Mantoche (adjusting to river life)

Mornings in Mantoche

On Sunday we thought we’d walk down the river to the lock where there's a footbridge across the weir alongside.  Doing that meant we would be able to cross the river and walk back up the other side opposite our mooring at Mantoche.  It was unusual to have a footbridge across a weir as normally river crossings are few and far between especially when the rivers are still wide.  The weir looked relatively new so maybe the bridge was built when the weir was replaced.  Looking at old photographs of the village later I came across one from 1928 that showed the previous weir but without a footbridge.

Try as we might, we couldn’t find anywhere where we could clearly see across to the village as the trees were so thick and grew so close to the water’s edge.

We struck lucky on the nature front as we saw our first kingfisher for what seems weeks.  What is usually a daily occurrence was non-existent on a large part of the canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne so there was at least one advantage for moving onto a river.  We also found a nice patch of pyramid orchids with a few marbled white butterflies enjoying the purple colour.

Pyramid orchid

We also spotted a fresh marbled fritillary which is the first species of fritillary we’ve seen this year.  There are eight different species of fritillary found in the UK while 32 can be found in France which makes identification a lot harder.

Marbled fritillary…

…and its giveaway underside

Other than us and the two other British boats, all the other boats left during the morning.  A few stopped by for lunch, but none stayed overnight.  As the town of Gray isn’t much further upstream most holidaymakers would make for there especially now the bars and restaurants are open.

Just the three of us

For the third afternoon in a row, we did very little other than all gathering for drinks in the shade of the tree by our boat for a couple of hours.  A lot of boating stories were told but we were always sensible and went our separate ways for dinner.

Considering how small the village it’s surprising that there are two chateaux in Mantoche.  One is on the northern edge of town and is run as a hotel but the one, overlooking our mooring, is still in private hands.

Our view of the 18^th century riverside châteaux in Mantoche

Paul & Sue and Stuart & Vicky were leaving on Monday morning but before they left, they gave us a guided tour of their boats.  Both couples had Piper boats that we see a lot of over here but have never seen around one.  They are made in Stoke-on-Trent but are very popular in Europe as most of them are too wide for the UK canals other than those who want to spend their time on the Thames or the Trent.  Stuart also kindly let me have a drive of Victoria before they finally set off.

All on our own – the towers guard the château gardens

It was another quiet day at the mooring with the occasional boat stopping for a break, but most went straight by.  A group of Swiss men pulled up next to us for lunch on a large hire boat.  They were very interested in finding out about hiring narrowboats in the UK and also regaled me with lots of stories.  They were on a reunion as they’d all holidayed together on a boat from the same hire base 15 years previously but hadn’t met up as a full group again since.

With the continuing heat it was a case of early morning and evening walks with Buddy.  Karen came back from her morning run and said she’d seen marbled white butterflies in a patch near some flood gates. Buddy and I went to have a look, but they were all too skittish to land let alone give any observational or photo opportunities. 

I did find a lesser purple emperor which was exciting.  In the UK its cousin, the purple emperor has been regarded as His Majesty for centuries as it is so large and the iridescent colouring of the male is particularly striking when caught in the right light. There is very little visual difference between the species I saw and the one found in the UK other than the lesser has an orange ringed spot on the forewing.

Male lesser purple emperor with the extra spot on the forewing…

…and this shot just catches a bit of the famous purple sheen

Openings high up in the walls of two of the houses in Mantoche caught my eye while walking back through the village:

No caption required

Built in 1610 for/by (?) Claude Gillon

Near those two houses was an even older one, built in 1564 according to the date on the apex of the doorway. 

The only person I saw during my walk around the village was a council worker who appeared to be strimming the roadside gutters.  I say appeared as there didn’t seem to be any vegetation growing anywhere near the gutters.  When he saw me looking at the house, he turned off his machine and came over to explain about the ‘vielle maison’.  He was most eager to tell me what the date was above the doorway and to make sure that I realised it was 456 years old although how he knew it wasn’t 457, I don’t know.  Anyway, he was very pleased that he could give me this information and when he was convinced I’d understood him, he carried back on with his strimming.

