Croatia and Slovenia

We have had terrible weather since we got to Holland but that has changed now we are in Croatia. We hired a car in Dusseldorf and left for the South in pouring rain.  Very difficult driving on the Autobahns.  We stayed the night in Baiersdorf with Nick and Monika and then the next day headed south through Bavaria and crossed the Alps to the South Tirol in Italy without hardly seeing an Alp! The South Tirol is a charming part of Northern Italy where German is the main language and not Italian and consequently many Germans go there for their holidays. It has lots of guest houses and we stayed in one for the night before heading further South through the Dolomites (Limestone Mountain Range on southern edge of Alps) to Italian speaking Italy.

The rain continued!

As it was raining so much we decided to visited the Postojna caves in Slovenia as the weather doesn’t matter underground. The caves are outstanding. You first take a train journey along them for around 2km. Then its out onto your feet and a circular route through cavern after cavern. A very extensive set of caves  and one of the biggest in Europe.

Next day we drove to a farm in Croatia. Had a spot of bother crossing the border from Slovenia (which is in the EU) to Croatia as the sharp border policeman noticed that we had stayed in the EU for more than 3 months. He was going to fine us 400 euros but when he discovered we were married (albeit at present with different surnames on the passport) and Wendy was using a British passport (no limits on a stay),  that changed everything and we were sent on our way.

We stayed at an Agro Tourism bed and breakfast in Northern Istria, a province of Croatia. They have to make everything that they serve for breakfast and dinner from home grown or raised produce. So outside our bedroom was the pig sty. They had olive trees everywhere and made their own delicious wine. Food was basic, meat orientated but very good value. Using the farm as a base we explored the villages of Istria. We went down to Pula the capital and saw ancient Roman ruins including a huge amphitheatre.

We visited the picture postcard ‘fishing’ port of Rovinj and the lovely town nearby of Porec.

One day we drove to the Limski Canal a long fjord like waterway pushing inland for a long way and had a lovely lunch of local mussels and oysters overlooking the ‘fjord’.

We visited Groznan and Motovun ancient hilltop towns dating back to the 13th century. The weather was fine by now which made a huge difference, though there was evidence of flooding everywhere from the torrential rains.

Then it was a long drive to Plitvice National Park where there are the most amazing lakes that descend one to another with waterfalls in between each lake. The park is quite simply the best water land paradise in the world. It is set in a beautiful valley has lovely walkways going over falls, under falls and around lakes. It is fabulous, amazing and stunning. Go there before it is too late!

 

This is our final blog for this year and the final blog for Le Fabuleux as we have put her up for sale in Holland. She is not suitable for cruising France as she is too high and too deep. We get by but it is a chore. So next year we are off to the USA and Canada where we will be buying an RV and touring the high roads and by roads for a few years before returning to France in another boat. Stay Tuned.

Full Circle

Today we are back in the Netherlands not far from where we left 3 1/2 months ago. A lovely warm autumn day at last after a wek of cloudy and drizzly weather.

On Monday We continued don the Mosel to the very beautiful town of Cochem which happened to be having its annual wine festival. We had a great mooring in the centre of the town and we walked over the bridge to the medieval town with its fairy tale castle atop the hill.

In the Market square they had setup stalls for wine tasting and we drank a few glasses of the 2009 Cochemer Klostergarden Riesling. Lovely and fruity and extremely drinkable. Afterwards we dropped into a typical German restaurant for a meal of pork trotter (boiled and then roasted) and pork steak.

It was also very tourist place but when we were there the hotel boats that were in port were serving dinner so it was just us and the locals. It is without  doubt the prettiest village on the Mosel River.

The next couple of days we continued down the Mosel in drizzly conditions eventually reaching the last lock at Koblenz early on Wednesday morning.

Going through we discovered that the Rhine was in flood with a raging current that picked us up and hurled us downstream at 22km/h. (our normal speed is 10km/h). Barges were labouring upstream and the river was 150cm above its normal level. Town after town passed by until we eventually turned to stem the current which we could hardly do and pulled into a small marina off the Rhine at Mondorf. We were guests of the Pirate Club. It was a quiet mooring far removed from what was going on 200m away.

