Week 2 7th May- 13th May The Smedleys and We are Off.

With Doucette now watertight, we look forward to welcoming our first visitors of the season and setting off on this years cruise. Still before they arrive on Friday we set off the 30miles to Clamecy hoping to buy a couple of extra chairs for the poop. We get there to find all the hypermarkets closed. It is yet another French Bank Holiday. Unbelievable! We come back with just some tomatoe plants and a herb pot. Next day we repeat the journey on route to meeting Steve and Jackie at Mailly la ville where they will leave the car and come back to Baye with us. We are delighted to get the chairs and meet the Smedlars at 1pm as arranged.

 A great visit to the stunning Vezelay is a lovely start to their trip as a diversion on our return to Baye where after settling them in, we route march them on a round trip walk to baye village via the etang. It is a truly lovely spot and despite obvious fatigue,  all enjoyed the late evening stroll in the sun.

Saturday saw us delay ou departure as a result of a Foire du Terroire in Corbigny. after introducing Steve to Ted Johnson resulting in an hours intense discussion on the merits of British leyland classic engines and farm machinery we dragged him away and discover the corbigny high street filled with farm gear and animals from heavy weight drays to prized cattle to geese, sheep, horses and all manner of critter. What a bloody racket though! We watched and sniffed agog at the sheepshearer. A combination of a  lack of deoderant, a skintight wetlook singlet and a writhing sheep under his armpit did nothing for his lady killing powers but everything for the marketing strategy of the adjacent aromatheraputic candle store a short hop down the high street. We amazed at the quite incredible demonstration of a 19th century clogmaking machine. Truly a work of art. We purchased a stinkily expensive speciality pate and a couple of cases of st bris wine before selecting the loony locals bar for steak and poivre  with frites menu for lunch. A super meal was distressingly interupted by a nasty alcohol fuelled spat between two thugs whose families and young children witnessed the whole sorry episode. The first time we have witnessed such behaviour in France and we were glad to make a hurried exit. Shame as it had been a very pleasant lunch.

Up with the larks Sunday, well at least those that awoke at 9.30am, and with car stashed for a long hot summer at Baye, goodbyes, wines for michel  and a case of beer for the team and rising excitement, Doucette roars into life and I point her bow at the bridge to enter the collancelle and the 2014 cruise begins.
A magnificent poodle through this scenically stunning stretch of 3kms. Steep vine laden banks line the steep wooded cut where the trees form a natural arbour complete with tumbling waterfalls.

 

 Cyclists stopped to watch and photgraph our progress as we drifted under the cathedral like pont over this narrowest of waterway stretches as I cautiously pilot Doucette between the all too close rocky edges of the canal.

Quite an introduction to the Nivernais for our smiling guests.

 

 Lunch was taken at the end of the Collancelle prior to the start of the 16 lock staircase down through the sardy valley.

 

 And so our descent began,

 

fortunately Mr Smedlar, keen on losing a couple of pounds offered to help at one of the locks. After engaging with an eclusier who spoke perfect English, he was very soon offered an honorary eclusiers badge and his enthusiasm for his new found expertise cast a strange spell over him. He emerged from the wheelhouse after his second performance with a distant glazed look. Tonight Mathew, I am Forest Gump. With that he vaulted over the guard rails and started to run. and run and run.

 From lock to lock he ran stopping only to heave open and closed theses heavy gates as Doucette made her way down the staircase.

 He wavered just a moment intrigued by the hippee locks pink themed cottage come tea room.

 

 But with his lock gates closed He was off again

 

And Gump just ran quicker and worked harder, the sculpturs at their expo lock stood in open mouthed astonishment as he scorched past them with a cheery Bonjour but everything must end and as we came to the final lock of the staircase, a tear seeped from his eye as Jackie told him "gump that is enough you must not run anymore" It was 3kms to the next lock.  He slumped prostate on the sundeck a complete exhausted shambles.

 I guess having guests on board is like a box of chocolates, you just never know what you`re gonna get!

We overnighted at the locaboat marina at Les Granges and paid 13 euros for the night having had to go and find someone in the morning prior to departure.

Monday was a day on the canals with Steve recovering from yesterdays exertions, It was Jackie this time excelling in operating  the delightful manual lifting bridges.

 Weather turned a bit iffy and we moored at an idyllic rural setting of Dirol for the night.

 

A stroll took in one of the only remaining wooden lifting bridges remaining in use on the French waterways

 

Tuesday morning is lazy before setting off into Montceau le compte to the famed auberge du centre.

 

 A stunning lunch at a fantastic typicaal rural french restaurant. Two and a half hour of culinary bliss is a trip highlite already but means a late start but we make it to Asnois where I make the bad decision to mount the wheels of steel to go in search of bread. a fruitless and exhausting 18kms later I return to join the crew on a stroll into this deathly quiet and alarmingly mysterious village. a plethora of goats skulls adorned too many abodes and the village was a shrine to brocante and crap. Surely there were things of value but far outweighed by the confused mass of absolute worthless rotting junk which could only adorn a skip and look well placed. We made a hurried return to Doucette delayed only by another quirk of fate or was it wierd sign.

 

 

We Locked up securely this night and cuddled up close as the hoot of an owl was drowned out by a shriek of goodnight from our very own Jackie Gobillot.

Week 2 Stats.

Distance Travelled  32kms
Locks                       39
Mooring Fees           13 euros