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BARGING THROUGH EUROPE
5 years exploring Europe by barge
Jay and Maureen McDaniell
Copyright AJL McDaniell - all rights reserved.
No copies may be made of this book except in part for education or academic reason.
This book may not be sold or rented for gain.
INTRODUCTION
In 1999, Jay and Maureen McDaniell, an Australian professional couple in their 50s, decided to close down their Public Relations business in Perth, Western Australia, sell their house and travel to Europe to live and explore France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany on a barge. In June 2001 Jay set off to buy one.
A ‘barge’ in Europe is somewhat different from the unpowered floating metal boxes that carry large loads of sludge and other materials on waterways in other parts of the world. Natural waterways were used in Europe from early times to transport delicate, large or heavy loads, since most important towns grew up on rivers, their source of water, and their interconnecting roads were little better than muddy quagmires in winter and dusty, bone shaking, load breaking tracks in summer. The original open boats eventually developed into owner’s homes and shelter for the valuable animals that pulled them. From the early 1600s, canals were developed and built to link cities and rivers together in order to supply food and to speed manufactured products to markets safely.
With the availability of cheap diesel engines following World War One, these boats, now made of iron rather than wood, were powered and re-designed to provide proper accommodation for their crews, often families. Known as Luxemotors (for the comparative luxury accommodation and motor power provided), many survived the ravages of Nazi use during the Second World War and the downsizing of waterways trade in the 1950s through to the 1990s. The latter decline was caused by cheaper and faster trucking and rail transport that could pick up and deliver direct, door to door or centre to centre, where canals and rivers did not exist. While some older barges continue to be used for commerce, newer, much larger models were built to continue commercial transport into the 21st Century while many of the remaining, older and smaller models were converted as live-aboard ‘homes’ for explorers and locals alike.
Our barge, Van Nelle, the star of this story, was a nearly 90 year old veteran of the Dutch trade, built by the Van Nelle tobacco, coffee and tea company of Rotterdam. Sold out of their service in the 50s, she carried drinking water and mail and eventually was sold into private use in 1991. 80% converted to live-aboard use during 1999 to 2001, we bought her where she lay in Loosdrecht, the Netherlands, in June 2001 from the young Dutch carpenter who had partially converted her.
What got us interested in this unusual way of life ? We had taken a holiday with two other couples on a rental boat in France in 1999 and loved the experience. Returning to work, it took me only months to work out the financial and practical plan that would take Maureen and I back semi-permanently. Our decision was based on the premise that you only live once and you have to ‘do it’ while you are physically able, so why work 7 days a week just to pay staff. Our 30 something year old children were capable of looking after themselves, they had provided no grandchildren so far and while my parents were long gone, Maureen’s were independent and very healthy. There were no insurmountable barriers.
We sold our house, in part to pay for the boat, leased out our office building and arranged for the rental income from that and other investments to pay our way. Then we crossed our fingers and jumped.................
This book is dedicated to my long suffering and loving crew, the chef, the deckhand, wife and mother of our children - without whose agreement, forbearance and patience this voyage could never have happened - despite the fact we disagree with some of its detail !
NOTE: Click on Chapter numbers to go direct to them and then on the next Chapter heading to get back to the top.
Introduction.............. Page 2
Chapter One - 2001 - To the Netherlands............................................................................... Page 4
Chapter Two - We own Van Nelle......................................................................................... Page 25
Chapter Three - The Voyage South..................................................................................... Page 47
Chapter Four - Burgundy...................................................................................................... Page 69
Chapter Five - 2002 - Cruising the Centre and Going South........................................... Page 101
Chapter Six - Burgundy to Paris......................................................................................... Page 130
Chapter Seven - Down the Rhone to the Canals Entre Deux Mers................................. Page 148
Chapter Eight - Winter in Montech..................................................................................... Page 170
Chapter Nine - 2003 - Cruising the Midi and Lateral a la Garonne................................. Page 180
Chapter Ten - Winter and Italy........................................................................................... Page 203
Chapter Eleven - 2004 - Back to Burgundy and All Points North.................................... Page 209
Chapter Twelve - End of 2004 - A Trip to Australia......................................................... Page 239
Chapter Thirteen - 2005 - The Netherlands........................................................................ Page 242
Chapter Fourteen - Heading South..................................................................................... Page 252
Chapter Fifteen - Back to Burgundy................................................................................... Page 264
Chapter Sixteen - Swansong................................................................................................. Page 272
Chapter One - To The Netherlands
Monday 11 June, 2001.
The day after my 52nd birthday was a panic. I had to be at the airport at 1.30pm but before that, pick up and install a computer in our office for our lessee, install a run-off gutter on the top step of the office basement to stop the rain flooding our stored records, furniture and effects, get travellers cheques, pick up and deal with the mail, deliver office keys to the office leasing agent - and the house keys to Nina, the agent who had sold our house, then pack for the trip, shower, change and get a taxi to the airport - and hopefully say goodbye to my wife Maureen on the way ! (She was to join me in Holland but not for a couple of months).
Shortly after 1.30pm I was there. I had my front row seat allocation on the plane (unfortunately in economy class), the blood pressure was diminishing somewhat - but the hangover from my previous day’s birthday party and send off at the yacht club was not. I bought some writing paper to reply to a couple of incidental letters (one to my favourite aunt) and settled in to the café to wait for Maureen. She arrived at the airport to farewell me after her morning motor bike lesson and left shortly after for a 3.00pm meeting in Fremantle, Western Australia’s sea port. Long farewells at airports are unhappy things best left for demonstrative Europeans, so ours were short and sweet.
We had both decided to get motor bike licenses as we figured one or two of them would likely fit on a barge, whereas a car was impractical. I had ridden bikes for years but not legally and Maureen had never tried. I had taken my test a week before the trip and failed - miserably - while Maureen passed at her first attempt. Since the waiting time for tests was in the order of two weeks it looked likely I was to ride illegally in Europe as well. Fortunately the examiners found a cancellation in a different testing office and the day before departure I was ‘helped’ to pass. This should have been taken as a portent for many of the challenges ahead.
I had a great flight as usual on Singapore Airlines. The choice of good, recent movies, quiet, efficient and generous service, quite good food (but how come it always spills on your shirt), and I was off at Singapore about six hours later. The cyber cafés at Changi Airport are free and efficient and my email was received, read and replied to in less than fifteen minutes. The one and a half hour connection also allowed time for me to buy some necessities at the airport supermarket since I had left all my toilet articles in the bathroom at my father and mother-in-law’s house. They had kindly taken us in from the time our house handover had been completed a week before and despite their very real reservations to this mad adventure, had managed to avoid bringing up the subject of ‘responsibility’ in the “how could you be so irresponsible” context.
