Châtillon-en-Bazois to Ecluse 24/Ecluse 24 Ansty to Cercy La Tour

Friday 2^nd May

Châtillon-en-Bazois to Ecluse 24

8 Locks

20km

We set off at 9am; it was quite busy with hire boats going off in opposite directions after the holiday yesterday.

We had a good trip, but we had quite a bit of rain, we shared locks most of the way, but all ok.   There were loads of lock keepers on duty today, probably because yesterday no boats could move they knew most would be today.  We are now moored up just above Ecluse 24. Just after the bridge there is a wide section where we moored last year, its very quiet and rural.  We have knocked some pins on to moor up to. 

As we arrived we noticed some chaps fishing, so we moored a long way away from them.  A while after we had moored a lady walked up to our boat and saw us sitting on the back deck, she called to the chaps who had been fishing, they were about 50m from us.  It sounded like she was speaking Scandinavian.  Shortly after two young guys around 13-14 years old knocked on our door and asked if we spoke English.  They explained that we had “cut” across the pound to moor and ruined their fishing lines and what ever was attached, around 14 euros worth.  They said they were on a weeks fishing holiday, and now couldn’t fish anymore.  You can imagine Kev giving them a piece of his mind, saying that they were sitting in their car not taking enough care of their lines and that we did take a wide berth to avoid their rods.  They said that all the other boats they had seen today had gone straight through to the lock, on the opposite side of the large pound and were taken by surprise at us coming into moor.  They were nice lads and we ended up giving them 20 euros to go and buy some more stuff to fish with, Kev must be getting mellow in his old age!  The lady who came to look at our boat, we now think was their mother telling them to come and speak to us; I think they were quite brave to do so!

The weather seems to be improving, and set to be better for the weekend, hurray!

We had company for some of the journey

A very energetic, lady lock keeper 

Lunch in the lock

Last bridge of the day just before Ecluse 24

Our mooring at Ecluse 24

Saturday 3rd May

Ecluse 24 Ansty to Cercy La Tour

6 locks and 16km

We had booked the lock we were moored near by for 9am, the lady lock keeper was dead on time and she took us through 3 locks.  She was lovely, she lives at the lock keepers cottage, it has really well kept gardens, and a massive vegetable patch.

We had a really great trip to Cercy La Tour, the canal has quite long sections in between the locks.  We travelled through beautiful pastureland, with grazing Charolais cattle and calves, sheep and lambs and horses.  All the farmhouses look very affluent in this area.

We saw quite a few Black Kite, they were circling high above and we saw some diving steeply to take fish from the canal.

We are moored up now in Cercy La Tour exactly where we were last year, on the floating pontoons, with free (6A) electric and water.  I wonder whether we will hear the same owl hooting tonight that we heard last year?

We walked to see if the small supermarket that is mentioned in the fluvial guide was open.  It was shut, permanently, which is a shame.  We found a newsagent open that sold bread, and the butchers near our mooring was open so we bought some long life milk, eggs and sausages.  We do have enough food in stock but its good to support the shops that are open.  There is also a new shop selling local specialties, such as Honey, chocolate, olives, walnut oil, etc.  We bought some nougat and what we thought were some hazelnut chocolates, they were hazelnut but more like a boiled sweet, not so nice, but I am sure we will manage to eat them!

We are coming to the end of our journey along the Nivernais Canal; next stop is Decize and then we will join the Canal Lateral a la Loire.  We have really enjoyed the Nivernais.  It’s a beautiful canal.  The lock keepers have been fantastic; nearly all of them have been really friendly and very helpful.

The lock keepers cottages today were all very pretty and very well kept

Not a pretty bridge but it frames the view well

A posh looking farm

An extra big Lock keepers house at Cercy la Tour

Our mooring at Cercy you can just about see Rangali

Baye to Châtillon-en-Bazois

Tuesday 29^th April

Baye to Châtillon-en-Bazois

14 Locks (all down)

15km

We spent three relaxing days at Baye.  It is a lovely spot, not much there amenity wise but when the weather cleared up we went for a walk around the Étange de Baye about 3 miles.

We ordered bread from the B&B in Baye that acts as a bread depot.  The croissants and pain au chocolates were probably the worst we have ever tasted, stale as anything, we ordered them each day hoping it would improve; they didn’t!  The baguette we ordered for lunch each day was ok though.

This is Étange de Vaux a reservoir just adjacent to Étange de Baye
separated by a wall

This heron was fishing just opposite our mooring at Baye

My hands healed up so all was well when we moved on to Châtillon-en-Bazois.  We had an easy trip; a lot of the locks were either double or triple locks so we got through them quite quickly and very gently as we are now going down towards Decize and the Loire valley.  The rain stayed away just until we arrived at Châtillon-en-Bazois.  We are moored up on a short finger pontoon; most of the boat is hanging off the end!  We have electric and water, the charge is 7 euros a night. 