During the afternoon I made a prototype flyscreen for the largest windows on the boat.  I know it’s not finished and needs trimming and smartening up with nicely seamed edging, but I proved it will do the job.  At least we can now remove the glass from the main windows during the hot weather.

Unfinished but working flyscreen

While looking at old pictures I found one taken in 1908 that claimed to be of the mairie.  This seemed strange as the current mairie looks to be an old building and sits at right angles to the claimant.  Looking closer at the old mairie, one stone door lintel has MAIRIE inscribed in it and the other has ECOLE following the tradition of using the same building for two purposes.  The date 1838 is inscribed under the eaves so it’s not really that old.

The old mairie, now an épicerie cum bistro

The new mairie to the left although it looks to be a similar age

I spent Tuesday morning scouting out the next few moorings upriver and checking the internet reception.  We were also looking for somewhere to leave the boat for a long weekend at the beginning of July as we’re planning on driving down to Barcelona to see our daughter, Catherine.  The port at Savoyeux had been recommended so I headed there first but even though it was a large port I was surprised to see it practically full.  Thinking about it I shouldn't have been surprised as people are still finding it difficult to come to France to visit their boats which were all cruisers on short pontoons so totally unsuitable for a steel narrowboat to squeeze in.

I went into the captainerie just to check what the situation was and the girl at the desk said she didn’t think there would be room for us.  After a short discussion she went to get the capitaine who asked me if we minded mooring against a Dutch barge.  As we wouldn’t be staying onboard I said that would be fine and he made a quick phone call.  He then said we had to go down to the other end of the port, where the plastic boats finished, to see Bob.  Bob turned out to be a Brit who lived on a large Dutch barge permanently moored there and had a narrowboat moored alongside it.  He was happy for us to moor alongside his narrowboat, but I was a bit concerned about getting Buddy on and off.  I said I’d take it anyway as they didn’t need a deposit and if somewhere better comes up I can ring up and cancel.

The trip wasn’t entirely fruitless as I found some lavoirs and also two good mooring spots that had a decent internet signal.  Many of the lavoirs in the département of Haute-Saône seem to be built with arched colonnades, here are two from my Tuesday trip:

The lavoirs at Montureux-et-Pratigny and Rigny

One of the lavoirs was closed to the public but had some sort of exhibition going on:

The lavoir at Autet was a grand affair with two large washing basins and an added convenient convenience :

The water was flowing under the bowl

As I was out, I thought I’d make a trip to a DIY store as I drove back through Gray.  I've lost count of the times that I've forgotten that bricos close for a couple of hours at lunchtime.  Something in my head had suggested that I call at the brico at the start of the journey but I'd ignored it and turned up at lunchtime instead.  I think I'll just walk to the brico when we're moored at Gray later this week. 

A couple of hire boats moored up during the afternoon; a family of Germans and a group of five retired Belgian guys.  Of course, the Belgians had impeccable English and asked if they could share our shade.  We ended up sitting outside all afternoon exchanging stories.  After months of no socialising on the canals we're finally adjusting to socialising on the river and having to share our space.  Even less was done on Wednesday as the temperature was further into the 30s.  Boats, mainly rentals, came and went all day and, to ring the changes, our afternoon and evening acquaintances were Swiss.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mantoche (nearly evicted by frogs)

Wednesday was my day for getting jobs done, starting with a drive to Saint-Jean-de-Losne to visit a chandlery.  Chandleries are few and far between in France so only being a 30-minute drive away from one of the largest inland ports in France I wanted to take the opportunity to replenish our spare stock.   They had most of the items I wanted such as a couple of mooring lines, a control cable, and some bulbs but some of the other items will remain on the ‘to get’ list.