Next morning we edged our way out to a slightly better day (it wasn’t drizzling) and once more were enveloped by the rampaging river. We got as far as Dusseldorf that day and stopped in an old hafen (boat harbour) that had been converted into pleasure boat moorings. We were right under the famous Dusseldorf tower reminiscent of the Sky Tower in Auckland. We walked the 1.5km into the old town of Dusseldorf and it was a bit uninspiring – probably heavily bombed in WWII, and these days full of restaurants and beer gardens. Still it was a nice walk.

We continued on the river and it slowly eased in strength both because the level was going down and also because we were reaching the low lands where the gradient is much less. All the same we were still going 17 km/h. Then today we called into a favourite place at Bijland Plas, a small old gravel lake off the Rhine just inside Holland, where we are at anchor in calm conditions. A great way to finish off our holiday. 

This is the last blog from Le Fabuleux. We are off soon to Croatia and Slovenia for 3 weeks. As we don’t know whether we can get cellphone coverage there we will publish the next blog from the Plitivice Lakes National Park in Croatia in a couple of weeks time or so, where our Bed and Breakfast has Wi-Fi. Then after Croatia, we are off to the wedding of David’s nephew Michael at Lake Bled in Slovenia and then to Frankfurt Airport via Austria.

Down the Mosel River

On Monday the weather was rainy and windy. So we stayed put in our lovely mooring on the Saar River with just cliffs for company. No TV either as the satellite was cut off by the cliffs. Still the next morning dawned much brighter and we walked along the river to the town of Mettlach where we visited the Villeroy and Boch factory shop. Their worldwide headquarters are based there though much of their manufacturing takes place all over the country. Then down the river we sailed passed more magnificent cliffs.

We stopped for lunch at the pretty town of Saarburg. A small stream flows through the town and then over a waterfall and into the Saar River.

 

Restaurants cluster along the stream and tourists crowd the restaurants and everyone seems happy though we just bought some bread and ham and ate lunch on our boat with the Saar for company and the sun on our backs.

Then on downstream with the cliffs slowly diminishing until at last we turned a corner and there we were on the River Mosel  (Moselle in French). Wide and slow flowing and suddenly lots of barges in all directions. We stopped about 1km downstream at the town on Konz from which we visited the city of  Trier by train. For all its size and importance as the old Roman capital of Germany, it has no facilities for small boats. Still the train station of Konz is only a 5 minute walk from the boat and within 10 minutes of boarding the train we were in the middle of Trier where our first stop was the 2000 year old Porta Nigra (or Black Gate) that still dominates the town after all these years.

 

Almost in as good a condition as the day it was born. A mighty entrance to the town it would have seemed in those far off days. We walked over to the Basilica which was once Emperor Constantine’s throne room. A vast  building made of brick (you can see it in the photograph below to the left at the back of the much later palace of the bishops).

There are lots of other Roman ruins all around Trier but we left it there and caught the train back to the boat and next day headed further North and downstream. I had always wondered why the Mosel had so many vineyards along its banks when a narrow valley would block a lot of the sun. But the Mosel twists and turns in huge loops as it wends it way down to the Rhine. On all the South and West facing loops the banks are covered in vineyards.

 

By now the weather was once again quite changeable i.e. sunshine and showers and has remained that way until now and the next few days. But the Mosel is just sheer magic with its high sides covered in vineyards. The small wine villages splattered along the sides with chocolate box villages of half timbered houses that are basically unchanged for 500 years. We called in at the most famous of them Bernkastel. There were three hotel boats moored up there and the village was heaving with tourists. Very pretty but destroyed by tourism. Every house on the ground floor was either a restaurant or a tourist shop.

Then on it was to another famous town of Traben-Trabach where we stayed the night. The town is half way down the Mosel to the Rhine from Trier (100 km to Trier and 100km to Koblenz at the confluence of the Mosel and the Rhine).

