Gray (where did the Gs go?)

Even though we’re on a river, our mooring at Rigny is like being on a canal.  The Saône, being such a meandering river has had many shortcuts constructed over the last couple of centuries.  Each shortcut has flood gates where it leaves the river at the upstream end and a lock dropping it down to rejoin the river at the downstream end.  The flood gates are closed when the river gets too high thus preventing the banks of the shortcut being eroded by floodwater.  These manmade shortcuts are referred to as lock cuts and some of them bypass up to ten kilometres of the river.

Moored in the lock cut at Rigny (we’re the black speck on the right)

The flood gates at the start of our lock cut 

This page from our guidebook to the Saône clearly shows two lock cuts or dérivations as they’re called in France.  The one to the west cuts off 10 kilometres of the river and the one to the east cuts off another five.  The western cut has a tunnel at one end and the other has a port halfway along.  That’s another advantage of lock cuts – unless the flooding is really bad, they don’t get affected by rises and falls in the water levels so quite a few have ports built along them.

 

Monday was a day of short walks interspersed with getting around to those admin tasks most of us do anything to avoid.  Weatherwise it was a gorgeous morning and afternoon but became overcast during the evening.  Boat-wise the morning was quite busy, mainly with hire boats, but by the afternoon all was quiet.  Later in the evening we heard a boat coming past and the first thing we saw was that it was carrying a Land Rover on the front, not a car we’ve seen on a canal boat before.  We were engaged in small talk with one of the crew who was taking pictures of us so I missed out on getting a picture of the old Land Rover.

Too late but you can just see its nose sticking out at the front

Although we heard rain on and off during Monday night, Tuesday was a much warmer day than expected so it was another day of short walks but, with no admin to do, quite a lot of sitting outside reading and puzzling happened too. 

Where most of Tuesday was spent

But Buddy spent much of his time cooling down in the water

The retaining wall by the mooring attracts lots of lizards and one unidentified snake, so time was also spent watching the reptiles sunning themselves.  Karen took a break from work at lunchtime and we had a wander around the village of Rigny together. 

Walking over the Saône into Rigny

Some overhead cables had dropped down in the high street making walking past them rather precarious, I was glad I wasn’t driving a lorry or bus through the village.

At least there was some health & safety tape

Under the cabling we found an early Michelin corner post, these models date from between the two world wars.

Other than the Michelin corner post the village boasts a lavoir but its only commercial outlet is a bar/restaurant.  Although, the Rue de la Boulangerie, rather gives the game away that there was at least one other shop present once upon a time.

The lavoir and bar on Rigny high street

There was, of course, the obligatory war memorial and church.

WWI war memorial

Église Saint-Étienne, rebuilt in the 1720s and extensively refurbished in the 1990s

Much of Wednesday was spent rubbing down the woodwork on the rear doors and then applying four coats of varnish.  As the doors are open a lot of the time the woodwork is exposed to the elements so needs revarnishing every year.  Before anyone says anything about it being too hot for varnishing, I did utilize the two parasols to ensure the doors remained in the shade while I was working on them.  Mind you the warm air made the job a lot quicker as each coat dried so quickly.

A French couple on a boat pulled up and started chatting as if they knew us and, as is often the case, I couldn’t place them until they explained they’d moored at Mantoche with us for a couple of nights the previous week.  They were now heading in the opposite direction so had obviously gone as far as they wanted up the Saône before turning around.  They must have thought I was mad taking so long to recall them, but they seemed happy enough and were full of waves and smiles as they set off on their way again.

It's that time of year when the best time to go butterflying is early morning or late in the evening.  That way there's a chance of seeing butterflies either waking up or getting ready to roost; during the heat of the day they never seem to rest for long.  The other time to catch them when they're still is when they've just emerged from their chrysalis.  Quite a few skippers have been emerging alongside our mooring so that's how I managed to catch this somewhat oddly named female Essex skipper: males have a sex brand showing as a black line on each forewing.

Female Essex skipper

The internet signal on our French phone was fine at Rigny for the first two days of Karen’s three-day work week but for some reason became virtually non-existent on Wednesday.  It was so bad that she had to use her UK phone as a hotpsot.  When we got up on Thursday the internet was still poor on the French system, so I had a look at the settings.  Unbeknownst to us, there is a setting deep in the configuration where 4G, 3G or 2G can be selected as the permanent option.  Somehow, the 3G option had been selected.  Switching it back to 4G resolved the problem instantly.  I’ll doubt we’ll ever understand the vagaries of iPhones.    