When I got back I replaced the first blown bulb successfully.  It provided the light behind the wastewater tank gauge in the bathroom.  Although the wastewater tank isn’t used in France, the bulb is handy in the early hours as it sheds just enough light to avoid having to grope around in the dark during those night time visits.  The second replacement was the engine coolant water warning light.  I have learnt from bitter experience to always isolate the starter battery before doing any work on the engine so as usual I did that before beginning.  In order to change any of the warning bulbs the dashboard assembly has to be removed making the job rather tedious.  Having replaced the bulb I reassembled the dashboard and went to turn the battery isolation switch only to find that I hadn’t turned it off quite far enough.  Consequently, the ignition wouldn’t come on as I’d blown a fuse.

The fuse box for the main engine components is positioned such that the fuses can’t quite be seen.  This means feeling around in the dark practically under the engine.  As is always the case when replacing a fuse, I dropped one and it took ages to find it on the engine bay floor.  It was a 15amp fuse that had blown and of course those were the fuses I was already short of – why didn’t I buy more at the chandlery in the morning?  After a bit of scrabbling around later I found a couple more in the man tin of unknown items that Catherine gave me as a birthday present one year.

Later on, I read an interesting article on mairies and lavoirs that were constructed in the 19^th century.  There was a phase in municipal building in some areas when mairies were built with lavoirs underneath.  This demonstrated the worst of misogynism as the women were able to do the washing downstairs while the men conducted their business upstairs.  We have seen a couple of these buildings but as the lavoirs had been converted to offices we hadn’t realised, or rather couldn't believe, they really were originally lavoirs.  The article reminded me that my journey to Saint-Jean-de-Losne in the morning had taken me through the strangely named village of Athée where I’d seen three lavoirs.  I say the name is strange as athée is the French word for atheist.    

6.00am Thursday – our last morning at St-Sauveur

I hate to say it, but we were almost glad to be moving on Thursday as there seems to be the largest number of frogs we’ve ever had on a mooring.  It’s not that we don’t like frogs, in fact we’ve spent time observing their behaviour.  It’s just that as it’s still the mating season, their calls are extremely loud and, being nocturnal, they carry on throughout the night.  Of course, with no windows in at the moment, their sound is not muffled and to be honest we’ve found it quite difficult sleeping over the previous two nights.  

At lunchtime we moved back a couple of miles down to Maxilly-sur-Saône where the mooring is just above the final pair of locks on this canal and where we were last Saturday before finding the better mooring back at St-Sauveur.

Moored back at Maxilly-sur-Saône

Later in the afternoon we drove to a supermarket in Gray to do the weekly shop.  It was so hot that we couldn’t leave Buddy on the boat, so he came in the car for the 15-minute journey, and I walked him in some shade while Karen did the shopping.  It was then that I realised that none of my pictures had taken properly since first thing in the morning.  My French id card that I'm obliged to carry, is kept inside my phone casing and had slipped so it was half covering the lens.

When we move onto the river Saône on Friday we will have finally travelled the length of the canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne.  The 224 kilometres and 114 locks have taken us just under 11 weeks although we’d be the first to admit that we’ve done it slowly.  It’s a beautifully scenic and rural canal and we would highly recommend it.  There were only a few pounds with weed but that’s to be expected as it’s a canal after all.  To be fair to VNF they’ve done a good job as it could have been far worse.

The river Saône is in two sections, the Grande and the Petite and we are now heading upstream on the Petite Saône to its navigable end at Corre, a journey of 160 kilometres and 17 locks.  We will then join the canal des Vosges and head north to Nancy for the following stage of our journey to Strasbourg. 

The Petite Saône in red – we are going from near the bottom to the top

The locks on the Petite Saône are Freycinet sized at 40 x 5.2 metres, although the first few we will go up are the unusual width of 8.0 metres.  The Grande Saône runs from just south of where we'll join the Petite Saône to meet the Rhône at Lyon some 208 kilometres further south.  The locks on the Grande Saône are much larger at 185 x 12 metres.  We went through some of them in our first year here when came out on the Saône from the Canal du Centre and then left it again to go up the Canal de Bourgogne.