To be safe I used the efficient connection desk at Changi airport to ensure my front row seat allocation had not been gazumped before boarding. All was well and on finding my seat I found a young Dutch couple in the row with me which was very useful for finding out some pertinent information about the country I was about the enter. This was a pretty full flight of some 11-12 hours to Schipol in the Netherlands, but a quick snack, a good movie and 3 sleeping pills sent me off for 4 hours. Another few of these very non toxic, no hangover sleeping pills gave me another 4 hours sleep until about 50 minutes before landing. I was feeling much recovered from the hangover now, ready to take delivery of the hire car I had booked on the internet and brave the early morning Dutch freeway traffic.
I should note here that almost everything I did in preparation for this trip was done on the internet. Looking for barges for sale, finding a broker I was comfortable with, learning about the business of buying and running a nearly 27 metre boat on narrow canals, booking hotels, hire cars, banking, mail, paying accounts, planning routes, booking rail and air tickets, booking moorings, finding boat parts and places for service and maintenance, planning sight seeing - all had been done and continued to be done on the world wide web. Fortunately my 24 years with IBM and Lexmark prepared me for the technology challenges incurred.
Tuesday 12
I had been to Holland before. ‘Holland’ is just part of the tiny country more correctly called ‘The Netherlands’ which is only some 200 by 300 kilometres in size ! I came a year before to see barges and to take my ‘Certificate de Capacite’ in northern France so I had a slight idea of what I was in for. On the previous occasion however I was met by Tony Charman the barge broker and driven everywhere. This time I had to do it myself.
I arrived at the amazing Schipol airport (which is more of a city in itself) at 6.30am and got through customs pretty quickly. Outside I took off to the wrong end of the terminal to find the rental car guide who, when I retraced my steps, was waiting patiently just near the customs exit. Once found there were some quick formalities and I was on the way to Utrecht and on the first ride into the great unknown, on the ‘wrong’ side of the road and without much of a map.
Maps don’t help much if you are driving without a navigator and therefore can’t read them while driving. Fortunately in Europe, road signs are plentiful and if you see them in time and believe that you should stick to the road you are on until you see a new one re-directing you, you will find your way - which is why I am writing this in my hotel and not from Siberia. I have been ‘lost’, or should I say, temporarily misplaced, most of the time I have been driving the car here and also on foot.
However - my first task was to find the accommodation in Utrecht I thought I had arranged. I should have known from the cryptic email replies I had received that it was going to be a dud and it sure was. A couple of laid back middle eastern people in the house, the front room of which had been hastily converted to a breakfast room / office / reception room / cyber café / whatever. It was very grubby and not at all me. I read the riot act to all and sundry, including one very startled back packer trying to eat a not very appetizing breakfast and I was hastily redirected to ‘the house with a green door’ on the other side of Utrecht.
This address proved to be up a one way street, the entrance of which was blocked completely by road works. After an age of creeping forward - there was no going back - I eventually found the ‘green door’ and got inside to be met by the chaos of a building site. The man in charge directed me to a stair case that was nearly vertical (I kid you not) to the fourth floor that revealed an unfinished room. I would probably not have been able to get the suitcase up the stairs and certainly would never have been able to get it down so I left, now in a bit of a panic about accommodation. It was lucky I didn’t have an inspection to do that day since I was now into the afternoon. I came, I saw and I capitulated - cancelled my booking and set out to search for a better deal. This was probably the only dud experience I had using the internet.
I retreated to the Centrum of Utrecht (all town centres are called Centrum) found a parking station and headed for the Tourism Office. Normally I would have checked the accommodation with them but in this case I had not been able to get a reply to my email inquiries. In person they could not have been more helpful. I explained where I wanted to be and the price I wanted to pay and within 4 calls they had a hotel in a more convenient town and a chalet at a camping ground as a backup choice, both close to Loosdrecht, the town near several of our preferred barge targets.
While I was in Utrecht I also set off to start a bank account. The first bank was unmanned except on Fridays (look out Australia if that’s the trend); the second provided a set of forms to fill in and then gave me the directions to a competitive bank which was manned (and lady'ed). They couldn’t have been more friendly and after a few little computer glitches (which included issuing me the account number of a huge European conglomerate which happened to have set up an account at exactly the same time), I had an account at the ABN AMRO bank of Utrecht, the Netherlands - my first overseas account !
Flushed with success, I decided it was also time to organise a phone card for my mobile phone to reduce the local call costs. This was also dealt with quickly and efficiently as most Dutch speak exceptionally good English. Unfortunately the first time I wanted to use the phone, having left the assistance of the phone company employees, I was assailed by Dutch instructions from a robot on the other end which proved a major challenge. But now it was time to set off for the adjoining town of Houten and my hotel.
Road works are a regular thing in Holland it seems. One way streets abound, some with only one exit, many completely blocked by road works. The same is in evidence in the town of Houten where I eventually found the really pretty little hotel they had arranged. It is on a town square surrounded by old churches, cute shops and plane trees. However to get there, the entrance from the ring road was completely blocked and necessitated an 11 km drive to approach from the opposite side of the town to the only other entrance. This could be hilarious at peak hour if one was still in reasonable humour after a day of being trapped or going the wrong way on massive freeways.
The hotel was really a beaut little pub, cheap, at about 35 Euros per day, but the sting was in the cost of meals - 30 Euros and beer at 3 each. This seems a bit strange since the food and wines are not expensive when bought at supermarkets and wine shops - one of which is just next door ! Dinner was pleasant but lonely and the bed was soft and warm.
Wednesday 13
Today was the first boat inspection day so I was up early and off to Aalst to look at ‘Vrijheid’.
At this time of course we did not own a boat. We had seen several we were very happy with on our separate inspection trips, mine taken in October the year before this, and I knew from the broker there were several more that fitted our requirements. I had seen Van Nelle the year before, a 27 metre ‘Katwijker’ type that had been about 80% converted. Frank, the owner, had promised it would be finished by April 2001 and I had been dismayed to see the price on the internet rising. An indication of the increased value as it approached completion I thought.
With the confidence of my convictions I had convinced Maureen to pack and send our furniture and belongings by sea in a container in June and they were to arrive in late July, so I actually had to find a barge that would fit the refrigerators, tables and chairs, sideboards and stereos, washing machine and dryer and all the other goods and chattels we had sent to live with. I had better get on with it.
I started early as I was waking up between 4.30 and 5.30am, brain already racing. Breakfast was preset the night before so it was easy to get off to a good start. As a side issue, breakfast is made up of slices of bread, cheese and ham, butter, coffee, chocolate, jams and condiments. No wheaties, no vegemite.
I ate some and made a sandwich of the rest and decided I would do some recce’s of the camping ground and the location of the main target boat ‘Van Nelle’ before my first inspection at 11.00am. I found both - not without driving dramas - and arrived at Vrijheid, my first appointment in time to video outside of the ship to the accompaniment of the large guard dog on the passarelle (gangway).
