving the doors to swing irritatingly as the boat rolled.
I knew the job wouldn’t be easy as the bathroom floor tiles
were really hard, and I ended up finishing off three masonry bits just doing
one door stop. The reviews of the door
stops basically said they were really good but getting the magnet lined up
could be troublesome. I have to say that
I totally agree with the reviews, but I got there in the end but only managed
one of them.
We have a handheld hoover which I used to clear up the mess
not realising that the cover to the dust collection bit had come adrift and all
the crap had fallen out onto the floor.
Oh, and one other thing with this job was I found that only one of the
two batteries for my electric drill would now recharge.
One job that did go well was getting diesel. Over here there are very few places to fill up
with diesel on the waterfront so it’s a matter of using jerry cans when moored
close to garages. We were fairly close
to one here at Auxerre and filled up both cans and then went back to refill one
of them as it all went straight into the tank.
At least we now have 40 litres as backup.
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| Success at one job |
When we got back with the second load, we noticed the boat
was listing and the water level had dropped.
We lengthened the lines and pushed the boat off the rocks it had
grounded on and then went in search of a VNF guy. We found one at the last lock we had come
through yesterday and after a lot of broken French and English we ascertained
that they had dropped the level to do some work and that it was now at its
lowest point so we should be OK. It also
wouldn’t be going back up again until Tuesday, so it was back to the boat and
out with the gangplank.
Apparently, Maison Éric Roy in Auxerre is one of the best
patisseries in France so we felt after the day we had had that we deserved a
visit before finishing for the day. We
can quite easily see why some people find that they end up there for a treat
every day. We have noticed that the same
homeless person keeps station outside the shop, and I must admit it’s probably
quite a profitable place to be located when all the footfall is from people
buying things they don’t need 😉 Karen
stayed outside with Buddy and chatted with the guy about dogs whilst I went in to
make our purchase.
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| Our guilty Monday pleasure and top marks to Maison Roy |
To make us feel even better, an otter swam past really
slowly as we were finishing dinner followed by a second one about ten minutes
later 😊
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| The second otter |
Since
the last blog entry, we have cruised 11 km up six locks, left the River Yonne and
joined the Canal du Nivernais.
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