The Grande Saône in red – we cruised the top part in 2019

We cruised three kilometres through no locks on Thursday.

When we were ready to leave for Mantoche on Friday, Karen drove part of the way, left the car where the Vingeanne flows into the Saône and ran back with Buddy.  If we’d timed it right, we would meet at the village of Heuilly-sur-Saône before we hit the first lock on the river.  As luck would, or rather wouldn’t have it, I had to get VNF out as the final pair of locks on the canal weren’t working.  There’d been issues with these locks all week and the engineers were often seen there so it wasn’t surprising they’d failed again.  At the final lock I had to deposit my télécommande in the dispensing machine as it wouldn’t be needed for the locks on the petite Saône.

Télécommande deposit, dispensing and recharging machine  

I was then going down the final lock on the canal and heading for the Saône where I would turn left to hopefully meet up with Karen.

Leaving the final lock on the entre Champagne et Bourgogne

A rather tired sign telling me I was at the end of the canal

As it happened our timing wasn’t too far out, Karen and Buddy were able to have a ten-minute rest before I picked them up.  Although the Saône is generally similar to the Marne in its tranquillity it didn’t have the blue colour that the Marne gets from its sources in limestone areas.  With the spring rains there was still a fair flow, and the colour of the water may well have been tinged with the detritus picked up during rain storms.

The tranquil Petite Saône

We noticed the guidebook said that we had to be careful of the crossflow when reaching the point where the Vingeanne flows into the river.  The Vingeanne being the river, whose valley the entre canal followed from the summit level.  In fact, we didn’t even notice any crossflow and the Vingeanne looked more like a stream joining.

The Vingeanne and where Karen had left the car

It wasn’t long before we were approaching our first and only river lock of the journey.  The locks on the Petite Saône are all automatic whereas those on the Grande Saône are operated by éclusiers, sitting in control bridges, who we summon by VHF radio.  The automatic operation was very simple with Karen twisting a pole anticlockwise to let the lock know we were coming upstream.

Twisty pole for setting the lock

The lock wasn’t very deep at just over two metres, but the side walls added a further two metres for flood control purposes.  This meant that Karen still had to get ready on the roof with her pole to reach up to the top.

The water line can be seen halfway up the lock walls

As it happened there was a bollard set into the lock wall just above the high-water line so Karen could easily use it without getting on the roof or using her pole.  Once in the lock it was back to using the control rods set into the side to start the lock going for the remainder of the operation.

It wasn’t long before we noticed the change in boat traffic, we saw at least a dozen hire boats on the move during the day, that’s probably about as many pleasure boats we’ve seen in total since in setting out at the end of February.  When we arrived at Mantoche we could see a few boats on the mooring already but there was room for us to slot in.  When we’d visited the mooring a couple of weeks ago on a scouting mission there were no boats there.

Approaching the Mantoche mooring

As we had a longish cruise on Friday, Karen had prepared a slow cooker dish first thing in the morning.  The only problem was that the vacant spot we moored at was in the shade so there was a danger the solars would stop producing enough power.  As it was, it was so hot that we were glad we had the shady spot.  

The sun protection on the French barge behind us put ours to shame!

Once we settled in, I cycled back to pick up the car which I thought was going to be quite a pleasant journey especially as the path would be under trees most of the way.  The guidebook says there’s a good towpath all the way along the river and tourist information makes a big thing of a green cycleway along the length of the Saône.  I’m sure there was a good towpath about 120 years ago, but it transpired the guidebook hadn’t been brought up to date.  The tourist information also omitted to explain that the cycle route followed the valley roads through villages rather than the river itself.

Apart from the made-up towpath along the lock cut the journey wasn’t easy; cycling across hayfields and along long since disused cart tracks where fallen trees necessitated me having to climb over them with the heavy bike.  I was glad Karen had left the car in the shade when I finally reached it.