Maureen had seen Vrijheid on her trip a little over a year before and had video taped it so I was already familiar with a lot of its features. This ship had a lot of benefits but also some show stoppers, such as its size. It was just too big for the job we had in mind, with a 5 metre beam and 3.2m air height that was not reduce able by lowering the roof, as it was a one piece steel construction. However, I had a good 2-3 hour inspection from the bilge to the decks and from the bow to the stern in order to get some experience before Friday - Van Nelle day. It also gave me a recent boat I could compare, in negotiations on price and conditions with Van Nelle’s owners. In the end that worked well for me.
This day I also came to grips with solving some phone problems. The phone was key to my communication strategy for both the internet (connected to my lap top computer) and voice to the broker and home. It seemed to just cut out from time to time, and had a constant and infuriating email problem, not being able to send messages out, which turned out to be a missing phrase in the code line for the outward mail server. Finding a phone company shop was key in solving the problem.
On the way back to Houten I came across a very flash boat sales yard and marina and went in to inquire if they had any leads - they came up with Mijnheer Maurits Horst (who you will meet later) and so I arranged to meet him later in the week in Amsterdam.
Wednesday was Rotary night in Houten so I went to make some acquaintances. A pleasant meal with some of the meeting conducted in English (for me), but the guest speaker presenting in Dutch. He spoke for 40 minutes about concrete. I didn’t think there was that much to say about the subject and by the looks on the faces of the rest of the audience, they agreed ! The highlight of the occasion however, was that they introduced themselves and their professions and I introduced myself to a lawyer who may have been useful in legal work for the boat. He had the unlikely but propitious name of Helm Osse. It sounds to me like he is meant ‘to steer, this Aussie’, a good omen I think.
Thursday 14
I went for a run this morning (this being before my knees and ankles protested too much and sent me biking instead) and found the railway station was only a ten minute walk (or a five minute run) from the hotel. Trains ran to Utrecht every 16 minutes, so I decided I would take the train to meet Maurits in Amsterdam. Now, I had seen something on TV about a train derailment, but since it was in Dutch I had not put 2 and 3 together, so when I arrived at the station I was informed that the rail to Amsterdam from Utrecht was out and the train / bus / train combination would take about 2 hours. I decided to drive instead - to Amsterdam - I must have been crazy !
Getting to Amsterdam is not too much of a problem as the freeways are great and mostly lead to the city - if you get on in the right direction. It is when you get into Amsterdam - city of canals - and need to find your way through the ring roads blocked by canals, road works, bikes, tourists and one way streets, that you have the problem. Amazingly I found the meeting place quite easily as it was just off the freeway, and was soon lambasted by Maurits’ favourite philosophies of barging, none of which I agreed with, as his ideas started at $US 500,000. This lasted about and hour before I could get him to take me to see some ships he had in preparation at ‘his’ shipyard. Strangely he had trouble finding the place where ‘his boats’ were. That should have said something but I was distracted by seeing the sand blasting and coating that was under way on a couple of hulls before we made up with a herring sandwich and the inspection of a new boat.
Farewelling the garrulous and far too expensive Mynheer Horst I began my return to Utrecht.
I took every wrong turn possible in Amsterdam, becoming more and more ‘misplaced’ and turning a 5 minute connection to the A2 freeway a 40 minute un-conducted tour of the back streets, unfortunately not the interesting ones ! I finally made it to the freeway and into Utrecht where I circled the block three times trying to find the entrance to the main city car park. In circling the block I found I was actually using a ‘bus only’ street into the central bus depot at the central station. Thankfully I was not pounced on by the local police but I was looked at strangely by locals waiting for their busses as I passed them several times.
Once I had parked and left the parking station I found myself in a really confusing shopping mall that linked buildings with the central station, the town centre and the huge music theatre and concert hall. I was so concerned I would lose the car by not being able to find my way back to the subterranean cavern that I retraced my steps immediately to assure myself I knew where to find it. Even then it was touch and go.
Then it got worse, I really couldn’t remember where the bank was that I had set up my account just two days earlier, and forgetting I had the address on the manager’s card in my wallet, I had to go to the ever helpful tourist office to get directions. I also went to the phone shop to get the message numbers changed so that my instructions were now in English and also to check out why one of the top up cards was faulty, since it was not accepted by the robot voice. It actually was not faulty, the boy in the shop (they look young enough to be boys), had already installed it for me. How he did that without taking it out of its wrapper and scratching off the code number protective layer I have no idea. I guess that’s why you get the kid from next door to programme your video !
By this time I was again fuelled by stress and unfuelled by food. The herring sandwich, which was very small, had been hours earlier and breakfast had been a long time before that. Solution, 100gm of chocolate. They have great confectionery everywhere to tempt you. After this quick refuelling I was off to find the car, fingers crossed. I found it - surprisingly just where I had left it ! Following that triumph (small wins were now assuming grand proportions) I also found the way back to Houten and my hotel.
Just to add a bit of spice to my life, while having dinner and watching the Boule Championship that was staged in the square in front of the Hotel Roskam, the owner wandered over to ask at what time I would be leaving the next day. I was stunned since I believed I had a couple of weeks reserved. We discussed the issue which she explained was brought about by the hotel being fully booked and agreed that she would ‘see what she could do’ and inform me the next day - Van Nelle inspection day. Surely I didn’t need that to add to the mounting apprehension of the inspection and negotiation for our new home. I really needed to buy a boat - and not only a boat - but the right boat.
By this time I had convinced myself that Van Nelle was going to be the best bet. When I had seen her in 2000 she had everything we needed and more but she was just not finished. She had three ample sized bedrooms, a large and comfortable saloon with dining and galley en-suite, leading to a spacious office area just outside the large bathroom which was complete with full size bath. Up stairs she had a huge wheelhouse suitable for meals on the move and in inclement weather, and a huge open and unobstructed back deck. Forward of the wheelhouse she had a wide, flat cabin top and plenty of walk around deck with an unobstructed foredeck for mooring, anchoring and just observing. She was in my mind - perfect.
The broker, Tony Charman, had been very reserved about her when we inspected her a year before as she then needed a lot of work to finish her. The engine room was a mess, plumbing was rudimentary, wiring had not been connected to lights and pumps, the finishing touches of door and window surrounds were unfinished or missing, she was rusty, unpainted and covered with scrap iron, wood and junk. I believed I could see through the mess to the finished boat and with the rising price I had seen on the web, I had the expectation she would now sparkle.
Now just to put buying a barge into perspective.... When negotiating you must have a number of equally acceptable alternative solutions in order to strengthen your hand. I had eliminated the only other major immediate contender the day before and now had a win or lose situation facing me. It was critical that I not only secure Van Nelle, if she was suitable, but also do it at the right price or we could not afford to run her. If we missed securing Van Nelle and could not identify and close an alternative in the next week or so, we had a limited future in the canal boat business ! Pressure was building.
