Baye (it's all downhill from here)

Are we back in the UK?

True to the local forecast it was raining when we awoke on Tuesday morning and it kept going until just after lunch.  Because of the forecast we had already decided to stay put for the day but go for a bike ride in the afternoon whatever the weather.  As it turned out we were fortunate and only got rained on lightly a couple of times whilst out.

Grey Tuesday morning at our mooring outside Chitry-les-Mines

We cycled down the canal bank to cross a lift bridge and get onto the towpath side.  There are very few places in the UK where boaters are allowed to moor on the offside (opposite side to the towpath), but there seems to be no such ruling here.  It means we can moor up knowing that the chances of anyone walking past are very remote.

Our lift bridge

Even though it’s an accommodation bridge connecting two farm tracks, we called it our lift bridge as it is left in the open position and we had to lower it to cycle to the other side and then raise it again – fortunately it has operating controls on both sides of the canal.  It was also our bridge because we saw no boaters use it on Tuesday unless someone went through when we were out for our bike ride.

We cycled four kilometres to Corbigny and were thankful the road wasn’t busy as I had Buddy running on a lead next to me.  Our first stop was at a bricolage where they actually had six fire extinguishers in stock.  We bought one so we are now compliant if we are boarded – for some reason we only need two over here but three when we are in the UK.

When I asked a shop assistant where I could find ‘les extinceurs’ I thought I misheard when he told me they were with the televisions.  I had a look anyway and to my surprise there they were right in the middle of the television display.

We then went into the middle of town, locked up the bikes and had a look around.  We expect it’s really pretty, but busy, in the summer and I was surprised at the number of patisseries – how do they keep going in such small places?

The catholic church looking like it has had several alterations and additions with a house window at the top of the middle tower?

As has often been the case we missed market day which is every Friday and the second Tuesday of the month.  Trust us to go on the wrong Tuesday ☹

The centre of Corbigny that is closed on market days

L’Anguison, a small river, runs through town and joins the Yonne a few kilometres to the north of where we are currently moored.  It gave Buddy a chance to have some water after his run, mainly uphill, to town.

 

  

On the way back we stopped at the tiny village of Chitry-les-Mines to see what it had to offer.  As with a lot of the small villages we have visited it had what seemed an oversized town hall (mairie) and church compared to the population.  

15^th century church in Chitry with a bust of the French author Jules Renard on a monument

It just started raining again as we re-joined the towpath after crossing the River Yonne but not for long and it turned out to be a nice sunny evening.

The River Yonne running through Chitry-les-Mines

I forgot to mention correspondence with the UK Waterways Ranking site.  This site collects stats and hence popularity rankings for all sites associated with inland waterways of the UK.  For the last year or so I have included their widget (?) on the blog to show our blog’s ranking.  I have been asked to remove it now we are cruising in France which I suppose makes sense.

Wednesday dawned very misty but we could feel the sun burning through when Karen and Buddy went off for their run and I got ready to service the engine.  Getting ready really means getting in the right state of mind; it’s so easy to procrastinate and put the job off for another day.

Karen & Buddy ran through the port at Chitry-les-Mines and bumped into Martin.  We had locked up with him & Hilary a couple of days ago, but they had moored in the port and we had opted for wild moorings.  He told Karen that he had had a problem with the gearbox and wasn’t keen on moving on until he had had it checked out – a sound idea I must admit.

The engine service went well although there was a fair amount of cursing apparently.  It was reported that when Chris & Sue did their recent change of gearbox oil that they didn’t spill a drop. I always end up spilling a few drops on both engine and gearbox oil changes so I think I will ask them over to do the future ones.  To be fair I only spilt drips on the gearbox change; the engine oil and filter change went completely cleanly for once.  As is common amongst boaters we always carry a pack of ‘disposable’ nappies to mop up in these eventualities.

After making sure we had plenty of suntan lotion on we set out to meet our first éclusier after lunch.  We had a brilliant day travelling up 12 locks over 9 kilometres and with some really great éclusiers, one of whom was the guy who went the extra mile for us the other day.

Many of the lock cottages on these last dozen or so kilometres have been unoccupied and are being renovated.  Also, they are a different style and smaller to those before Clamecy while those in the Auxerre area were even larger and yet another style.  The only consistent items being the wells, the well head gear and the lock name plates above the front doors.  The dates inscribed on the lintels have ranged from 1826 to 1835.

