Chitry Les Mines to Flez-Cuzy to Clamecy

Chitry Les Mines to Flez-Cuzy (nr Tannay)

13.5km 9 locks and 5 drawbridges

We set off dead on 8.30am this morning to beat the 4 hire boats that had arrived at Chitry yesterday.

It was a cloudy day, bit chilly, and we had some rain but not too much.  I had 5 drawbridges to lift and lower, with me being dropped off and running ahead to get it open before Kev arrived in the boat.  One of the bridges was a push button thing, the others I had to crank either with a handle or a big disk.  The disk versions weren’t very ergonomically designed and were really hard work.

When we arrived at Flez-Cuzy we went for a walk up the hill to Tannay, where had a wander around a very quiet town, and we found a wine cave, where we ended up doing a tour and a tasting.  We liked their wine, it was really reasonable, and the chap telling us about the wine was very interesting, a small amount of English, and he was really passionate about his award winning wines from Tannay. We had our wine delivered in the evening by car, which was handy.  There were three other groups having a tour, who had boats moored up by us, and they had wine delivered too, so it wasn’t just us!  Some of the red we bought we were told would improve if we kept it for 4-5 years….I wonder if we will manage to keep it that long?.

Two drawbridges one after the other.....hard work!

Happy in her work!

Our mooring at Cuzy

Our tour around the wine cave started in a really old room with a big open fire

In the cellars
the children belonged to couple also on the tour, we hadn't kidnapped them!

Wednesday 18^th September

Flez-Cuzy to Clamecy

8km 9 locks and 1 drawbridge

It was very windy last night, and it was still windy this morning but it didn’t cause us any problems. 

We had a very easy day in the locks today as we shared with a hire boat with 2 French couples onboard.  They went into the locks first and were very eager to help take our ropes, work the gates so we hardly had to do anything.  Their hire boat is really light, they can hold it with one rope, but in the wind they had a few problems. We had quite a few narrow bits in the canal and they ended up side ways quite a few times, very funny to watch.

We saw a strange sight, a cow in the canal.  We were quite concerned and we went very slowly past, it mooed at us a few times, but as we left it, it turned to eat some very green looking grass so it can’t have been suffering too much.  We told the lock keeper at the next lock so hopefully it will be out of the canal by now.

We are now moored at Clamecy a very pretty little town, with quite a few restaurants.  We've eaten out three times on the Nivernais and we've not had a really good meal yet so we are hoping tonight’s meal will be good.  It was recommended to us, and it is in the Michelin guide so should it be ok.

We are here for at least a couple of nights so we will take some photos tomorrow, it looks like the weather should improve, sunshine is forecast.

Only one drawbridge today, you can see the big red disk on left, you turn this to lift and lower the bridge,
blinking hard work!

This hire boat had real trouble in the wind and getting through narrow spaces,
 it would get stuck in the corner by the bank and the stone wall on the right,
frustrating for them but funny for us to watch

Not what you'd expect to see walking along the side of the canal in the water

While we were waiting for the lock keeper to turn up
we all were scrumping really ripe plums...delicious!

Baye to Lock 16 Sardy to Chitry Les Mines

Sunday 15^th September

Baye to Lock 16 Sardy

8km 16 locks 7 ½ hours (actual engine running time 2 hours, we switched the engine off in the locks)

It rained heavily during the night, but luckily it had stopped when we got up. At 8.30am we walked back to lock 1 to speak to the lockkeeper about when we could go through the tunnel, he said 9am and that there would be 3 boats in total.  Luckily we managed to go first, the others were hire boats.  The very first section of the canal before the green light was very shallow and we touched the bottom, but Kev was pleased that once through the bridge with the lights the depth improved to around 4m, really deep compared to what we’d been experiencing earlier on the Nivernais.  When it is very shallow it makes it hard to steer the boat.  The tunnels weren’t too bad but the channels in between the tunnels were really overgrown and almost as narrow as the tunnels.

It started to rain heavily once we left Baye, which is a shame as the channel would be really pretty in the sunshine.

We emerged out of the tunnels in what probably would be a nice mooring in good weather, just before the first down lock.  Surprisingly we were told that the two hire boats had priority and they were to go down first, we would have to wait 90 minutes before it was our turn, which meant 11.30am, we didn’t go very far down the 16 locks before 12 noon the lock keepers lunchtime…heyho….we are not in a rush.

In all we didn’t have a quick trip down the locks, it took us ages, the key lock keeper Francois (a very funny, happy chap) was moaning about how bad his colleagues were, there seemed to have been a mix up with boats coming through, they weren’t leaving enough time for the lock keepers to manage the three locks they were responsible for.  This meant we had to wait/float around quite a bit for locks to be prepared for us and for lock keepers to turn up (some only had bikes) from working the lower locks.  It also rained most of the day.

So we set off this morning at 9am and arrived at Sardy at 4.30pm and we'd covered the tunnels, 16 locks dropping 40m and we'd travelled only 8km.

Very over grown, narrow channel to the Baye Tunnels

Enrance to the tunnels

Exit of one of the tunnels

One of the up boats that was let through and caused the lock keepers problems

Lovely wooded area

Coming out of one lock and you can see the next lock 

Monday 16th  September

Lock 16 Sardy to Chitry les Mines

8km 12 locks 3.5 hours

Raining again this morning, which was a real shame.  We had a very smooth trip down the 12 Locks to Chitry, the rain was really fine, but the sort that got you wet, and it looked set for today but as I write this at 2pm the clouds have broken and we have had some sunshine…hurray!  The mooring here is good, we have electric and water. We walked the short distance into Chitry this afternoon to the chandlery, Diesel Marine, to pick up a replacement loo seat we’d ordered, that had broken a few days ago.  They are a brilliant chandlery, Ted Johnson runs it, and it is jam packed full of stock.  Ted will order spares and send anywhere in France. Tel  (+33) 03.86.20.14.80.  Kev was like a kid in a sweet shop and we ended up buying quite a few bits and pieces.

The rest of the day was spent cleaning the boat, washing ironing etc.

The weather was so wet this morning that I didn’t take any photos, we will want to do this canal again, in better weather as I am sure its lovely in the sunshine, or even just the dry!