This week we continue down the Mosel and join the Rhine before putting the foot down and covering 400km in a few days to arrive in Holland by the weekend.

Crossing the Vosges Mountains and onto the Saar

And it rained and it rained for three days and nights.  So we just stayed tied up in Lutzelbourg until it had passed. We had a knock on the door one evening and Josiane and Roger introduced themselves as residents and invited us over for a drink at their house further up the valley. They served a very passable Manhattan cocktail and we talked world trips and the Vosges mountains.

On Tuesday we left on a less rainy morning and headed up the Valley of the Zorn to the great inclined boat lift that we had passed down the previous year.

We zoomed up 40m in just over 5 minutes; a journey if it had been by the original 17 locks would have taken 6 hours. It was still drizzling as motored along the summit pound with no locks so we could just the flaps and turn on the windscreen wipers  and just putt steadily along until we reached a town with an unpronounceable name – Xouaxange where we stopped for the night with two other English barges. The weather was slowly lifting and next morning we left early before turning off the main canal onto the Canal de la Sarre which was the start of the the journey North. By the afternoon the sun was out and the evening was lovely at our mooing in the middle of nowhere with only foxes for company.

The canal meanders through lovely rolling countryside following the contours of the land to maintain a height about the River Saar into which we eventually descended at the town of Sarreguemines where we stayed the night. It has a lovely restaurant right by the moorings in a lovely old building but alas we  ate in.

 

We motored across the border with Germany the next day and stopped at the capital of the Saar Region called Saarbrucken. We were on the outskirts by a former abattoir in the Saarbrucken Motor Boat Club. They made us very welcome and invited us over for a BBQ that evening. We biked into town along the riverside bike path. Past beer gardens selling Bruch No. 1 beer and sausages in a roll.

The town centre is mainly modern with a few old buildings. On the way back we called in at the old abattoir which the club captain had told us sold the very best meat products and bought some very good value local specialities and some sausages for the BBQ that night. When we got back we did some painting on the hull over a few scratches, and then later on took our sausages over to the club where  a lovely wood BBQ was going. While we chatted to club members and drank No. 1 beer, the Club Captain very kindly cooked our sausages. 

It is a great feature of Germany that the various motorboat clubs are so welcoming to overseas visitors like us. They genuinely love to open their doors and do whatever they can to make a great stay. And so it was the next day we stayed at the Dillingen Motorboat Club on a glorious day as the weather had really warmed again now (at least until today).

Today we sailed through the highlight of any cruise on the Saar River – the great bend near Mettlach. Over a 10 km stretch the river carves a great 180 degree bend through red sandstone cliffs covered with woods. All along the river the cyclists were busy, the walkers were out, and the beer gardens were doing a great trade.

This is Germany at its very best. Enjoying the outdoors, enjoying some exercise and enjoying superb beer and sausages to the sound of an oompah-pah band.

We are tied up tonight in the heart of the gorge. No roads, no trains just peace and quiet. We are about 1 km away from Mettlach the home of Villeroy and Boch the porcelain manufacturers whom we will visit tomorrow.  Then a day’s sailing away we reach the Mosel River and the Mosel wines and beautiful villages nestled among the vineyards.

Alsace and Lorraine

We left Dannemarie on Monday and descended 23 locks to Mulhouse right on the Swiss border and formerly a Swiss town. All along the canal there is a sealed towpath that the Euro-Velo route follows. This is a bike route from Budapest to Nantes on the English Channel. It is very popular with cyclists and a whole tourist trade in itself.

  Mulhouse  appears to have been heavily destroyed in wars and there is not much of a character to it. But it was the end of the Canal du Rhone au Rhin and next day it was the Rhine that we entered and immediately accelerated away to 19km/h. Unfortunately after a couple of hours the engine started spluttering and needed coaxing for several minutes to keep it running before it roared back into life. The Rhine is not a good place to have a dead engine!  (We changed fuel filters in the next few days and it appears it was an air lock in one of them causing the problem as we once had before in East Germany.)