On our guide it says this is an extra low bridge, from our experience last year,
we don't think it's any lower some of the bridges
we will be going under further down the Nivernais

Yet another friendly lock keeper
He is waiting for the water to empty from the lock
before he could open the gates  

Open sesame

 We went to the local hotel Auberge de l’Hotel de France for dinner Wednesday evening, it was a great meal, so good that we are going back tonight.  It was quite chilly last night, but the restaurant had a fabulous open fire burning so it was very cozy.

  

The cozy, very old restaurant at Auberge de l'Hôtel de France
Not a brilliant quality photo as I took it off the web

PK 78 Les Granges to Baye - An epic and eventful day

Saturday 26^th April

Plan 8 locks and 4km

Actuality 24 locks, 3 tunnels and 12km!

The plan was to have a short day today (8 locks and 4km) to the bottom of the Sardy flight, we were going to save these 16 locks and the tunnels for Sunday.  This didn’t happen.  At our first lock we were greeted by 4 eclusiers, who whisked us through the first lock in break neck speed (about 5 minutes!).  

For those who haven’t been in a 'manual' French lock (ecluse) and going up, what normally happens is you have 1 eclusier to take you through the lock.  To let you enter the lock, he opens one gate with a windy handle, walks all the way around the lock over the closed gates at the other end of the lock, to open the other gate on the opposite side....you slowly enter.......while you are sorting out your ropes onto the bollards, which you often can’t see, the eclusier closes the gate he’s just opened, walks all the way around the lock back to the other gate to close it.  He then walks back to the other end of the lock to start opening the sluices to fill the lock.  This takes quite a while as often the lock keeper walks extremely slowly and is usually on the phone!  This normally takes about 20 minutes a lock.

So on our first lock of the day we had 4 guys, working the lock and from then on they shared the locks between them, 2 guys per lock in 2 VNF vans.  The eclusiers seemed all set to continue in taking us all the way up the flight of 16 locks from Sardy. As it was such a lovely sunny day and we were making such good time, we decided to carry on to Baye.  (Last year we came down the Sardy flight in drizzle, with single manned locks, holiday students, all very, very slow.  That day it took us 7.5 hours to do just the 16 locks and the tunnels.)

Today we did the first 6 of the 24 locks in one hour, including travelling time, we all got very slick, one guy would be closing the second gate while the other would be opening the sluices. 

On the 7^th lock it got a bit too speedy.  One of the lock keepers opened the sluices before Kev and I were locked off with our ropes, our 38 tonne boat shot forward, I tried stupidly to keep hold onto my rope to finish locking it off, I didn’t succeed.  Kev got back control by putting the engine into reverse to stop the boat possibly hitting the gate, while one of the lock keepers helped give us back our ropes. 

We prefer to use our ropes to control the boat in the locks rather than use the engine with a rope attached at the bow, which we know is an option. It means you are not sitting in a lock filling up with exhaust fumes with the noise of the engine running, and also it conserves fuel.  The lock keeper apologised to me saying he was too hasty. 

When we got to the next lock, the other 2 guys were horrified when they saw me with bashed hands covered in plasters, and fingers still bleeding.  At the next lock they reprimanded their colleague and he turned to me and put his hands in a prayer position and bowed to apologise yet again!  He did slow down a little after that, checking our ropes were locked off before opening the sluices.

It was amazing how the guys worked so well together as a team, after lunch we just had 2 guys to work the last 9 locks, but we still did them in 1¾ hours.  It was great how they worked together but we did feel like we were catapulted up the locks, not really having a chance to enjoy the lovely scenery. 

After the final lock we said thank you and goodbye to our lock keepers, they were fantastic, and the lock keeper apologised one more time!  We had to wait 45 minutes for two boats to come through the Baye tunnels but we were still moored up overlooking the Étang du Baye by 4.30pm.

We are going to stay here a few days.  We ordered our bread for the morning from a B&B that is also a Depot du Pain.  We hope the weather is nice enough over the next few days for us to go for a long walk around the lake.  But we don’t mind if it rains a bit as we want to make sure there aren’t water shortages in the canals this year as we hear they have had a very dry winter.

Lock keeper crew number one
very helpful chaps, even the one on the left!

Lock keeping crew number two
also very helpful chaps

So peaceful

Could have been much worse

A nice place to have to stop for lunch
Unusual scultpures, an artist/stone mason lives in the lock keepers cottage

You can see then next lock ahead, not far to go

The one way section to take you to the tunnels

The longer of the 3 tunnels, nice that you can see the end.
There are footpaths either side, but the right hand foot path ends about 50m from the exit of the tunnel
I remember that when we came through this tunnel last year coming
from the other direction, that this footpath came as a surprise,
so watch out for it if you are entering from Baye

A beautiful place to moor.

Our view from the wheelhouse