Friday 15 - the BIG day, Van Nelle inspection day.
How to keep the stress, excitement and nervousness down to acceptable limits was the major challenge. First, a run in the morning to get the brain and body under control, then breakfast. Next challenge, to keep the breakfast down.
Since the inspection was scheduled for 12.00 noon I had some hours to kill so I decided to check out the alternative accommodation which I had confirmed was available from the 16th of the month. This was a self contained cabin in a camp site less than 7km from Van Nelle. I found my way directly to their office, now with the assistance of my GPS which I had logged onto the area on the previous visit. My inquiry was met with the response that they were so sorry but they had let the cabin yesterday - I had not called - what could they do. So now I had nowhere to live and possibly no boat. Things were starting to look grim but in my short conversations ‘home’ I sounded upbeat and confident - thankfully we didn’t have video phones !
I drove to the yacht harbour where I thought Van Nelle was located and made a quick change of clothes into inspection gear. Wandering about I could not find her. Frank deJong, the owner, arrived shortly after and was full of friendly enthusiasm as he guided me to his ski boat for the ride to an anchorage out on the huge 5 lake system that is the Loosdrechtse (pronounced loose-drect-sea). We had a pleasant slow trip out through the labyrinth of channels along the shore line until finally we came out onto the lakes and then, at great speed, on towards two barges, Van Nelle and Franks new Tjalk, a hull very much under conversion.
I asked for a couple of slow circuits of the hulls to inspect the paint and hull state of Van Nelle and the bow, anchor, chain and stern, before pulling alongside and climbing up on deck. I was devastated as I was met by the sight of the boat in basically the same state as I had seen it 8 months before but now looking shabbier for the passing of time and lack of work on her. I felt a more than a slight sinking feeling.
I started the inspection with a run through a check list of ‘must haves’ with Frank and then sent him off to find the ship’s papers while I checked some critical measurements. Wheelhouse up - 3.2 metres, down 2.8. Not perfect but workable. Depth 1.25m - a bit deep for a few places but OK for the majority. I checked the bow height - 2.8m, the same as to the top of the wheel. (Note: With the wheelhouse folded down the steering wheel is now the highest point and another 10cm or so could be reduced by removing the wheel and using the tiller steering). The dimensions just fitted our requirements and as the standard French locks are 38 by 5.05 metres and the depth of their waterways 1.8 metres, she would take us where we wanted to go. Being able to reduce the height by taking down the wheelhouse roof and folding down the wheelhouse windows would enable us to traverse the Canal du Midi in the south of France where a max height of 3.0m was required.
A walk around the deck showed what it could look like when finished as Frank had done a bit of quick work the day before, painting the inside of the bow area which looked quite smart. The rest of the deck and superstructure and fittings would all have to be done. The glass skylights, hatches, outer top sides and deck equipment was covered with primer but needed scraping back and repainting and the wheelhouse was desperately in need of varnish.
Inside the wheelhouse revealed some cracked glass panes, curtain material just wrapped over foam as cushions, grubby carpets and incomplete wiring. No major problems here but again a fair bit of work needed. I began to agree with Tony Charman’s professional advice when he said she would cost a lot of money and time to bring up to standard. This was not what we had planned for our first summer.
Down stairs we went to the saloon which had inbuilt furniture that had not been finished off and walls that did not quite meet the floor. The bathroom needed a shower and curtain but the bath, sink and toilet were OK.
Though the saloon to the bedrooms. The first needed a bed as it was used as a nursery, the second had a double and was OK but the third had an inbuilt single bed which would need to be taken out and replaced by a double. All the rooms needed finishing. The walls needed to be taken to the top of the ceiling in the front cabin, the water tank under the main cabin bed needed to be resealed and lights and fans installed in each bedroom. Windows and doors needed finishing and painting and the walls painted.
The electrics appeared basically modern and functional, but needed to be finished off professionally and the dirty water system had yet to be installed in the engine room. The generator and main engine appeared basically sound but the Baudouin main propulsion engine had an old generator unsecured and hanging off it that need to be secured or replaced, the engine wiring and gauges need to be connected and a start stop switch installed. Frank started the main engine by jamming a couple of wires together !
The boat had great basics and potential but needed effort, expertise, time and lots of cash to make it great or even good. Despite all the disappointment of the state it was supposed to be in and was not, I could see the potential for this down at heel thoroughbred to be a proud leader on the waterways and a great platform for the lifestyle we planned to have.
Frank and I got to talking and I wondered whether he was ready for an offer. I had been preparing him by pointing out the problems as we discovered them and he had contributed by adding things he felt needed to be done in order to hand over a ‘completed’ ship. I asked him what he wanted for the boat. He hedged, saying that he was always aware that the price would have to come down to allow for the work but that he had a bottom line in mind. I then bit the bullet and put a very low but realistic offer to him. I held my breath as it was well below the amount now advertised on the website and even below the original ‘take-it-as-it-is’ price.
After a bit of a hiatus in discussions I started on about the other great boats I was about to buy and started showing off some photos of Vrijheid (translation - Freedom). I added that I really liked Van Nelle’s potential but that I would only be interested if I could get her at a reasonable price and with his assistance to finish the major items. He hesitated, obviously thinking deeply, and then - joy of joys - agreed !
I could have hugged him. No quibbling, haggling or hanging out for more. Just the offer and acceptance. I was thrilled. The price was well below what I had thought he would want and gave us room to move with refit and finishing costs. We had a drink to the deal and to the fact that it was Frank’s birthday. We then went cruising. I was delighted and now wanted to take over. That was not quite in Frank’s mind initially as he manoeuvred the boat expertly away from his new project and onto open water. We took the boat all over the extensive lakes, putting her though her paces and through extensive manoeuvring, stopping, starting, turning and reversing. She performed very well, albeit heavy on the steering since she does not have a balanced rudder or power steering. I felt that could be worth considering as part of the many items starting to mount in my mind and on my notebook pages.
After a couple of hours (time flies when your messing about in boats), we had to call it quits and head back. I took her all the way including a sharp turn behind his Tjalk and up alongside it - coming alongside smoothly. I could see Frank was nervous and he made a comment that the boat was still not mine yet and that he would have taken a different route but he quickly admitted that the manoeuvre was well done and that he was pleased a good skipper was taking her over. We then checked the engine, which had not even raised a sweat, and went aboard the Tjalk to meet his father, a jolly chubby chap who was busy doing the carpentry.
We called the Dutch broker to complete the deal and it was now time to put me ashore. We arranged a meeting for Sunday, reiterated and wrote down the basic agreement and headed back to the yacht basin. I drove back to Houten to ring Maureen with the news, check if I still had accommodation and to celebrate. The next morning I had a slight buzz in the head from the very pleasant meal and wine - albeit enjoyed in lonely mode, thousands of miles from Maureen and friends.