Late Afternoon we turned off the Rhine into a small side canal that leads to the capital city of Alsace – Colmar. Alsace has mainly been German over the centuries and it shows. The house are  Germanic with lots of steep roofed half timbered houses. The most common spoken language is German and the food  certainly owes a lot to its German roots. Colmar is probably the largest and most medieval city we have seen in France (at least with half timbered houses). It is very pretty and has many canals and streams flowing through it.

We wandered around getting lost in the maze of streets before stumbling across some landmark which we could re-located ourselves. In the process we came across a lovely restaurant called JY’s in the Petite Venise (Small Venice) area of town. It was a Michelin one star restaurant but the pricing seemed quite affordable and so we gave it a shot.

Well presented food but a bit lacking in flavour was the verdict. But it was a nice lunch and prepared us for the next day and further cruising on the Rhine. We hurtled down the river once more all the way to Strasbourg where we turned off on to the Canal Marne au Rhin. We didn’t stop in Strasbourg as we had been there last year but continued along the canal through the gentle rolling country of the Alsace plain to Saverne where we were going to stop.

 

Alas there was no room in the inn so we carried on 10 more km to Lutzelbourg, wedged into a narrow wooded valley that crosses the Vosges Mountains. It is very pretty place but unfortunately the rain came that night and all the next day so we sat still, played with fuel filters and did some shopping for a wedding present at the beautiful crystal works in the town.

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The weather forecast is not good for this week but we have time on hand to take it easy and wait for the clearer weather. We head west this week to the Sarre Canal and then along that until we reach  Saarbrucken in Germany and start our descent of the River Saar which is a tributary of the Mosel River which in turn is a tributary of the Rhine. 900km to go but very few locks.

The River Doubs

We left Dole on  a  sunny day and headed out on to the River Doubs. The canal for the first 150 km is basically the canalised Doubs with odd forays through side canals cutting off a particularly fast flowing section of the River. North of Isle-sur-le-Doubs it becomes Canal only. It flows through a wide plain to start with but gradually the sides of the valley start closing in and the river flows through windy gorges before emerging higher up into a wider plain again.

The valley sides are limestone and mainly wooded and very remote.  It is quite frankly an extremely beautiful river which we have almost to ourselves. There is the occasional village, very little boat traffic and all the locks are automated. We are issued with a remote control device (like a garage door) and we just click it near a lock and it gets it ready for us. Very quick and efficient.

We left arrived in Raunchot and took the last place on the quay there. The weather was changing and we had rain that night and all the next day so we decided to stay where we were until it had passed over which it had by the following day. We arrived at the provincial capital Besancon enclosed in an almost 360 degree loop of the river with a magnificent Citadel above dominating the whole town.

We spend the next day at Besancon and walked up to the citadel where we had an amazing view of the whole countryside. We saw the Museum of the French Resistance and of Deportation which is based there which even though in French was quite moving.

 

We also visited the cathedral and viewed the magnificent Astronomical clock which gives read outs on 102 astronomical and temporal quantities including the state of the tide in most French Ports, the position of the planets, the dates of Easter, the dates of this year’s solar and lunar eclipses and most amazingly there is one dial which only clicks over one notch every 4 centuries to allow for a leap century.

Given that it is all done by clockwork and is over 150 years old it is quite amazing.  Then it was tome to continue our cruise up the river and we called in at Baumes Les Dames and Isle-sur-le-Doubs which are both old and very quaint.

Yesterday we reached the summit of the canal, no longer on the River Doubs and met yet another NZ boat Erewhon moored at Montreux Chateau.  It is a lovely spot in the middle of nowhere and at an altitude of 341m  there was no other way than down the next day.

