After a couple of nights moored below the lock at Chailly-sur-Armançon
we had a Saturday morning cruise to Saint-Thibault where we hoped to find yet
another quiet mooring. To be honest it’s
never difficult to find quiet moorings but the level of the pounds at the top
end of this canal do fluctuate a lot so, with shallow sides to the cut anyway,
we have to be extra careful where we moor.
We’re lucky in that we have a very low draught compared to say, a hotel
boat or working péniche so get a lot more choice.
Aileen had told us that they weren’t allowed to moor in the
pounds around here when they came through a couple of years ago. She and Mike had to spend one night in a lock
because the éclusiers were worried about the levels. Anyway, all was fine for us, I kept the lines
slack and the boat seemed to be in deep water all night.
As expected, our éclusier for the day stopped by the boat
just before 10.30 to check that we were still wanting to go. He also wanted to tell us that a boat was
coming down the locks behind us and we would therefore be sharing. It happened to be the French couple that
unsuccessfully tried to lock up with us on the other side of the summit. This time, as we were going down, the boats
are easier to control, and we managed all five locks together without any
issues.
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| Sharing all our locks today (we're at the front) |
Karen and Buddy walked for the first four locks so Buddy
could have his morning walk and we ended up mooring (we thought) by
Saint-Thibault. The plan was to have a
walk around the village after lunch and stay until tomorrow afternoon so we can
have a slow Sunday morning. Well, I
don’t think going for a run makes for an easy morning, but I know that’s what
Karen has planned 😉
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| Moored at Saint-Thibault |
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| Not a bad view either |
When we finished lunch, Karen was checking what facilities
there were at the village and noticed that it was a two kilometre walk along
the towpath before we take a road leading up to the village. It’s amazing, but this is the first time this
had happened to us: we had both misread the map and thought we had moored by
the road that leads up to the village.
We were more than happy to stay moored where we were as it was deep enough,
had gorgeous views and was away from any shading trees.
We decided to take the bikes as we hadn’t cycled for a few
days and that way Buddy gets a good run too.
The village was like many we have visited recently, quiet and no sign of
any commerce other than a boulangerie which was only open in the mornings. The village centre, again like most, had
discrete posters, all the same size, of the EU parliament candidates. It feels not so in your face as the massive
roadside electoral hoardings seen in the UK.
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| Fair & discrete approach to electoral hoardings |
The village church was out of all proportion to the number
of parishioners, as is often the case.
It was an imposing building for such a small place but became derelict
in the 14th century. It was
rebuilt a century later but became derelict again for several centuries until
it was fully restored in the 18th century. It fell into disuse again and public and
private funds have been used to complete its third restoration. As much as none of us like to see buildings
falling into disrepair, I am always astounded at the money that pours into
these places that, in my mind, should be being channelled into worthier,
such as making cleaning up the planet and slowing down the loss of our animal and plant species etc.
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| The village church |
We searched the whole village for a lavoir but this time we
drew a blank so here some pictures of other buildings instead:
On the way back Buddy had a good run around in the cut – he
still won’t go out of his depth so shows no signs of swimming. We do admit to each other that’s its probably
for the best, but we do wonder why we try and encourage him. I think it’s because we like a challenge and
Karen thinks it’s because we think he’ll enjoy it.
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| Buddy having a mad ten minutes, sort of cooling down |
Actually, looking at the picture of Buddy in the water you
can see how shallow it is on the sides and why we have to be careful where we
choose to moor.
During the afternoon I was in the engine bay trying to
locate a box of spare bolts and nuts that I knew I had somewhere but hadn’t
seen them for months. Whilst searching
for them (I did find them in the end) I came across two collapsible water
containers. They were tucked down behind
the calorifier.
Now, this was strange, as Karen had just ordered two
collapsible containers to be picked up when we pop back to the UK next
month. Neither of us knew we had these two
hidden in the engine bay. Neither of us
remembered buying them nor putting them in the engine bay either. Karen did a search on her Amazon order
history and found that we had bought them last March 😊
Apart from Karen going for a run we had a slow Sunday
morning sitting outside enjoying the sunshine.
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| Promising looking Sunday with the mist burning off at 7.00am |
This has been the quietest canal or river we have been on so
far; we haven’t seen a single hire boat and very few private boats in the 100+
kilometres we have been travelling on it. Though we did see quite a few hotel boats at the beginning between the Saône and Dijon. Saying that, two boats went past in the
opposite direction during the morning.
One was a British couple in a cruiser who called out that this was only
their first week here and that they were really happy!
We were going down our first lock at two o’clock and set off
after an early lunch at about 12.30. One
section was in a cutting for just over a kilometre where no overtaking or
passing was allowed: essentially meaning one-way only. It was strange going through a narrow passage
although we wouldn’t think it narrow at all back in the UK as two narrowboats
would easily pass each other.
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| Tranchée de Creusot |
We arrived at the lock nearly half an hour early and as
there was no sign of an éclusier and there was a lock landing (the first we
have seen in days) we tied up to wait. Unfortunately,
it was too shallow to get right up to the lock landing, so after Karen had
successfully thrown a lasso from the gunwales, we stayed on board whilst we
waited. After a while we felt the boat
moving and realised our man turned up dead on 2.00 and was filling the lock so we were soon on our way.
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| Shallow lock landing but at least we had one |
Just after the first lock we passed the port at Pont de
Royal which had four boats moored in it including some Germans on one. The German guy obviously had a sense of
humour as, once he saw our flag, kept repeating, “Welcome to Europe – stay over
here”.
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| The port at Pont de Royal |
We have noticed many of the poplars, or maybe they’re black
poplars, are suffering from a disease around here. Some are clearly dead or dying to such an
extent that the mistletoe is also dying.
Many are marked with crosses presumably as they are earmarked for destroying. It reminded us of the Canal du Midi last
summer where the plane trees are suffering a similar fate and in some stretches
dozens of trees had been removed.
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| X marks the spot |
Here there is a gap where two trees have been removed, the
next down is clearly starting to die, the next has died including the mistletoe
and the third is dead but the mistletoe is just hanging on.
When we got to the second lock there was already a boat in
it waiting for us. They were a young
friendly French couple with a baby who must have been moored at Pont de Royal
as we hadn’t seen them before.
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| Locking down together |
Just as we came out of the lock, their boat slowed and then
stopped. He came quickly to the back and
gestured for us to pass as he had run out of fuel. We asked if he wanted us to hang around and
help but he said no so we carried on past them. He only put a small amount in as, in very little
time, he was catching up with us again and we went down our third and final
lock of the day together.
The only other people we saw today were fishermen and there
must have been at least a dozen of them so maybe Sunday or election day brings
them out. It never ceases to amaze us
how they get their little cars along the banks to find their fishing spots.
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| We had no idea how this guy got his car here |
At the last lock we asked our éclusier if we could start the
next set of locks at nine in the morning.
He wasn’t sure as he was due to start his weekend so he said he would
drop by later in the evening after talking with his colleagues.
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| Moored up for the rest of Sunday at Villeneuve-sous-Charigny |
True to his word our éclusier pulled up in his van around
six o’clock and said everything would be fine for going down the first lock at
nine in the morning. That means an early
start for us 😉
On Saturday morning we cruised nine kilometres down five locks and on Sunday afternoon we cruised nine kilometres down three
locks.