Our main consideration in choosing a barge to live on was space. Since we were to on board live for some years, we wanted to have sufficient space to enjoy life, not merely to exist. This meant reasonable sized bedrooms (for us and guests, as we planned to have plenty of them), living areas - lounge, dining, deck and working areas and preferably a good area to watch the world go by when underway. It was important that we have enough space for each of us so we were not tripping over each other and to have room to do things separately when appropriate.
Van Nell provided everything we wanted in regard to space. Three double sized cabins, a huge open plan saloon with dining area and galley, leading on to an office space and quite large bathroom with a full size bath and shower (to be installed). Upstairs was a large wheelhouse with room for 6 to eat at the soon to be installed revolving table that fitted perfectly into the three sided settee that looked forward, leaving plenty of space for the helms-person when we were underway.
Outside was a huge deck, fore and aft, especially behind the wheelhouse. We had packed a large jarrah table and a gas barbecue and needed space for them and some easy chairs, the bikes and other paraphernalia. In front of the wheelhouse was a large flat deck over the living areas into which were let huge skylights that illuminated the saloon. All around the cabin top was a wide walkway making it easy to access all areas of the boat when needed, for access to the wheelhouse, mooring, locking and cleaning.
Importantly, our furniture, including two refrigerators, a washing machine and dryer, computer system, sofas, chairs, tables and sideboards, would all fit comfortably, in fact with room left over for some comfortable chairs to be sourced from Ikea.
There were however more serious considerations which actually should have taken priority but which fortunately came together to complete the perfect package. These included the integrity of the hull, the condition and reliability of the engine, gearbox, prop shaft and propeller, the generator, battery system, electrics, plumbing and steering systems. As the process of inspections, trials and survey would indicate however, these basics were adequate or better, with only some modifications, maintenance and upgrading to make them excellent.
Winter was a big consideration as well, so heating and insulation were important and well taken care of by an oversize Kabola diesel water heater and central heating system plus full insulation between floor and hull, walls and hull and ceiling and roof. Heating was reinforced by a lovely pot belly stove set into the saloon.
The galley was small but adequate, but was without an oven, a requirement of the chef which was soon sourced and installed. A mid size refrigerator was also sourced locally to run off 220v rather than 24 as it was more efficient and a good deal less expensive and would run well from the 220v inverter system supplied by the batteries.
We were not initially concerned by the history of the boat but this aspect soon became a key aspect of our ship as we learned more about it. It was some years before we had the full story, which became clear as we travelled back to Holland from France in 2005, visiting the boatyard where she was built 90 years before.
The Van Nelle coffee, tea and tobacco company was a large and prosperous importer and manufacturer whose owner was influenced by an Indian guru to provide the best working conditions for his employees. As a result he built a huge factory complex in Rotterdam and had visions of a fleet of ships to gather and distribute his product. Van Nelle 1 (as she was originally known) was the first (and sadly the last) as the company shrivelled under the ravages of cost and war.
Van Nelle was built in 1905 in Alkmaar by the Nicolas Witsen Shipwerf. Exceeding it’s original quote in cost, she was originally 22 metres long and powered by a coal gas consuming Landaal engine, soon to be replaced by a Brons diesel, as the original continued to break down. The original captain was also replaced soon after launching by a Captain Slingerland, as his predecessor hit a bridge with the ship during it’s first year of service. Slingerland was to guide the ship until she was sold in 1953 when she was engaged to continue carrying drinking water and mail.
Her history during World War II is unclear but she continued with Van Nelle after having her name changed to Water Victory. She was decommissioned from the company in 1953, before being sold through several companies and in 1991 to several private owners in Amsterdam who used her for excursions but did not convert her for living. During this time her wheelhouse was extended and her engine changed to the current Baudouin, obtained from a ‘Spits’ barge which was about to be broken up. In 1998 she was sold to the carpenter and decorator, ‘80% Frank’ as his 5th boat conversion. And in 2001, I arrived.
We were later to meet the previous private owners and indeed, the grand daughter of Captain Slingerland, visit the ship’s birthplace, discover photographs of it just after launching, find her original order and her history through the Kadaster, the Netherlands titles office.
Our journey of discovery was not to begin for some time however as there was much to do just to get to own Van Nelle and there was obviously much to do in preparing the ship for it’s travels.
Saturday 16 June
I now decided I would have a bit of a holiday since the hard part of the project was now completed with just the formalities to arrange. I hoped ! Today I would relax and look around. That idea lasted for about an hour before I changed tacks and started on the to-do list, my mind too excited to just wander and sight see. I wanted to compare the cost and condition of scooters to motor bikes, do some laundry, change phone plans to see if I could reduce the communication costs and visit furniture shops (especially Ikea) for essential furnishings like beds.
The scooter investigation turned up a shop in Houten that sold new and used Peugeot, Piaggio and Honda machines. A new Peugeot Sportline scooter will cost less than a 15 year old 250cc bike and comes with a 3 year, Europe wide insurance and parts guarantee. Sounds good but the machine cannot be used on freeways so will be best left until I move closer to Loosdrecht and Van Nelle.
I then drove into Utrecht for the other items except, once again I missed not one by three turnoffs and entered the town from the north. It took some time to get to Centrum and the parking station, a different one since I still can’t find the first one which I thought was really convenient. I headed off to the Tourist Office to find out where the laundrette and Ikea could be found. They obliged with maps for both and I went off to do the washing, going via the phone office where I changed the phone plan. About an hour later I was at Ikea amassing a shopping list and shortly after I headed back to Houten - but first of course I took the wrong turn on to the freeway and had to reverse my direction some 5-10km later. Once on these European super freeways you are on them for up to 15 km or more before you can reverse directions. I decided then to make more use of my GPS.
Once back in Houten I went off to the supermarket to get some writing material. None were available but on the way out I spied racks of Van Nelle Tobacco. The company that built our ship is still in existence and according to Frank had just spent large amounts refurbishing their historic buildings. This was a bit of a revelation as it meant we could get information on her provenance.
I took the contact details from a tobacco packet in order to contact their PR people for any detail they may have on the ship. Walking back to the hotel I passed the tobacconists shop where, in the front window was a photo of the shop in 1930 with the words Van Nelle emblazoned all over the windows. I immediately asked the owner if I could borrow the picture to be copied. He was happy with the suggestion and I made arrangements with the local photographer to do the job on Monday.
A simple meal that night was found at the deli around the corner - a hamburger.
Sunday 17 - Contract negotiation day.
This turned out to be a bit of an anticlimax as Frank had arranged to meet at a restaurant and my juices were flowing - but it wasn’t to be lunch. We met at the restaurant at 1200 but immediately went out to the ship on the lake - Van Nelle that is. We sat at his table, without food, and agreed and disagreed about who would pay for the extra bits and work and how much - and guess what - I ended up paying for most of the items. But that’s what I expected so it was no great surprise.