This one is nearing the end of restoration

Job done, including repointing

This one had been extended in the past but being worked on again

Unfortunately, we came across our first grumpy guy; he wouldn’t even respond to a ‘bonjour’.  To make it worse he started opening the paddles before we were ready even though we protested.  Poor Karen now has a nasty rope burn inside her left forearm and, before anyone comments, she didn’t have the rope wrapped around her arm.  It was an unfortunate incident when the rope caught her when it snapped taut with the sudden influx of water when we hadn’t got the boat properly secured.  Luckily, we only had him for one lock.

Our second French double staircase

After the aqueduct at Ancray we came across another of the 38 metre barges that are the largest that can be accommodated on this canal.  This one had what is called a blue board but in an out of service position.  We haven’t seen one in use yet as they tend to be needed on the larger canals and rivers.  Normally boats pass each other port to port (on the left side) but in some situations an upstream craft may want to pass starboard to starboard.  This can happen when they are heavily laden and need to take a deeper channel or if the current is particularly strong.  In this situation the blue board is deployed (hung over to the side) and approaching craft deploy theirs to indicate they have seen and understood the message (at night blue lights are used).

The first blue board we have seen on a boat

The last eight locks of the day were closer together and we had two éclusiers all the way up.

One of the locks near the end of the day was the first one we have come across with balance beams on the gates.  Most of the lock gates in the UK are opened and closed by pushing against the balance beam; the lock gates we have come across so far are made of metal and don’t have balance beams – they are opened and closed by winding a geared handle.

Unusual wooden balance beams

We finished for the day at Sardy-lès-Épiry where there were some moorings at the bottom of the 16-lock flight to the summit.  There was only one other boat on the moorings and that was Paul & Sue on Flubs.  As it was such a lovely evening we sat outside and had a good catch up with them over a few drinks.

Our mooring for Wednesday night

When we got up on Thursday morning, Sue & Paul were already out cleaning their boat.  They had decided to go up the locks half an hour or so before us and were hoping an éclusier drove past so they could make the arrangements.  As they have a wide boat, we wouldn’t fit in the locks alongside each other and if we had gone up behind each other there would only have been a metre or so spare. Coupled with the paucity of bollards we decided it would be best to go up separately.  As we were chatting a van turned up and they were able to book their passage.

Heading for first lock of the day

The 16 locks are fairly close together so attract sightseers, walkers and cyclists like the popular flights in the UK.  Nearly all the locks still had their lock cottages, and several are lived in by artist types.

Most of the bollards are painted but this one looked more like a child’s painting

This cottage is now a potter’s studio

We had two éclusiers and they both lived in cottages on the flight.  We asked if any on the canal are let out as holiday cottages as many are in the UK, but they said generally no.  Apparently, many are used as VNF branch offices for the éclusiers and maintenance workers.

We went up another lock with wooden gates which made us feel quite nostalgic.

As we only needed one gate opened and Sue & Paul needed both we soon caught up with them.

One of our éclusiers taking the line from Karen

Although we chat away with the éclusiers and offer them coffee we always forget to ask them for their names.  After ten locks we stopped for lunch, Sue & Paul had moored in the pound where overnight mooring is allowed as it is a larger pound than on the rest of the flight and they didn’t want to go any further.  We were asked to moor in the lock for lunch which we were more than happy with and used our sunshade for the first time this year.

Moored for lunch at lock 7 – Gros Bouillon

We arranged with our éclusiers to have a two-hour lunch break before setting off again as we wanted to walk back down to the pottery.  There were lots of butterflies on the wing and we had a good old hunt on our walk down to the pottery.  We were fortunate to see our first dingy skipper, small copper and small heath of the year.  The small copper had obviously been on the wing a while judging by the state of its wings.

Small heath; common blue; rather tatty small copper among the butterflies we saw on Thursday

The potter didn’t seem to shut up shop for lunch like the rest of France and we bought a jug for our collection.

We had six locks left to go up after lunch and made short work of them.  We were than at the summit at a place called Port Brûlé which marked the end of the northern end of the Canal du Nivernais.  There was then a one-way section, controlled by traffic lights, of narrow cuttings and three tunnels for nearly four kilometres.  

Green for go

We really felt like we were back on a UK canal as it felt very much like the Shropshire Union with the cuttings and high arched bridges.

  

Although we weren’t meant to meet any boats because of the traffic light system we did meet an electric hire launch which obviously didn’t know about or maybe didn’t care about the traffic lights.

  

The tunnels weren’t particularly long, the longest being 758 metres and they had a towpath running down either side.

Looking back through one of the tunnels

We moored up at Baye next to the Étang de Baye and will stay here for a day or two.  For the next 70 kilometres it will be downhill all the way to the River Loire which we expect to reach in a week or so. 

Our mooring for Thursday night

Since the last blog entry, we have cruised 17 kilometres up 28 locks and are looking forward to staying put for the day on Friday.