And so down it was and we went through 16 locks over 3 kms and stopped at lunchtime for the day at Dannemarie where Wendy cleaned the teak decks with acetic acid. Tomorrow we get to Mulhouse at the end of the canal and then head down the Rhine calling in at Colmar and Strasbourg. The Canal de Rhone au Rhine is 237km long and has 114 locks. Switzerland is just 15kmn  away from here and soon we will be going down the French German border. It’s still over 1000km back to Holland but it’s all down hill and mostly with few locks.

High Summer on the Saone

What a week it has been full of surprises and difficulties.    We left St Jean and immediately knew there was something wrong when the bowthruster didn’t work. We tied up for fuel at the fuel berth and Wendy noticed smoke down below. There was no flames but lots of smoke. We tracked it down to the bowthruster and every time it went on sparks and smoke appeared from one of the terminals. Well we don’t really need a bowthruster but decided to take a different and more direct way back to Holland and get the bowthruster fixed there.We were heading up the River Saone and then across the Vosges Mountains and down into the Moselle valley.  (or so we though). We motored up River to Auxonne where Napoleon had been a Lieutenant in the Artillery around 1780.  It has a lovely fort where Napoleon worked and lots of signs around the town saying Napoleon did this or that here.

It was a nice mooring with a friendly person to help us tie up and all for nothing. In the evening we wandered around the town and admired the statue of guess who.

We also decided that night to see if a small boatyard we had heard of half way between Auxonne and St Jean could fix the bowthruster. So next day we headed back to St Symphorien and found Peter the Harbour Master at the port. Being English we could at last converse reasonably easy with him and he explained that they had a mechanic but he wasn’t terribly good with electrics but by chance he was having dinner that night with Steve a Marine Electrician who was on holiday on his Dutch Barge which he kept at St Symphorien. He might be able to help.  Sure enough Steve turned up the next morning and had a look and saw that the problem was a loose connection that was sparking. Let’s tighten it we all thought.  Too easy!! The sparking and huge currents involved (500 amps) had welded the nut to the bolt. The bolt sheared and we were looking at a bowthruster needing a new special type of bolt which Steve reckoned wouldn’t be available and we might need a new motor at 1500 euros or so. Ouch!  However after a bit of persuasion Steve thought he might be able to crimp a connector to the sheared bolt and get things working.  So he drove back to St Jean to get some parts and by 2.30 we had a working bowthruster. We were back in business. We cast loose and headed back up River to Auxonne and then the next day to Mantoche where we stopped along a lovely grassy bank with a chateau along the bank.

Then next day up to Gray a low depth stopped us mooring, until a barge offered to let us tie up along side. Turned out that they were NZers. Then the next day we continued up the beautiful River Saone.  As we cruised along we heard on the bush telegraph (via email) that the Canal des Vosges which connects the Rivers Saone and Moselle was to be closed in 48 hours time for 2 weeks because of a damaged lock gate.  We couldn’t get there in time so we decided to stop in Savoyeux past a tunnel and consult the Internet.

We had met a Swiss couple on their boat at Verdun sur Doubs and they were about to return to their home port of Savoyeux. They phoned the Waterways authorities who confirmed there was a stoppage for two weeks. Oh dear. So after some discussion we decided to head back the way we had come for the last three days and go back to St Symphorien which is the start of the Canal du Rhone au Rhin, the original way we were going to go. There was a party at the Port that night with a great Blues band and so it was a late night and an early morning start seeing us head at destroyer like speed down the Saone doing in one day what we had taken three to do on the way up.

We stopped overnight at Auxonne again (our third visit) and not long after we had tied up a hire boat arrived and banged into our rear causing some damage. Then an hour later a hire boat in front of us left banging into us as well and scratching the paintwork. We were fed up with hire boats by then.

The next day we turned up into the Canal du Rhone au Rhin and headed for Dole, birth place of Louis Pasteur and on the River Doubs along which the Canal weaved in and out off. It is a beautiful town and we had a great mooring in the heart of things.

We decided to find the pizzeria where I had dined in when last visiting Dole by another boat 27 years ago. It was still there and just as enjoyable as before. We stopped along one of the many small canals that go through Dole to admire the view.