After we agreed the detail for the contract I returned to Houten. An uneventful night except that I tried a new place to eat which turned out to be the best of the lot. They were full so I had to sit at the bar - that was great because I could see all the meals going out and choose the best. Sitting at the bar also gets you involved in the banter at the bar so you feel you have some company - even if it is all in Dutch.....
Monday 18 - A fill-in day that went up like a balloon.
I agreed to meet Frank at Loosdrecht to seek out dinghies and motors since I was going to need both to get out to the ship which would be anchored out at the lake. We met and transferred to his Land Rover and headed off to a couple of new and second hand equipment shops.
We sussed out a couple of likely boats and engines, finally bringing the cost down to about €1800 from nearer €6,000. The choice of both engine and motor are to some extent contingent on each other so I made offers and gave my phone number to receive acceptances or negotiation. Then we made some calls to book surveyors, insurance companies and a ship yard for a survey.
To cut to the chase - the shipyard contacted by Frank immediately said "come tomorrow", the insurance company said they could supply a surveyor and were happy to insure an Australian - and so, we were off to Amsterdam THE NEXT DAY !!!! Yea - a real trip in the boat.
That of course caused all sorts of considerations, not the least of which was that Frank and Louise and their two kids needed to relocate to her mother’s house on shore and therefore shift a whole bunch of personal belongings overnight since they were not coming for the week long trip. I was invited back to Van Nelle for dinner and to go over the plans for the trip before I went back to Houten to extricate myself from the Hotel Roskam and its owner, the Madam from hell!
This rather large, self important lady had been a pain when I checked in since I wanted to see the rooms and negotiate for a better one at a lower rate. She apparently had a low view of me from that exchange. I had paid a week in advance and she definitely did not want to give any of the money for the four unused days back. After trying to be nice for a while I lost it. We had a stand up fight in the bar / restaurant before I threatened to go to the VVV with threats about her license. At that she tactically withdrew to the office and when she re-appeared, threw money at me - not enough to cover the four days but enough for me to feel really good since I had been perfectly willing to go 50 / 50. As it happened, I had found another hotel right in Loosdrecht which I could use after the Amsterdam trip so I was not phased by not being able to return to the Roskam. After packing I went to bed that night with a delicious apprehension, waking at 5.00am Tuesday, ready to go.
Tuesday 19 - The cruise to Amsterdam
I managed to contain some of my early morning excitement by going for a run and packing the car before having breakfast. I then headed for Loosdrecht having given the Hotel Roskam and its owner an Aussie salute.
Now you know that I take at least one wrong turn on every journey, well, this time I didn’t ! On arrival at the roundabout just short of the boatyard however I was confronted with more of Holland’s road works which completely closed off the only road into town from this direction. Now I not only had to take another route - but I had to find it and not get so hopelessly misplaced that I would be late. I was actually about an hour and a half early but that gave me no comfort as I meandered the Dutch countryside. I actually tried following other cars that had also been stopped at Loosdrecht but they had apparently decided that they were NOT heading in my desired direction.
Thank God for GPS. I have been wearing out my little hand held Magellan since I arrived and it had saved me hours. Unfortunately it is not (yet) programmed with all the roads and towns of Holland - but it soon will be !
I arrived an hour before the meeting time of 8.30am and called Frank to advise. He was early also and arrived a half hour later with his daughter Cosette, who goes to school just across the road from the yacht harbour. We then went off to the boat and were received by a hassled looking Louise - his partner and mother of the kids. Boxes were loaded into their biggish dinghy and she set off for shore as we started the engine and headed off towards the Vecht - the narrow canal out of the lakes.
What can I say - this was bliss - it just doesn’t get any better. Sun shining, lots of boats - big, bigger, small and HUGE. Small canals with tiny locks and big canals with huge ones and Amsterdam harbour, full of ferries, barges and ships, and I drove Van Nelle (almost) all the way....BLISS.
There is a cute custom here where the lock keepers and bridge operators swing a clog attached to a pole by fishing line out to the boats going through for donations. You don’t have to pay - but don’t come back this way if you don’t, since they have long poles and longer memories.
On the way, we were behind a Locaboat 1260 (the boat we had in France on our last trip with David and Judith Reed and Gary and Dianne Prattley) and a private cruiser. After being held up by the obviously inexperienced Locaboat operator for a while in small canals I pushed the throttle fully forward and breezed past at over 14 km/h, that’s nearly 9 knots, pretty amazing considering the size of the boat and the fact that it only has a 150hp engine.
We took 4 hours to get to Amsterdam and after about an hour’s wait we came out of the water. This was achieved by manoeuvring Van Nelle on to a submerged cradle that is hauled up a slope by a powerful electric winch. It is important to get your ship perfectly aligned with the bearers that support it or damage can be caused to the hull and important parts such as the rudder and propeller. Fortunately the yard crew and Frank knew where to position Van Nelle and it was all soon aligned, secured and the tow out completed easily.
Now bear in mind that seeing the bottom of the boat for the first time is fraught with apprehension as its condition is critical to the future of your ownership. She was just beautiful. Absolutely beautiful !
I became very emotional as it was such a momentous occasion as our magnificent ship rose out of the water, straight, true, huge and elegant. It was a hell of a feeling and a hell of a good day. I had however some work to do to prepare for the conference with the yard manager, set for the next morning, to agree the extent of work required and the costs, so after a couple of revolutions around the boat I hopped aboard to get organised. This was a strange environment for it was my first time on the boat alone and it was now on a pronounced angle, down at the stern on the slipway. And since it was out of the water , I could not use items such as the shower, the toilet and the sinks. Fortunately the ship yard had facilities nearby for just that eventuality and so for the next few days I was to climb up and down ladders on a regular basis.
The next day came quickly and a lot happened.
The boat was pressure cleaned early and the surveyor arrived to mark the hull in about 40 places where his hammer indicated he should test hull thickness. This is done by cleaning the hull of paint down to shiny metal and applying an electronic measuring device. If the thickness of the plate is less than about 4mm a new piece of steel has to be welded over the top. Fortunately this was not the case and he reported as such to his insurance company. They however got stroppy that I didn’t have a Dutch address. We therefore gave them the flick and found another barge insurance company, Schepen Onderling, which was happy to take our money. The costs are 0.7% of the value of the boat with a 1,000 Guilder excess to insure the boat for 300,000 guilders with a 2 year no claim benefit provided. At this time the Euro had not been announced.
I had to go off to Utrecht to transfer money after a conference with Mijnheer Post Brouwer - the stately and lovely owner of the yard - about the jobs and costs. I requested a list of jobs, including painting and antifouling below the waterline, painting the freeboard (the top part of the hull above the waterline), putting handles, locks and props on all the skylights, providing and installing a double gas box (I ran out of gas that night and having only one bottle could not cook the chicken I had bought), building a new front hatch, putting double horns on the bollards and fixing a leaking water tank.
