Rangali Adventures: Nevers to the beginning of Canal du Nivernais

Friday 6^th and Saturday 7^th September

Nevers

We stayed put at Nevers for Friday and Saturday. We were going to leave Saturday but we woke up to heavy rain. We met up with Marcia and Charlie from Amarok Friday and Saturday evening, they are such great company. We look forward to seeing them on our travels up the Nivernais and at Auxerre.

Sunday 8^th September

Nevers to Fleury-sur-Loire

23km 5 locks

We had a good journey to Fleury, and it’s always nice to be able to moor up where you planned. We got to lock 18 at Fleury at 12.30 so we knew the lock keeper would be on his lunch. The lock gates were open, and we have often been told that we can moor up inside the locks at lunchtime, (plus there were no bollards or pontoon to moor up to prior to the lock), so we slowly entered the lock. There was quite a flow of water coming through the end gates and after I had managed to throw the rope over the bollard, Kev put it into gentle reverse to stop, but we carried on moving….quite fast….so he had to really go into hard reverse to stop. There was a sluice gate open on one of the forward gates and this was causing a back wash that was dragging us in. We managed to tie up but you could really feel the pull of the water. A lesson we have learnt to watch out for sluice gates that are open, and not to go too far forward.

A great mooring at Fleury-sur-Loire

We were on our own for most of the afternoon, and one other boat joined us early evening
I am sure its busy in high season

The mooring at Fleury-sur-Loire was lovely, really quiet, but nothing there at the village. There is a small restaurant at the canal side, it looked more like a café. They were closed Sunday evening. Kev was really pleased that we moored up just as the Italian Grand Prix was starting, so we settled down to watch that for the afternoon.

We paid 5 euros for water and electric, so we did a few loads of washing and drying and the dishwasher to get our moneys worth.

Monday 9^th September

Fleury-sur-Loire to St Leger-des-Vignes The beginning of the Canal du Nivernais

We set off at 8.30am to be at the next lock in time for 9am. This we did and the lock keeper had just arrived to start his day. We had a great trip to Decize, where we entered two automatic locks that took us onto the Loire for a short section. The second lock that goes into the Loire has fixed poles for your ropes, which was great as it was quite deep and no way could you throw a rope over the bollards.

We decided not to moor at Decize but to go through the first lock on the Nivernais and we moored up just before the second lock at a great mooring. Why is it great? There is a Carrefour supermarket exactly by our mooring, so perfect for us to be able to stock up on heavy items, and Kev filled up two jerry cans with Diesel, so we are almost full again.

When we moored up there was an English wide beam boat at the mooring, and Terry the skipper was really helpful in telling us about all the best places to moor up on the Nivernais canal.

We rode our bikes back to Decize and had a very average lunch, the town is closed as its Monday. We did think we’d stay here two nights but there isn’t that much here so I think we will move on in the morning.