Today we have been continuing up the River Doubs (the canal is really the river at this point until it is too small to take boats). It is very beautiful but requires very careful navigation as there are many rocks and shallow patches to avoid.  We have to cross the Jura Mountains before we can descend into the Rhine Valley at the junction of Switzerland, France and Germany. The mountains are very high but we are following the Doubs River and in the next few days will pass through magnificent gorges as we climb slowly to the summit some 200 km away. 

To Seurre with Love

On Monday we stayed on at Verdun sur Doubs. We had invited Terry and Zena around for drinks that evening. Wendy had met them in the Port Office the day before and after a long chat invited them over the next day. Terry retired now is a Welshman who has worked in the wine trade for his life time. Married to a French lady he has lots of connections with New Zealand and its wine. It was a good evening made even better by a fortuitous turn after Terry and Zena left. We had decided to eat out as it was so hot but the local restaurant seemed a bit expensive at 30 Euros for a 3 course meal so we decided to try one about 10 minutes walk away that we had seen advertised for 20 euros. Unfortunately that was a lunchtime only price. Fortunately the meal they served up was one of the best we had ever had. We started with substantial canapes followed by an amuse bouche (small tasty starter), then for Wendy a most unusual entree of half a bone with its marrow topped with breadcrumbed pork trotter (bone removed) with whole garlic and snails on top. Then a main course and then cheese course followed by a gourmet dessert and then petit fours. Very filling!

The next day we continued up the Saone to Seurre where we stopped the night. The temperature didn’t drop below 35C that night and we slept very badly. Next day on up the Saone to St Jean de Losne where we have been for the past three days having the boat looked at. It rained all day yesterday and half of today and the temperatures are much more moderate – thank goodness.

The boat had been smoking a lot more than usual in the past few weeks and also ‘leaking’ some oil or fuel through the exhaust. It could have been anything so we got a mechanic to do a compression test to rule out anything major. Fortunately there was no problem with the compression. We changed the oil and filter and cleaned the fuel filter but I suspect it is the injectors that need servicing – something we can’t do here easily. So we shall monitor the situation on our way up the Saone for a short cruise this week before heading back and going up the Canal Rhone au Rhin.

We have Wifi here at St Jean de Losne hence the early blog!

The Canal du Centre

We left Paray-le-Monial and passed a huge marquee filled with people singing hymns. Paray-le-Monial is a famous place of pilgrimage after a vision was seen in the 1800s. We arrived at Montceau-les-Mines later that very hot day in the company of a barge called Renaissance. Terry and Terry owned the barge and we moored up along side them in Montceau.

 

They were going to be staying the winter there but we were staying just two days as the next day was Bastille Day and a public holiday.

We went off shopping to a large hypermarket to stock up the fridge and then in the hot evening air stayed up late to watch the fireworks which were being launched in the port where we were moored. So we had front-row seats for the performance which was incredible. Incredibly loud and incredibly bright.

We were joined for the fireworks by Terry and Terry (Terence and Theresa) and afterwards sat out on deck until 1am in the warm air sipping wine and chatting. The next day we relaxed as we could do nothing and nothing was open. It was windy and unfortunately our umbrella developed a penchant for flying and so we had a quick look around any open stores to get a replacement which we couldn’t do.

And then it was off again along the very beautiful Canal du Centre. We stopped the night at St Julien sur Dheune. Unfortunately we could only stop next to a large barge. There are numerous barges all along the canals these days – mainly UK, Dutch and American. They clog up the quays and as they are large there is seldom room for other boats. On top of that they are used as floating cottages and as a result stay in the same place for weeks at a time. One Dutch barge we saw stayed in the same place all summer..

Going up the canal towards the summit as we were doing the locks are all named Ocean 1 or Ocean 34 etc as the water flows to the Atlantic ocean from that side. Once we reached the summit at Montchanin the locks are number Mediterranean for obvious reason. The view from the summit was fantastic.