I returned from Utrecht to find the boat painted. If I thought it looked good before, you can imaging my delight at its shiny new appearance when I returned - and that was only the first coat !
This is a great place to do these things. The professionals are helpful and skilled and not avaricious or devious. The slipways are good and there are showers and toilets plus shore power and a key to the yard provided for car and pedestrian access. Of course they had plenty of time to do the painting since I had travelled almost to Arnhem and Breda before I got onto the freeway in the correct direction - well, I didn’t know the Dutch geography and you have to make decisions very quickly.
As the evening arrived I was in a pretty good state of mind. ‘The Police’ were giving me their best hits from the CD player, I’d had cheese and bickies with a couple of Leffe Blondes (beers) from Belgium and since I could not cook my chicken dinner as I had run out of gas, I had to go out for another cheap meal. It was Indian last night but there were plenty of other choices as the area was dotted with lots of small, inexpensive restaurants.
Oh yes, the mouse ! (Maureen loved this).
Apparently Frank and Louise’s cat loves catching mice and rather than eating them he brings them onto the boat. This morning as I slept on the sofa (since the beds have been pulled up to fix the tanks) I heard and saw a small movement. A little mouse with big ears scampering about the saloon floor looking for crumbs. Cute but condemned ! Mouse traps have been added to the shopping list. We have ants too. These things and more WILL be fixed over the next month.
The next night I was woken by the feeling that someone was tugging my hair. As I snapped on the torch I saw and heard a mouse running away, across the floor. In one movement I picked up and hurled a boot at it and miraculously hit it. Exit one dead mouse and enter several traps in which I caught his mate. That was the end of the mouse plague and my hair thinning experience.
The next day I conducted some full power supervising and got some personal work done on the preparation to revarnish the wheelhouse that was to make a big difference to the appearance of the superstructure. The other big jobs were the preparation and painting of the decks and roofs and the cleaning out and painting of the engine room. That had to wait till we went back to Loosdrecht.
Head Jobs. No I’m not starting on the pornographic sections of a yet to be written novel - or talking about work on the toilet - I’m talking about the number of times I have battered my bean on low objects. As every boat owner knows, there are always areas on boats where you can bump your head. It takes a few months and bumps until ducking projections becomes sub-conscious and since I’m now talking about it - yes I had a growing number of small head wounds accumulating. That is not to say that you have to be a midget to enjoy Van Nelle - hell it has more than 6'6" (2.06m) head room - but there are a couple of head bangers in unusual places.
Just a final note on that day. The banks are very efficient I Holland but they got this one wrong. I went to the bank in Utrecht to transfer Van Nelle’s payment to the broker’s account and to pick up my cash card. They had the card but when it came to activating it with the pin number I had been given - no go. That caused lots of teeth sucking at the bank and a suggestion I should check in Australia for the letter that has the original number on it. Nope, Maureen hadn’t seen it. Only one thing for it - either a new card or a new pin number. How do you get it - by letter - another week before that can happen. Ah well, its good to have Visa and traveller’s cheques.
Footnote: I went to another branch after Maureen advised the number had arrived and it was processed without a hitch. The only glitch was when the issuing centre activated the new pin. Oh well, tomorrow was another day of excitement, fun and fulfilment. How’s your tomorrow looking ?
Thursday 21
They say things have to get worse before they get better and that seems to be the case inside the boat. The water tanks had to be fixed as they apparently overflow when filled and since they have timber surrounding them it all has to come out. The welding work on the bollards, windows and skylights made them all look like they were under construction and added worker’s boot prints all over the deck. The wheelhouse had the carpet lifted and I installed a two way radio, all of which added to the confusion.
Today the electrician I had asked for came to be briefed and to prepare a quote. 36 hours was a guess at 90 guilders an hour plus parts. I wanted him to restore the original engine control panel, provide a new alternator and do some work on the batteries, starter, engine stop and other miscellaneous, but obviously expensive items. He indicated that work would not be able to be started for a couple of weeks, by which time I would obviously be back at Loosdrecht. However, it was possible to return when the container of our household goods from Australia arrived and to be able to unpack it directly onto the boat at that time.
I had previously found a great chandler and had to drag myself away twice after buying a two way radio and three fire extinguishers. I saw and wanted to buy a cable connection for the GPS plus its European data base and some brass portholes but I went quietly after talking to myself severely.
The purchase of the radio raised a few questions at the shop. Did I have a license ? The radio is capable of some functions not allowed by the licensing bureau in Holland, did I want them enabled or disabled ? Will it be exported ? Radios were at that time still tightly controlled in Holland and subject to your holding an operator’s licence. Once I gave appropriate answers their response was ‘Primo ! (Ok then), if it is to be sold to an Australian who will take it away and who has an Australian pilot’s license then we can program it to your wishes and you can leave with it now’.
The Dutch have a very formal side and another side which tries to avoid regulation, tax and taboos at every opportunity. You have to listen to their questions carefully. For example, when I was presented with a quote for some work I was asked if I was happy to pay the 19% GST. Naively I said Yes I was OK with it - since I didn’t believe it was optional. It was later explained that had I said no, the final account would not have been formally written and the amounts altered accordingly. I wondered whether this was an acceptable alternative to claiming back the VAT / GST at the border which foreigners can do. Probably not !
Today, having been able to A) get rid of Frank’s 4 bags of garbage from the deck and B) get a new gas bottle, I would have a night ‘at home’ on the boat to cook the chicken and vegetables I had bought yesterday. There were no signs of any more creepy crawlies or four footed friends since I sent Mickey and Minney to mouse heaven so I will be eating alone. Oh yes, I almost went to Amsterdam last night as the black Rastafarian living on a nearby ship was off to a reggae jam session with about 20 muso friends. He mentioned Amsterdam and ‘back at about 2.30am’ so I felt it was best to wish him well and not chance the local breathalyser since I had already had a couple of Leffe Blondes in town and noticed they were 10% proof - and we think our beer is strong. By the way, I sought out light beer and have been assured it is available but haven’t been able to actually find any.
Tomorrow they pressure test the tanks and finish the windows, skylights and other small jobs and I get to clean the engine room bilge. Oh well.
Friday 22 June
Filthy, disgusting, atrocious, smelly, gunky, slimy, black, cloying - what other words can I find to describe the accumulated detritus of three or more years of an owner who obviously doesn’t care what is in the bottom of his boat. Wood, wire, plastic, paper, oil, water and God knows what else I fished, dug, picked and scooped out of the engine room bilge. Two hours and three sets of rubber gloves later, I had four, 20 litre drums of oil enriched water and three buckets of bits to dispose of. This is the kind of job that can only be done effectively in a shipyard which has the facilities to dispose of this muck properly. Van Nelle was standing next to a huge steel tank that had been acquired by the yard to hold bilge water and old oil. It was close enough to lay a plank across to it from the deck and thereby easily dump container after filthy container of contents straight in. This made this job almost bearable despite the height off the ground from the precarious plank bridge being about 5 metres.