As we had a bridge lesson in the middle of the day on Thursday and the forecast was for almost continuous rain, we decided to stay put in Rigny for another day and move on during Friday.  As it turned out there was just a bit of rain and that was first thing but as it wasn’t particularly sunny either, we didn’t mind that we’d stayed put. 

We’re still in two minds about where to leave the boat when we go to Barcelona for a few days in a week’s time.  I know we’ve got a space booked at Savoyeux but I wasn’t particularly enamoured about the place and other ideas have cropped up since too.  Now that we’re both double-vaccinated we don’t need easy access to the car so one thing we’ve decided is that we’ll just move it between major towns.  We can then use public transport each time we want to move it on again. 

Gray is the closest place that has decent spots to leave the car and also has good bus links up the Saône valley as well as water for the boat.  So, we’re toying with popping back there until we go to Barcelona, maybe trying a couple of the other moorings we noticed in addition to the main town ones we stayed at last week.   When we return from Spain, we can then make sure the boat is topped up with water before we set off.  Not having a car with us when we get going again will mean more freedom in terms of distances we can travel and the frequency.  Talking about these ideas has made us realise that we’re quite excited about a change in our routine.

Our conversations around routes and cruising have also made us consider whether it’s practical to get to Strasbourg this year.  As we’ve travelled so slowly, we’re now in a position that we’ll have to travel like the clappers to get there and then back to the Marne where we want to be for November.  That would mean not being able to stop off to explore places so we’re considering other options.   A favourite at the moment is to carry on to the end of the Saône, up the length of the Canal des Vosges, up the Moselle to the junction with the Canal de la Meuse around the Nancy area.  We’ll follow the Canal de la Meuse north to Sedan where we’ll turn left down the Canal des Ardennes to meet the Canal de l’Aisne à la Marne at Berry au Bac and then back south through Reims down to the Marne. 

New plan – we’re currently at the bottom of the purple line

There’s always next year for Strasbourg and anyway, aside from the little section through Reims, it will all be new to us.

In line with the latest plan, Friday was ‘move back to Gray’ day, so Karen drove there with Buddy to leave the car and then ran back to the boat before it got too warm.  It only took an hour to cruise back to Gray which, unlike last weekend, had quite a few boats on the main mooring. 

Gray cathedral in the distance

Approaching the lock in Gray

We wanted to get back to the same spot as last weekend as we knew it was shady in the afternoon but unfortunately there was a boat there already, so we moored just in front of a lovely English couple, Helen & Dave, on their 21.5 metre Dutch barge called Brontë.  The 21.5 is mentioned because once boats are over 20 metres, they and the crew are subject to a whole new level of rules and regulations.

We found we had a lot in common as they came over to France at the same time as us and have also managed to get their French residency.  They use Strasbourg as their permanent address and really raved about the place.  Coincidentally, Helen works a few days a week like Karen so conversation soon turned to internet, and they warned us about how poor we'll find it on the Canal des Vosges which, to be honest, we were expecting anyway as it is very rural.  Helen kindly gave Karen a list of everywhere they stayed and what the internet reception was like.

Although we’d followed the tourist trail around Gray last weekend, we decided to do a bit of our own sightseeing during the afternoon.  As usual we came across interesting buildings that hadn’t been mentioned in the tourist trail.  For example, this 17^th century lavoir with a house built over it.

Then we found a fine old 16^th century building that was a hospital even older than the one on the tourist guide.

When we got back we had a Zoom call with four boater friends from the UK and then later in the afternoon Stuart & Vicky turned up on Victoria; they were on their way back to Auxonne to return to the UK for their second jabs.  Sadly for them, when they return to their boat they will only have a couple of months to travel as, without residency cards, they are subject to the Schengen 90-day rule.  Together with Helen & Dave’s friends Jean-Claude & Jean on Pax II moored behind them we all sat outside drinking and chatting for a few hours.  Jean-Claude & Jean were an interesting couple as they were French-Venezuelan and French-Canadian respectively.

Friday evening at Gray

On Friday we cruised three miles down two locks.