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!