  

And for the first time in weeks we started heading down locks rather than going up. Bridge Heights are always a problem on the canal and we have a stick at the front that tells us when a bridge height is less than 3.5m. Many are and we have to lower the canopy a few more centimetres. We are getting good now at estimated bridge heights to the nearest few centimetres. The clearance under the bridges is only a few centimetres. Any less and we risk losing the top of the boat. The canal follows the River Dheune and winds along the contours with vineyards above us and vineyards below us, all from the fabulous Monts d’Or where the great Burgundy wines come from.

There is virtually no commercial traffic at all these days. Once places like Montceau-les-Mines had hundreds of barges loading coal but today there is nothing. The canals are too small to compete with the railway. The bigger rivers and large canals are still busy because they can take giant barges.

Eventually one cloudy day after a thunderstorm we went down a 10 metre lock and emerged onto the mighty River Saone and left the Canal du Centre behind us. We headed downstream a few km to Chalon sur Saone where we spent the night. This morning we wandered around the town and bought lovely fruit and vegetables in the weekly market. Apricots have just come in to season  and they are lovely (and cheap) so we bought a huge bag to stew for breakfast. hen after lunch we headed upstream to Verdun sur Doubs. A lovely town at the confluence of the River Doubs and the Saone.

We will be travelling up the Doubs in a few weeks time but first we shall explore the River Saone upstream for a couple of hundred kilometres upstream. The weather is still hot but not quite as bad as there is a cooler Northerly wind instead of the SE hot one we have had for weeks.

The Heat goes On

 

We are tied up along the Canal du Centre in the middle of a small town called Paray-le-Monial and it is bliss. It is not that it is sunny. It is not that it is cold. It is not that there is a great view. It is not that it is free. It simply because we have found a mooring deep enough for our draught and in the shade of trees. For the last week we have endured blistering heat. It hasn’t rained for 3 weeks (except a short thunderstorm) and been over 30C every day and in the boat by the end of the day when the steel hull has absorbed all it can it can reach over 44C. The bedroom last night started at 33C  (11pm) and was down to 29C by dawn. Then it starts all over again. But today we have shade though it is still 34c in the shade.

We have been travelling along the  Lateral Canal de Loire all week some 200km at an average 20km a day. We have passed through sleepy towns like Nevers with its ancient Ducal Palace, through Decize where we dropped down from the canal and into the Loire hoping to find a shady place in the town centre. But we went aground and all our probing for a deep passage was in vain, so we tied up along an abandoned quay in the blazing sun.

And on we crawled up the canal until yesterday we crossed the Loire over a 285m aqueduct at Digoin and left behind our friend of the Lateral Canal as we joined the Canal du Centre to make the mad dash for the summit and descend into the valley of the Saone River.

 

But that is still to come.  Entering Digoin we were greeted by the news that the lock there was ‘en panne’ or out of action because of a thunderstorm that morning. It brought lots of flashes and claps and a small amount of rain which soon disappeared to leave a hot sunny day.

 

But it did knock out the electrics on the first electrically operated lock we had been through for over a 10 days!. (All the rest had been manual)Luckily there was a manual override and the lock keeper manually operated the hydraulic pumps to work the lock until they could get  a generator in place later that day. That day was also Wendy’s birthday and I had arranged dinner in a top restaurant in the town. We had wonderful food and wine and because as I mentioned before it was a hot day and the boat was shut up in the evening, when we returned the bedroom was 33c. Oh what a night!

So now in the shade of the Paray-le-Monial Plane trees I write this blog and motivate myself with the thought of an ice cold beer shortly and a the World Cup final being played later this evening. For all of those of you who are thinking how can these people complain about hot sunny days when it is so cold and wet in the southern hemisphere, then all we can say  is that there is some truth to grass being greener elsewhere. (And steel takes a long time to heat up and a long time to cool down)

This week we have Bastille Day when the locks are all closed but hopefully by the end of the week we shall have reached the great river Saone and begin our exploration of a new area of France.