When I got back, Sue & Paul from the boat at the end of the mooring were sitting in the shade by our boat.  We joined them and spent the rest of the afternoon chatting and drinking.  They were only the second Brits we’ve met this year and after a while it transpired that Sue and I knew each other – our eldest daughters were friends at primary and junior schools around 25 years ago.  Of course, that led to much reminiscing which meant another round of drinks and so on until we all went in for dinner.

Some people took advantage of being on the river and were swimming during the evening but I wouldn’t dare at the moment because I’m not a strong enough swimmer to cope with the current flow 😉

On Friday we cruised 23 kilometres down two and up one lock.

Early Saturday morning

We did very little else on Saturday other than take a couple of walks around Mantoche (pop. 430) and sitting outside drinking and chatting with Sue & Paul.  The main excitement was visiting a ‘vide maison’ or garage sale, a bit crazy really as we can’t fit much into a narrowboat, but we never know what useful item we may pick up. 

Besides a couple of grand châteaux we didn't find much to report about in the village other than several houses reminding us of English cottages with the profusion of deep red roses clambering over the walls.  Oh, and unusually, the mairie wasn't adorned with flowers.

The mairie-cum-post office

The church rebuilt in 1730

The village war memorial

We didn’t buy anything in the vide maison but did pop into see a honey producer where Karen purchased a pot of honey.

Karen making her purchase in the honey shop

Later in the afternoon, Sue & Paul’s friends Stuart & Vicky turned up in their boat and came to join our little party.  All the other boats at the mooring left during the morning and other than Stuart & Vicky, all the boats we saw during the day were hire boats from Auxonne or St-Jean-de-Losne.

Our afternoon companions are continuing their journeys on Sunday, but we think we’ll stay here for another few nights as we can take advantage of being in the shade while the hot weather gets even hotter. 

   

St-Sauveur (cuckoo mooring)

Early morning at St-Sauveur

We‘d planned to take it easy on Sunday as we’d been in different locations on each of the previous six nights but we soon noticed that the internet signal at Maxilly-sur-Saône wasn’t as good as we’d thought it was going to be.  It seemed to be quite intermittent, therefore not reliable enough for Karen to work there for her three days in the coming week, so we decided to fetch the car from St-Sauveur lock and do a bit more scouting along the river Saône.  

We walked along the towpath to get to the lock and came across many walnut trees on the way.  It seems that there are a lot more walnut trees in this area and they are finally in full leaf so are very easy to spot with seven (generally) large leaflets forming each leaf.  Karen has started looking for the young fruit and has been pleased to find plenty of young budding walnuts.

Another three or four weeks and it’ll be ready for picking for pickling

When we reached St-Sauveur lock we found two things as well as the car.  Firstly, there was a really pleasant mooring there that we’d completely overlooked and secondly the signal strength there was excellent.

As the mooring at Maxilly-sur-Saône wasn’t particularly nice and we didn’t want to move onto the river Saône for another week, we thought we’d turn the boat around and move back the three kilometres.  The mooring was a single dolphin and as we’ve never used one of those before it would give us an opportunity to see how they work for us.  Before moving the boat, we drove to a couple of villages down on the Saône that we missed out on checking last week.  Both were between Maxilly-sur-Saône and Gray, the next main town on our itinerary.  Mantoche seemed quite acceptable, but Heuilley-sur-Saône was really only suitable as a lunch stop.

The mooring at Mantoche

While we were having lunch back at the boat a VNF guy came to see us.  We’d noticed there’d been two red lights showing all morning at the next lock down, indicating the lock was out of action, and he came to tell us that the lock would be unavailable until at least Monday.  I told him it was OK as we were going back to St-Sauveur and wouldn’t be coming down again until later in the week.  I’m sure he thought we were mad turning around and going back the way we’d just come.

Turning around after lunch

The dolphin worked perfectly; we got the back end against the platform and the front just reached a handy bollard:

We hung a zigzag fender vertically rather than in the usual horizontal position otherwise the gunwales would have been caught under the platform if a boat came past or the nearby lock was emptied.

