The Saône & Petit Saône: Tournus - Gigny-sur-Saône – Gergy-sur-Saône – Seurre – Saint-Jean-de-Losne – Auxonne – Pontailler-sur-Saône – Gray.

25 September to 6 October 2019. 171 kilometers, 7 locks.

Tuesday September 24.  Tournus to Gigny-sur-Saône . 11 kilometers, 1 lock. 1 hours, 40 minutes.

Having spent the previous evening boat-watching,

110 meters long and laden.

we spent a little time ambling around lovely Tournus before setting off mid-morning, probably for the last time in our lives, for the short cruise to Gigny

Bye, bye lovely Tournus.

which we reached just as the wind was starting to really push.

Lilac  pushing up to Chalon. .

Safely ensconced in the old Gergy lock mooring
and the wind and waves are really starting to pick up.

Half an hour later there were white capped waves racing against the current and evening brought in a majestic front and an almighty storm! So, once again, we have not explored what Gigny has to offer.

Wednesday 25 September. Gigny-sur-Saône to Gergy-sur-Saône . 36 kilometers, 0 locks. 3 hours, 15 minutes.

Having decided to have lunch at the 'Guinguette l'Eau a la Bouche' (which we now think might mean 'Mouthwatering Tavern' or 'From Water to Mouth Tavern), something which has almost become a ritual since our first visit on a Le boat in 2012, we set off at eight o'clock on a clear, still, crisp, morning, passing through Chalon-sur-Saône just before ten, and arriving at Gergy well before lunchtime - only to find that it was not open from Monday to Thursday. What a disappointment!

House of cards?

The island of Chalon-sur-Saone

Amaryllis

Daniele

We did however, for the first time ever, explore the small town and quite a pretty little place it was too with a really large library for a village of its size.

The library, probably the largest building in the village.

Returning to  Elle  we find the small pontoon 'packed' with three, mid-sized Le Boat hirers, closely attached.

More ship-spotting over sundowners and then it was off to bed.

Thursday September 26. Gergy-sur-Saône to Seurre . 28 kilometers, 1 lock. 3 hours, 15 minutes.

Another eight-year ish departure is overcast, very nippy morning, we cruise past the 'needles' at Chaumont, past Verdun-sur-Doubs ,

Great Victoria

Grand Cru

Panta Rhei  last seen in Besancon. There is an identically named
Dutch cruiser for sale and moored near Gray.

VNF maintenance depot.

sharing the large (180m x 11.75m) Echelles lock with one of the thirty-eight meter charter barges,  Lilas,  until we arrive at the big steps at Seurre, mooring against which is reserved for passenger-carrying craft,

so we back onto the pleasure craft pontoon in glorious solitude - but not for long. By evening the port was full except for one space between us and an American couple on an ex-hireboat, slow to them by a friend for two weeks, and they were hooked. They live on a boat in the US / Caribbean and were now planning on purchasing a cruiser in France to use during the hurricane season.

Friday September 27. Seurre to Saint-Jean-de-Losne. 28 kilometers, 1 lock.

Leaving before eight in order to arrive in SJDL at mooring swop-over time, we arrive at the big Seurre lock, call on the radio for service, the lights turn to red / green (lock being prepared) and then to green and we trundle in, tie up and give the lady locky a thumbs-up to indicate that we are ready, and the doors start closing. And then they stop and start opening again… and we wait… and wait. Eventually a cruiser appears from downstream, slows down to almost a halt long before the fully-open lock doors and, inch by inch, makes its way to a place behind us, take forever to tie up and finally, after half an hour since we entered, the lock doors close and we can be on our way

 Strangely, the snails-pace cruiser belted past us once out of the lock, went about four hundred meters ahead of us, and then slowed to our pace - we could only assume that they wanted to arrive in SJDL before us so that they could nab any available space but they didn't and passed through the port to who knows where.

And this is where the fun started…

The port was full with two barges rafted against each other and another two on the quay together with four cruisers, one of which appeared deserted, so we tied up in the hotel-boat mooring zone and Lynn made her way down the quayside to ask if anyone was contemplating leaving that morning. The long and the short was that, an hour later, the Canadian flagged barge left leaving space for us - and their friends on a similarly Canadian flagged ex-hireboat departed so we settled down to find a pub which would be showing the Boks vs Namibia RWC game the next day.

