Even hotter. A beautiful morning. Parted company from our friends as we both set off upriver, the peniche having to wriggle away from the wall in the river mud. Said goodbye to the river with all its commercial traffic and followed a peniche houseboat up to the first lock on the Canal du Centre, lock 34bis, 10.76m deep as it replaced a flight of locks through the centre of town. The boat in front went up (he filled the 38m long lock on his own) and we waited while the lock emptied, by which time a small tjalk (Dutch barge) had caught up and joined us in the next locking. The moorings at Fragnes, pay and non-pay, on the right hand bank were half full at 11.30 a.m. As we had plenty of electricity and didn't need the facilities on offer, we motored on to moor on the left bank 100m below the next lock, no 34, where there was a good depth of water under the boat (important when there is fast passing traffic). Had some lunch then Mike set off on his trusty moped to collect the car from St Jean. He had coffee with the friends we'd left moored there, bought a new French courtesy flag from H2O for 3,20 euros and spotted our friends with their peniche just coming to moor by the bridge, so he lent them a hand to tie up before setting off back to Fragnes with the car and the bike in the boot. By this time the pay moorings on the far bank at Fragnes had filled up. Holiday time! Hey-ho.
Wednesday 12 August 2009
11th August 2009 Tuesday KP181Saone to Chalon-sur-Saone
Hot and getting hotter. Well, we're heading South again. Dropped down the lock at Ecuelles with a fast German cruiser and a small French ex hireboat. 32kms of lovely winding river down to the town of Chalon-sur-Saone where we were meeting old friends. Traffic was quite busy with lots of passing pleasure boats and commercials. The speedboat fraternity, water skiers and waterscooters were in evidence again as we approached the birthplace of the father of photography, Nicephore Niepce (1765-1833). Our friends had already arrived, loaded with grain for Paris which didn't have to be there until 3rd Sept so they had time to relax a little. We had an extremely pleasant evening talking about the old boating days in the UK and antics of the novice pleasure boaters on French waterways and how easily they can foul up automatic locks.
Monday 10 August 2009
10th August 2009 Back to Chazelles KP181
After a few days off at St Jean-de-Losne moored under the trees, we set off in the rain and headed back downriver on the Saone. Dropped down the lock at Seurre with a Snailly hireboat behind us. A speedboat with a skier hanging on a pole attached to the side of the boat shot out in front of us from the old river. The mooring at KP181 was vacant - no fishermen either - so we tied up. Thunderstorms were promised by the meteo (weather forecast) but none arrived.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