We named the mooring after the cuckoo we heard constantly during daylight hours.  We wondered if it was still trying to find a mate and had got a bit confused as it felt a bit late in the season and it really was constant every day.  By the way, one thing I remember from my dad and brother’s hours of listening to birdsong LPs is that it’s the male cuckoos that make the distinctive call.

We really have hit the jackpot moving back a couple of miles as St-Sauveur is definitely one of the best, if not the best mooring on the canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne.  There is a small road alongside that serves the lock cottage and then peters out into a farm track, consequently there is no traffic.  Other than the lock and its cottage all we can see in every direction is countryside and all is peaceful, apart from our bachelor cuckoo, crickets and a lot of frogs calling of course.

Lock and cottage in the distance

A male common frog has set up his patch just outside Karen’s open ‘office’ hatch which makes us laugh as he is a particularly loud.  Whenever he calls, the vocal sacs on either side of his chin blow up like bubbles which make him look quite comical but apparently, they amplify his sounds.

Karen’s male & female common frogs (the female is the larger with 3.5” body)

First thing on Monday, Buddy and I explored St-Sauveur which has a population of just over 200 and the old part consists of a very wide main street and then there are a few side roads where modern housing has been built.

The main street

The church of Ste Ursule dates back to the 13^th century…

...and has a typical Burgundian tiled roof:

A small building originally housed a steam driven fire engine from 1862.  According to a board outside, the building still houses a fire engine, but it dates from 1947.

St-Sauveur fire station!

The mairie can only be described as quaint:

The prize find was an old French carpenter’s post box, these were so called because, apart from the metal doors, they were made of wood by local carpenters.  Sadly, this one was no longer in use, but it still had enamel dials indicating when the next collection would be.

Out of use carpenter’s box in St-Sauveur

The village had three book swap boxes and for some reason they were sandwiched between the posters for the upcoming regional elections.  There are tight rules regarding electioneering posters in France whether they be for local, regional, national or EU elections.  They can only be placed outside polling stations, they must all be the same size and the positions are drawn by lot.

Book swap boxes for youngsters, teenagers and adults

Apparently, the villagers were spared from the cholera outbreak in 1832 although the country generally suffered greatly.  Even so, as was the case with many settlements, a new cemetery was started outside the village in 1833.  The gate pillars to the new cemetery contain two apt lines from the poem, à la Marquise, written by one of France’s great 17^th century dramatists, Pierre Corneille.

We have been what you are.  You will be what we are.

On Tuesday morning Buddy and I walked to Maxilly-sur-Saône.  Other than some exercise and sightseeing my major task was to get a token to operate the water borne when we get back to the port at Maxilly-sur-Saône.  The sign at the port indicated that tokens (jetons) were available at four places in the village, two of which are closed and the other two had very limited opening hours.  My target was the hairdressers and I struck lucky, exchanging €3 for a token which we shall use when we head back through on our way down to the river later in the week.

The walk was very pleasant as it was quite cloudy, so we avoided the heat of the sun.  Like the UK the temperatures are steadily climbing again, and we are expecting a week or so in the 30s from the weekend.  Maxilly-sur-Saône wasn’t particularly inspiring and the only establishment open was the hairdressers where I bought the token for the water.  The picture I took of the high street doesn’t make the place look any more attractive, but I suppose the cloud cover didn’t help.

Maxilly-sur-Saône high street

Three commercials came through during the day, all heading south.  Considering that we’ve only seen five during the ten weeks we’ve been on this canal, that makes it a very busy day.  It was also getting busier on the frog front as it seemed more male frogs were gathering near the boat.  A new species had arrived as one of the sounds was quite different and a lot louder than those we’ve become used to.  It took a while adjusting to the new sound and it kept us awake during the early hours.  By the way, an app has been developed as a Shazam for frogs; unfortunately, it’s only for Australian species.

I shall be driving down to St Jean de Losne on Wednesday as the mooring lines we ordered are ready.  I’ll also take the opportunity to pick up some other replacement spares that we need as chandleries are very few and far between over here.