The next thing, we see a Brit flagged barge draw alongside and a woman shouts across at me “How long are you?”, I'm not sure why as, at over seventeen meters and probably more than twice our weight, there was no way that they were they going to raft up against us. Then a whole crowd arrived with an assorted bunch of dogs in tow from the other Brit flagged boats, measured out the space between ourselves and the cruiser downstream of us, and announced that, if we and the boat upstream of us moved up, the barge  Daisy  could fit in. With the upstream boat being deserted it did not leave us much space to maneuver but the barge, with lines thrown to the team ashore for assistance and the on-board  stoep-kakker yapping madly, pushed its way into the gap leaving our bow inches from the deserted boat and their stern directly under our davits, and not a word of thanks to us for having had to re-arrange lines and add an extra spring! And the  stoepie  carried on yapping until I shouted at it to shut up and slammed down our hatch.

The reception committee.

Anyway, with Lynn seething, we settled down for a glass of wine and a late afternoon braai.

Saturday morning the bikes were unloaded and we rode to the car-wash based laundry and, while the washing did its thing, we did quite a big shop at the nearby Intermarche which I then rode back to Elle with as Lynn had to bring back quite a heavy load of washing - how our tires managed without popping, I have no clue! Then it was back to the nearby Casino supermarket for some items deemed too heavy to have been carried from the Intermarche (read 'wine'), then a stroll around the boats on offer at the H2O boat-brokers' Open Day and then to the little quayside pub 'Brasserie du Port' to watch the rugby and to have a light luncheon but the first half was so boring that we retired back to the boat and put a pork roast onto the Weber instead - it was delicious!  

So what fun started might you ask? Well, this particular quay is reserved for boats no longer than fifteen meters, which boats may not stay for more than three days at a time.

This is a very large sign, prominently placed.

On Saturday morning one of the Brit cruisers moved off leaving space for one of the rafted-up barges to moor up against the 'steps' so we then had the deserted French cruiser, ourselves, + 17m  Daisy , another cruiser, 22m  HeliOx and another + 17m barge (all Brit flagged by the way) moored in a place reserved for boats not longer than 15m - blatant law-breakers. 

Lynn is a member of a women-only Facebook barge forum and she posted, very politely, that people should respect the laws and, in return, was soundly flamed with totally irrelevant comments, not one of which addressed the issue in Lynn's post. One woman even gave her own, self-serving and totally inaccurate, interpretation of the parking restriction sign so we sent an email to the Mayor asking for clarification to which she promptly replied

-       No boats over 15 meters

-       No staying for longer than three days.

When Lynn posted the Mayor's message she received a couple of supporting comments and then the Forum Administrator, coincidentally a +15 meter barge owner, closed the topic to further comment. Nice one!

The next morning we found a dog turd on our mat which was on the deck…

Sunday 29 September. Saint-Jean-de-Losne to Auxonne . 18 kilometers, 1 lock. 2 hours, 15 minutes.

Sadly, we could not wait to leave the Brits to St Jean but leave we did,

SJDL - we'll be back

tying up at the municipal pontoon in Auxonne where services could not be obtained as the Mairie is closed on Sundays. There was another cruiser on the next pontoon flying a South African flag from its spreader so we invited the South African couple, Digby and Allison, aboard for sundowners. Digby and his step-brother had each been given a half share in the boat by their parents who, in their eighties, were too old to continue the lifestyle. Digby was a submariner in the SA Navy and also served in the diplomatic corps as a naval attaché and I would have loved to have heard some of the stories which he undoubtedly had a lot of to tell.

Tuesday 1 October to Thursday 3 October. A short diversion to Decize.

Our early season plans had been to meet Ian and Sian somewhere on the Canal du Center for a bit of cruising together - Ian also had a set of glow-plugs and a pair of pedals for my electric bike which he had ordered 'free postage to Europe 'for me. The closure of the Canal du Center between Digion and the Saône River put paid to these plans so we booked a hotel room for two nights, two train tickets to Decize, moved Elle to Port Royal where she will over-winter,  

Elle on the pontoons in Port Royal.

Auxonne station.

and went off to meet up with the Carters. They met us at the Decize station in their nine meter cruiser  Njord  and cruised us through the first / last lock on the Nivernais Canal and onto the Loire River where we moored up quite near to the center of the town and a five minute walk from our hotel.

