We have a trip of 74 km up the Saone with only 2 locks -and this first part has no locks...The weather has turned a bit rainy so at least we can hide in the wheelhouse with no locks! It is too far for us to go in one hop so we stopped in the middle at the small village of Verdun sur la Doubs for a couple of nights. A phone call to the captainaire meant that a lovely reserved sign was waiting for us on a nice long quay, he even came down and took the ropes. It is a very pretty little town with buildings that go back to the middle ages and it tempts tourists with the offer of a tour of the Bread History Museum.
Tom and Trisha and their barge Elizabeth (we had met them in Fragnes) turned up about an hour later and rafted to us for the night. This was arranged by phone but when they arrived the good captain dashed out to make sure that these were the 'friends' we were expecting. We wonder what would have happened if we had said no...never seen them before in our lives! Rafting oftens happens when a port is full and we have been very grateful in the past to people who have kindly offered us this solution.
So off from Verdun to St John de Losne - often called the barge capital of France as it is where 5 canals join and has a massive port, workshops and chandlery - it is quite strange being here on board as we spent some time here looking at barges and the broker we bought ours through is just up the road.
The trip to St Jean was very wet and poor Laurel got drowned - 2 complete changes of clothes along the way! Not helped by the fact that our windscreen wiper broke last year and she had to keep popping out to squeegey the window!
Once again actually finding the entrance to the Canal de Bourgogne wasn't easy, we can only conclude that a huge commercial barge tied up to the bank must obscure the signs...all very reminiscent of our troubles finding the entrance to the Canal de Centre. Like all things once you find it you wonder what the trouble was but in the pouring rain we were both scanning the bank with our binoculars, and although we had a plan of the canal somehow it all looks a little different. A quick right hand turn into the canal then a sharp left into H2O marina and there we were!
We are moored alongside a 30 metre hotel barge - it makes us look quite small! We have taken the opportunity to visit the chandlerys and do some maintenance on the boat - top of the list was a new windscreen wiper and a replacement shower pump -[ Yeah! says Laurel] also some new fenders - it is surprising how few places on the Canals actually have places where you can purchase things like pumps and fenders.
Tom and Trish [Elizabeth] are also here, moored up on the quay in town and they invited us to a lovely dinner on board Elizabeth with some other Roanne residents Simon and May from NZ.
We planned to head off on Monday - but the forecasts said storms (of course it didn't rain all day!) - so we have delayed for a day and will now leave on Tuesday . We are heading for Dijon and hope to spend some time there...great museums, lots of things to see and do.
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