Beaulon to Pierrefitte-sur-Loire/Pierrefitte sur Loire to Chambilly on the Canal de Roanne á Digion;

Monday 12^th May

Beaulon to Pierrefitte-sur-Loire

5 locks 19km

We stayed an extra day in Beaulon, it was a nice spot, there was a great bakers and butchers, both open on a Sunday morning.  So we had a relaxing day, had a boules game where we scored and Kev beat me 15 – 10, so we will have to have a re-match.  We had some thundery showers during the day which were quite heavy.

We had a thunderstorm Sunday afternoon
and I was amazed to witness a very low slung rainbow, you can just see it above the telegraph wires

Our mooring at Beaulon after the storm

Storm clouds still looming

We had booked the lock at Bealon for 9am on the Monday and the lock keeper was there dead on time.  We had a great trip through the 5 locks, all the lock keepers very helpful with the ropes; the last lock we had to do after their lunch break.  We arrived at Pierrefitte-sur-Loire at 1.45 and decided to stop and moor up.  There was a shop signposted in the village so we got our bikes off the boat and cycled to buy some bread etc.

We were visited by a VNF man in his van.  He explained that the canal further along, where would be going tomorrow was going to be shut between 11am-3pm as they were doing work on a bridge and we would have to go through the first lock by 9am to be certain to be past that section before it was shut, so that put paid to our planned lazy start to the day!

Tuesday 13^th May

6 locks 36km (7 hours our longest day so far this year)

We were woken up at 5am this morning hearing a scrabbling on the deck above our bedroom.  We banged on the roof and we heard footsteps that sounded like a mammal walk along the side of the boat.  I got up to see if I could work out what it was but couldn't see anything, the fact I couldn't find my glasses and I hadn't got my contact lenses in might explain why!  We are not sure what it was.

We set off at 8.15am this morning to make sure we got to our first lock in plenty of time, we arrived at 8.40am and the lock keeper just arrived, so we were through our first lock before 9am, a first!  We had one more lock, and about 3km to get through the section they were closing.  We did in great time, with about 50 mins to spare. 

The river Loire close to the canal

The bridge they are working on

By 10.40am we left the Canal Lateral a la Loire turned into the Canal de Roanne à Digion.  We were unsure how far we would go before we moored up for the day.  We did think we’d save the very deep lock 7.2m until tomorrow, but we did everything in such good time, and the locks (all going up) were incredibly gentle so we carried on to Boug-le-Comte the deep lock.

The first three locks on the Canal de Roanne à Digion were all automatic but there was a lock keeper present who used a boat hook to collect our ropes.  The third automatic lock was 6m deep but very gentle.  Some of the locks have water flowing out from the left just in front of the lock entrance which makes entering a little difficult.  We left the third lock at 12 noon, and we had a clear run, no more locks for 16km so we carried on, eating lunch on the move.

The Bourg-le-Comte lock looked quite daunting as we came up to it.  There is a long straight canal section before the lock, about 0.5km so from a distance it looked like the lock gates were shut, even with our binoculars. So we slowed down thinking maybe a boat was coming down the lock, as we got closer we realised the lock gates were actually open and we could enter.  The top section of the gates don’t open.  We had joined ropes together to make them long enough and the lock keeper used a hook on a rope to collect the rope on the bow, and there were bollards in the wall for the stern that Kev used, moving up to the next bollard as we came up the lock.  It was again really gentle, no straining on the ropes, just smoothly raising us up the 7.2m.

We decided to moor up at Chambilly because two hire boats got in front of us just after the deep lock.  They had moored up after that lock, possibly for lunch and when they saw us coming I think they decided to leave their mooring to get to the next lock before us.  We were pretty tired by then so we thought it was a good reason to stop for the day.

We have had mixed weather today, some sunshine, but some very heavy downpours.  Weather is set to improve for the weekend.

Difficult to tell that the gates were open for us

A little easier to see now, the top section stays closed,
only the lower section opens to let you enter the lock
You can see on the left where water is streaming out causing a current
and the leaky lock gates at the far end of the lock

Quite deep, quite clautraphobic

Looking back you can see how high the lock has taken us up 7.2m

Our mooring at Chambilly, sloping sides but seems ok with our pin fenders