Sian cooked a delicious late-lunch spaghetti bolognaise after which we walked across the bridge to the hotel, checked in, walked back to Njord for talks and laughs, some discussion about the hurricane (Lorenzo) which was headed straight for their home in the Azores , and a cheesy supper before, finally retiring across the bridge again, to bed.  

Hotel de l'Agriculture.

The view from our window. Noisy road but the
double glazing blocked out the sound completely.

The next morning, despite drizzly weather, we met up again and walked around the town, one which we really like - Ian's back was troubling him so he went back to the boat to do some lie-down stretching while we continued our wanderings until the weather drove us into a small restaurant for drinks and to wait for Ian who had said that his back was okay and that he would join us for lunch to which the Carters treated us, and a very good it was too - slow-cooked pork cheek with fries. Drool.

The Town Hall.

The ancient Church of St Are.

Our restaurant with the France / USA game on TV.

The Carters are besotted with cats!

After an afternoon nap, we inquired of the Carters whether they were up to a game of petanque which they were, so we strolled across to the large petanque court and, keeping as far from the enthusiastic French players as possible so as not to publicly disgrace ourselves, the Cullens proceeded to (once again) thrash the Carters despite Sian's best efforts to regularly claw back big hauls of points.

But at least the hurricane, despite doing a lot of damage to parts of Faial, only blew some tiles off their roof but one of their friends' home was destroyed.

The next morning

we met aboard  Njord  for coffee and  escargot du rasin , a curly, sweet, custard filled and raisin topped pastry which we all love and which Sian had purchased from the boulangerie that morning. After the purchase by Ian of an angle-grinder and pneumatic Dremel-like tool from the nearby Weldom our short visit was over. We were spirited back through the lock to the station, said our farewells and after nearly three hours we were back aboard  Elle  - and surrounded by all the barges which had been at SJDL. They are also wintering there, with some staying aboard for the duration, Hard Deal Brexit dependent we suppose.

Decize station.

Beaune vineyards - stunning Reds.

The dam at Auxonne.

Thanks for all the spoilies Carters - much appreciated!

Friday October 4.  Auxonne to Pontailler-sur-Saône . 18 kilometers, 2 locks. 2 hours, 20 minutes.

Having time on our hands before we have to winterize and pack for South Africa, we decided to take a leisurely cruise to another favorite city, Gray.

It's not all fair = weather sailing.

Leaving Auxonne.

A last-minute decision just before arriving at Pontailler saw us agree that, if the pontoon adjacent to the restaurant which we had noted on a previous trip was free, we would stop and have lunch at the 'Restaurant des Marronners'. It was so we did and very good it was too.

Butternut soup - delicious but Sian's was better.
Port terrine - brilliant!

Some kind of fish - sounded like Eyes but who knows.

Nothing wrong with any Beaune Red.

A very old and typical French town, Pontallier, which is built on a loop of the ancient Saône River, it is worth spending a morning walking around but stay away from the old barge mooring on the 'steps' over the weekends in mid-summer when the water-skiers go crazy.

The main square being resurfaced.

Looking across the Old Saone.

The old barge mooring on the Saone.

We are moored through the tunnel.

Saturday 5 October. Pontailler-sur-Saône to Gray and some pre-winterizing time . 32 kilometers, 2 locks. 2 hours, 15 minutes.

On another gray day we set off upstream for the pretty, little mooring outside the Chateau of Mantoche. Through the lock (strangely devoid of hireboats) and then passing the blue bridge welcoming one to the Canal Entre Champagne et Bourgogne,

Again!

up the derivation, back onto the lovely, winding river

They obviously did not know that there is a lovely mooring a kilometer away.

This is the one - Port St Pierre.

through another and derivation and in no time at all we were at Mantoche with the wall occupied solely by the strange-looking charter boat which we have crossed a few times in the recent past.

Mantoche.

Having had  Elle  covered in autumn leaves the night before and having just cleaned them all up, one look at the lovely shades of leaves lining the quay made us have a change of heart and push on another eight kilometers to Gray.

The serviced pontoons 2kms downstream of Gray.

There were six boats moored up and a downstream headed Le Boat which we had passed had obviously just vacated a spot in almost exactly the same place as we had moored in July, so we pulled up, tied up, attached the electricity and meandered off to the Intermarche across the road for some supplies. Just back on board and the wind picked up and it absolutely poured and the weather stayed cold and wet for the rest of the day and the whole of Sunday so we did not move from our snug saloon at all.

Is she stalking us?