Saturday 6th August

We woke to a not so nice day. Raining and grey as. Had our breakfast, trying to clean up all of the food before we leave the boat. Jannie dreamt that we had too much food and then not enough – bizarre!! Set off in this thick drizzle and had to go 10 locks and 4 lift bridges, about 15 kms. Got to the first lock and the crew dressed in their wet weather gear got us through no sweat. Boy have we got these locks of to a pat! One lift bridge and Paul wound the handle. We just nosed into the bank and Paul jumped off and walked up to the bridge and we just hovered in the middle of the river waiting for the bridge to lift high enough for the boat to get through. At the next lock – actually two locks within 350m the heavens opened and down she came. Hell I have never seen such heavy rain. Paul reckoned that from bone dry or slightly damp to soaking wet was 1 minute. We still proceeded and went through probably the deepest single lock we have come through at 2.80m. When you are in these deep locks you can’t see anything and oh the surprise when you rise up above the side of the lock and are greeted with the view or houses.

Four lift bridges today and 10 locks all in the rain. The crew did extremely well and were at one stage laughing at the stupidity of it all. We could have stayed at Cuzy for the whole day and read our books – but there was nothing there and we did not have anything to cook for dinner. Getting pretty low in edible stuff but still have a wee bit of liquid sustenance. Stopped at Dirol for lunch and had lovely sandwiches and a lot of laughs. Took off after lunch and the second lock was another deep one – we motored in – Jannie had been off the boat and walked between locks – we entered the lock, they closed the gates and we got the cloudburst directly above us – talk about rain. I was dry but the troups were being pounded by these heavy drops and grinning all the while. We met up with another boat, only the third boat that we had seen all day. The followed us into the locks, Jannie tied us up and then tended to their needs and when we got to the last lift bridge they went through before us as we were waiting for Paul to wind the bridge up and then down. They pulled into the bank and left us a bottle of champagne for our efforts. Great stuff.

We pulled into the basin at Chitry and decided that hot showers and clean dry clothes were the order of the day instead of going on for the extra four locks to the Locaboat base at Corbigny. It’s been raining less and we have had a red wine or two and a plate of des frites. We were Just waiting for the taxi to take us into town for dinner as it was still drizzling a bit.
Well the taxi arrived and we set of the 3.5kms into Corbigny. We were going to a Pizza restaurant that one of the other boaties recommended. The trip was quick and so wqs the €18 that he fleeced from us. We entered the restaurant and this table of people were eating away and we were told that the restaurant wasn’t open for orders until 7.00pm. It was 6.45pm and we realised that the people eating were the waiters and waitresses and of course Moma. So we went for a walk around the village – it is a lot bigger than I thought it would be and all of the shops were still open. This is because here the break at lunchtime was one and a half to two hours. Back up to the restaurant we went and by now it was 7.10pm so we thought that it would be ok. We entered to find a number of people already sitting studying the menu.

We were taken to our table, the end two of a line of about twenty, got the menus and studied it, ordered the red wine and decided that we were going to have entre and pizza. One pizza between two to share. We ordered and the entre came and we polished those quick time and had finished off the wine before the pizzas came. When they came, each half one separate plate, one plate each – boy – we have never seen pizzas as large as these ones were. We hardly made a dent into the sides of these. In fact Jannies half looked like a mouse had gnawed at the end of it. Still it was then packed up in a takeaway box that will be tomorrow night’s dinner. Back to the boat by same cab and €20 as it was now raining again.

 
Sunday 7th August

Woke about 7.45am and got up to start the last day on the boat. Tried to phone Mum but no reception again – emergency calls only it said. Had a breakfast of whatever is in the fridge. We are fast running out of everything except beer. Did the rubbish and recycling thing and about 9.30am decided to push off on the last part of the trip. We only had 2 single locks and a double lock to do and about 3 kms or a little over an hour. Got to the first lock and had to tie up on the back as it was quite narrow here in the canal as we waited for a boat to come out of the lock on the downstream slide. Had a couple between us as we entered the lock who had been moored behind us the previous night and who asked us if they could buy our black NZ flag. We gave them the flag along with all sorts of edibles that I’m sure we will regret tonight.

Jannie walked between the locks so that it was easy for us to sling our ropes up the 3.0 plus metres and the double lock took a while and the amount of water that was let into these two locks was enormous and boiled around the boats. I thought that if you fell in on one of these you wouldn’t have much hope. The force of the water is such that you can feel the boat shuddering as the water boils past and around and under. One the second lock I had to run the motor in forward to keep the boat from moving too far back even though Jane and Paul had the fore and aft ropes around the bollards on shore and then held under the cleats on board.

Anyway the last 1 km eased slowly away and we docked at the Locaboat base and waved to the French couple as they went past on their way to somewhere further up the canal. Tidied up and went up to the office and although there was a young chap there he was just showing a family the ropes as their holiday was just starting and the office is closed until tomorrow morning at 8.00am when we hand the boat back.

Lunch? What to do? We decided that the closest place for lunch was the café where we had moored the previous night so we untied the bikes and away we went down past the locks that we have come up through. They were closed for lunch and the lock keepers had gathered at the middle lock for their lunch on the lawn. We got to the café and ordered our meals. Paul ordered a charolais steak medium rare, Jan chipolatas and frits, Jane franckfurters and moi hamburger. Beers arrived and were demolished theseprior to the meals coming. All the meals arrived – a great pile of chips on each, no salad on any plate and my hamburger had no bun, no onion, in fact only the hamburger pattie!!

Back on the bikes and we went back along the towpath to the boat. We read our books, something that we haven’t had too much time to do. Jan and Jane went for a walk along the towpath towards the next few locks. Dinner tonight is going to be left over pizza from last night and whatever’s in the fridge salad.

A few details about our boat and journey:
Penichettes 1107 – length: 11m – Beam: 3.10m – Draught: 0.65m – Drinking water: 430l – Fuel: 250l – Headroom: 1.82 – 1.91
Our trip on the Nivernais Canal we went 141kms, went through 71 locks, ran the motor for 32.9 hours and went up vertically 145.6m. There were so few boats on the canal that this surprised us. Good for us as it made getting into locks very easy with never a queue.
All in all a wonderful time was had by all, and yes we would do a similar trip again.