Rangali Adventures: Pont d'Ouche/Vandenesse-en-Auxois/Pouilly-en-Auxois/Pont Royal -Canal de Bourgogne

Sunday 24^th August

Pont d’Ouche to Vandenesse-en-Auxois

11 locks 9km 3 hrs

We woke up to a very foggy morning, but we knew the forecast was good once the fog cleared. We shared all the locks with Sologne a French cruiser. The fog finally cleared to a beautiful clear blue, sunny sky. We were really well looked after by a group of eclusiers, and got to Vandenesse just after 12 noon. The port was crowded with large hotel boats but we found a space, quickly scrubbed up and went to the local restaurant for a lovely Sunday lunch. In the afternoon we walked up the hill to Chateauneuf-en-Auxois, we rather regretted having such a big lunch but at least we walked some of it off. The town was lovely, quite busy with tourists, there were a few art exhibitions, small gift shops and a few places to eat. The views from the chateau were worth the walk up the hill.

A very foggy start to the day, there is a narrow bridge we have to go under somewhere!

Leaving Pont d'Ouche

The fog is clearing to reveal a beautiful day

Chateauneuf-en-Auxois on the hill

Vandenesse-en-Auxois
Full of Hotel barges the first night

A lovely place to eat Sunday lunch at Vandenesse

5 mile circular walk up to Chateauneuf

Looking back from Chateauneuf to our mooring at Vandenesse-en-Auxois

Me being lazy, here you can read about beautiful, historic Chateauneuf-en-Auxois

This was near the church at Chateauneuf....you can see what Kev was more interested in!

Second day at Vandenesse we moved to the quay for water and electric after the hotel barges left

Monday 25^th August

In the morning two of the large hotel boats moved off back towards Dijon so we moved our boat over to the other side of the port and connected to the electric. This always means you feel you should be doing some washing to make the most of the electric, but besides this, and a short walk we were very lazy. Kev did his final calculations for the tunnel and he felt certain we wouldn’t have a problem.

Tuesday 26^th August

Vanderness to Pouilly-en-Auxois

8 locks, 1 tunnel 3.33km long and 9.5km 3 hours

It rained heavily through the night. It was still raining when we set off at 9am but luckily it had stopped by the second lock. With three eclusiers working the locks, we got through the 8 locks very quickly, Sologne the French cruiser travelled with us again. We moored up just before the light that controls the tunnel so that we could dismantle our back awning for the tunnel.

Kev was slightly anxious that if we didn’t keep the boat straight, the wheelhouse could hit the roof in the tunnel, even though he had worked out the calculations to show we should be ok. Once we were in the tunnel we could see that no way would our wheelhouse hit the tunnel roof even if the side of our boat did hit the sidewall, so it was a very easy trip. Our dimensions are 3m wide, with a 2.4m wide wheelhouse, and an air draft of 2.8m. We even think next time we wont need to dismantle the back awning, just lower it as we do for the Nivernais bridges and Baye tunnel. The Pouilly tunnel is dead straight; you can see the end, although it does seem to take an age, I think it was around 45 minutes to get through the tunnel. The white dot you can see showing the other end of the tunnel just didn’t seem to get nearer. There were no lights in the tunnel, they were not working, you had to have a light on your boat, and we also had to wear our life jackets. We were given a walkie talkie to use if we had a problem. In the tunnel there are markers on the wall pointing how far it is to the nearest end, so you can see how far you’ve been, and once you get past the half way mark, how far you’ve got to go.

We arrived at 12 noon in Pouilly-en-Auxois, a very large port du plaisance, with loads of space to moor. We walked into the town, about a mile away and we had a very nice lunch at Hotel du Commerce, and we then went and stocked up on essentials at the local supermarket, very close to the port. There is a fuel station there too.

Entrance to the Pouilly Tunnel

Impossible for us to hit the wheelhouse roof, even if we wandered off the centre line

But it still takes some concentration to keep the boat straight

The end is nearing

Exiting the tunnel

Our mooring at Pouilly
A barge arrived in the afternoon while we were at lunch-direction Dijon

Wednesday 27^th August

Pouilly to Pont Royal

13 locks, 18km, 4hrs

We set off at our normal time of 9am, our first lock of the day was in view and we could see the eclusier opening the gates for us. All our locks from now on will be going down. We travelled alone today, Sologne were staying another day in Pouilly. It was a beautiful sunny morning, the locks no.2 to no.11 were operated by an eclusier on a moped but they were automated so it was a very quick trip. We then had over 10km with no locks at all; it was quite shallow in places, but ok, it caused us no problems. We saw two boats today travelling up stream, one hire-boat and one private. We can’t believe how quiet the canal is; we’ve seen more hotel boats than private boats.

We arrived in Pont Royal at 1pm, and we wondered whether the restaurant would be open but it was closed for holidays 16^th-31^st August!

We got the bikes out and cycled back along the canal to St Thibault to look at a lovely church. There was a boulangerie in the village but it was shut!