Canal du Nivernais, travel-report 2003: fourth day

This morning I cycled with Pepijn a few miles back to the village Bazolles. To our regret the bakery appeared to be ‘exceptionellement’ closed. We take a look in the little café of the village which is open already but they don't sell bread. I drink a cup of coffee standing at the bar and I buy some picture postcards.

As Pepijn and I are back the French are already impatiently leaving at ten to nine. We have breakfast with our some pre-baked bread. We always have some prefabricated bread in stock for this kind of occasions. We take off at nine exactly.

As soon as we reach the channel towards the tunnel we see the French navigating in front of us. The light which regulates the navigation in this section apparently is just green. We navigate very slowly because we don't want to be too close behind another boat in the tunnels. We sink slowly further and further into the landscape. As we reach the curve just before the tunnel we see the French again. The have stopped. They can't activate the light of their boat. I see the French woman walking around with a flash-light. I hope that that'll work. We have experienced the same kind of situation last year with a British couple on the Canal de Bourgogne.

It's a good thing that the tunnels aren't as long as the tunnel in the Canal de Bourgogne. The French get through without any problems. We navigate through the three tunnels which are situated close after each other. The Tunnel de la Collancelle is 758 meters long, the Tunnel de Mouas 268 meters and the Tunnel de Breuilles 212 meters. A small cleft is situated between the tunnels. Its walls are made of masonry and covered with moss and other plans.

Behind the Tunnel de Breuilles the most beautiful section of the entire canal is situated. Deeply cut in the hill we navigate between and under the fresh green. It looks fairy-like. The sunlight is filtered by the young leaves and the birds are singing enthusiastically.

We see a little waterfall now and then and at one place a bridge is constructed high above us. It is made in the past especially for a farm up there.

We travel on and arrive at Port Brûlé. In Port Brûlé is the beginning of the Sardy lock staircase. From this place we'll go downwards. The French are already waiting for the first lock. There is no lockkeeper and he can't be reached by phone either. The Frenchman is grumbling about ‘la bordel Française’. He has to be in time at Corbigny this evening to deliver his boat. He is cleaning his boat already. This boat hasn't been cleaned this seriously for years, I suppose. The Frenchman shuffles around on the boat ledge on bare feet and scrubs everything more than four times.

At eleven o'clock the lockkeeper suddenly appears and so we can navigate through the Sardy lock staircase, 16 locks in 3200 meters. Maarten and Pepijn are helping the lockkeeper. Pepijn cycles to the next lock making the locks ready for our arrival. Maarten is helping the lockkeeper managing the locks and even travels with him in his van from lock to lock.

The lock staircase looks somewhat abandoned. We have been here before (in summer) and everything looked more vivid. For the fist time since we started our journey the landscape is closed. We are navigating through the woods. We stop for lunch at a picnic place halfway the lock staircase. The weather has recovered from the dip of yesterday.

After lunch we travel on through the lock staircase. The French do so in the nonchalant way we are used to now. They don't tie the boat at the backside in the locks. Once I see their boat hanging on its bumping ledge at the lock-chamber's wall. After a while their boat flops down in the lock chamber. They don't give in. A dressing-down of a lockkeeper has effect just for one lock. The Frenchman uses a rope at the backside for once. But at the next lock he prefers to use a broom to push the boat away from the lock-quay. As soon as the pushing isn't necessary anymore he continues the scrubbing again.

Marga is now helping the lockkeeper and enjoys the walks from lock to lock. Meanwhile Pepijn is cycling still forward to get the next locks ready. Only at the fifteenth lock we see something of the promised artists who live at the Sardy lock staircase. In this lockkeepers house a potter lives.

Just after the Sardy lock staircase we arrive in a more open landscape again. We see again green hills, meadows with Charolaise cows, hedges ad tree edges. Somewhat later the lovely landscape has disappeared. We are navigating along enormous quarries.

After the quarries the lovely landscape comes back and the river Yonne is joining the canal. The Canal du Nivernais will follow the Yonne from here permanently.

At Corbigny we wave goodbye at the French. They have completed their journey. The women has told us she won't do this again and the man also isn't enthusiastic any more. He refuses all kind of help in the locks and once we saw him sitting desperately at the kitchen table with his head in his hands. His cleaning-tendency continues. He is shuffling around on the boat ledge on his bare feet all day, throwing buckets of water and scrubbing the boat with his broom.

The section between lock 24 and the double lock 25/26 is one-way traffic. The canal cuts a hill here.

We navigate on all day. We are about a day in front of the schedule I made at home. At the end of the day we passed 29 locks (and three tunnels). In the afternoon it is cloudy but in the evening the sun is shining again.

The little port of Chitry-les-Mines is abandoned. We find electricity but the water taps are disconnected. I survey the environment and see a beautiful place for the night next to a counter-poise bridge, le pont-levis de Germenay. We decide to leave the port and moor at the bridge in the middle of nature.

Pepijn and Robert are going by bike and are opening the bridge. As we have passed the bridge Robert is standing on top op the opened bridge. Of course Pepijn and Maarten want to do the same and so the first counterpoise bridge on our trip gives us much pleasure.

When the children are tired of the bridge I lay the turns of the steel cable correctly on the reel. A pair of black hands is the result.

We are moored at a beautiful place near a hill. The sun is shining and the birds are singing in the brushwood. The counterpoise bridge is just for a sandy road. There isn't any traffic.

In Chitry-les-Mines Marga and I are making a short trip by bike. We see a beautiful chateau in the village but it's only open at appointment in summer. Also at the watermill near the river has a sign 'Proprieté privée'. We also see some signs of remembrance of the writer Jules Renard who used to live here.