Feeling somewhat dehydrated at 11.00am after starting before 8.00, I decided to take a break while the workers got on with the windows, skylights and water tanks. I went to the hardware store - where else does a bloke without a shed go ? What wonders you can find in these amazing temples to DIY. New doors for the bathroom, shower screens and shower extensions with five speed water delivery, paints, brushes, scrapers, silicone, plastic rubbish bags and rust preparation paint were all on the shopping list and all were here. These huge markets also have a wide range of kitchen bench tops for example and they will cut them perfectly to your specifications at no charge !
I wandered lonely as a cloud until I passed their cafeteria where I bought a Sprite lemonade from a young girl who, after looking at my Albany Festival tee shirt said "sailing ?" "No" I replied trying to find a way to explain the Centenary of Federation Festival and ANZAC Day to a Dutch girl in English. "Explain it anyway you like" she said, this time with an English accent. Seems she is the girlfriend of a boy born in Australia who has lived and worked on boats in the UK most of his 20 something years and has now bought a ex fishing boat which they are converting. So far, the five month project has been ten months in the making and hence the girlfriend’s job at the hardware supermarket. I chatted boats for a while and headed back to do the balance of the bilge and to fix the glass into the new front hatch.
The problem with the water tanks has now been resolved. Both the main and auxiliary tanks inspection plate bolts were loose allowing water to spill over the top and look like it was coming from the welds. I had another boat with leaking tanks welds but this was a simple answer. After securing the bolts, about 20 minutes of testing proved they both held their pressure - so that was that - another tick in the done column and much less expensive than expected..
I decided I would celebrate by having another Indian meal in Zaandam, the nearby town. Another night in another town, another meal in another restaurant and another beer in another bar. This town is canal side and has a lot of history attached to it. It has a preserved early version lock - non operational - and a super new one alongside. It also has a couple of town squares lined by cafes and restaurants. Perfect for the single man to check out the locals whilst imbibing a couple of restorative beverages.
Postscript: Having purchased some very mean mouse traps and having eliminated the other mouse, I set them again - just in case. This time all the cheese was taken. Drat, there’s another mouse in the house. I reset the traps and went to town for dinner. When I returned the traps were all set and the cheese still in them except one - the trap has gone ! This is mousegate, war is declared with the score 2:1 to me. These little field mice have a short life span since I am going to win this war of attrition. The ants however are a different issue. We had some ants on Tension Cutter, our boat in Western Australia and I can’t remember how we eventually got rid of them. A gas bomb I think. Anyway I will try the poison mixed with sticky alcohol. If it doesn’t work we can all just have a party, me the mice and the ants.
Tomorrow is the return trip to Loosdrecht and return to hotel life for a week until Frank and Louise leave the boat on Saturday next. The shipyard invoice has been delivered (including the VAT - drat) and the boat is in all respects ready for sea - or the canals anyway. I have to return here for the engine rewiring job and the installation of a ‘blue flag’ later if I choose to do so in Amsterdam. (Note: A blue flag is actually a blue board which sits outside the wheelhouse and rotates 90 degrees to indicate that you will pass an oncoming ship on the wrong side - starboard to starboard. This occurs where an upstream ship can choose the side of the channel it wishes to hold to. This allows it to avoid beating into the heaviest part of the current by swapping from slack side to slack side of the channel).
I will try to coordinate the next trip down with the availability of the container so our belongings and furniture can be loaded directly onto the boat. I wonder what chance there is of that ? It would also be nice to have Maureen arrive at the same time. Lets see, the container left about 11 / 12 June with an expected 6-8 weeks transit. This would have it here between 23 July and 6 August. If I come up on 23 July for a week it could be OK since M arrives on the 25th. On the other hand we could end up empty, waiting for a couple of weeks for tables and chairs, plates, cooking stuff and eating irons, bed linen etc. Interesting. The other complication is the availability of the electrician. We will just have to wait and see. 10.30pm, time for bed. There will be a few complications in the morning with the change over of cars, launching time and so on. So far I am also unaware of the time the ship will be launched and have to be on her when she is.
Saturday 23
About 8.30am the workers arrived to start things humming at Sheepswerf Brouwer and shortly after announced that Van Nelle would be launched, but first, I had to show them grease coming out of the stern gland, a point I had not considered. This is a wise precaution of all shipyards as it is detrimental to their reputation to have a boat sink just after it has been serviced by them. Frank had muttered something about getting a new grease gun (there is one permanently attached to the stern gland) but I had not been involved so had paid little attention. Now however I had to locate it, and having done so, make it work. I soon discovered that it was sans fat or ‘without grease’ so the hunt was on for a refill. Two refills later I had grease coming out of the stern gland and they were ready to lower the boat. Frank was not in evidence, as we had to do a relay with cars each time we take the boat to or from the yard, so I took charge and into the water we went. Simple really and she floated right on the new water line we had established.
At this stage I had to drive to Loosdrecht to bring Frank back to the yard, leaving one car at each end. On arrival, with the boat in Loosdrecht we would normally have to drive Frank’s car back to the yard to pick up mine but on this occasion he arranged for his father to drive us, and the kids - four of them including a couple of cousins - back to the boat. It seems Frank is in the dog house with Louise for having deprived her of a home before properly providing a new one, so he had the kids for the weekend. He loves his kids and enjoys being with them so it’s no chore for him. He also mentioned to me that his philosophy was one of semi independence in a relationship, something I’m not all that sure Louise agrees with.
Travel relay finished we joined Van Nelle, started the engine and headed off back to Loosdrecht. Saturday morning found Amsterdam harbour less busy and it was again a pretty day so the cruise back was fun as I ran the boat and Frank went to work to repair the bed he had almost destroyed in order for the water tanks to be repaired and tested. Having made good time on the harbour and Amsterdam-Rhine Canal we meandered once we joined the ‘Vecht’, the small canal to Loosdrecht, as there were plenty of small pleasure boats making their way up and down the waterway.
We were ‘dirty’ on our way to Amsterdam but had cruised effortlessly at 9-12kmh with seemingly little power applied and very low revs and now ‘clean’, with the throttle pushed as far forward as possible (but still with some power unavailable due to the adjustment of the throttle cable at the engine end), had made 14kmh. While this may not sound fast, most of the cruising waterways are restricted to 8kmh or less to avoid washing out the banks and few boats on any of the major waterways exceed 15kmh. It is good to know that we can cruise effortlessly and economically at speed with no strain on the running gear, or slowly to enjoy the passing scenery.
By about 3.00pm we were back on the Loosdrechtse heading for ‘the island’, a small uninhabited low piece of land with a small marina built to service the many day-tripper boats that flock to this and other locations on the water. Here, the city crowds become the weekend crowds. Good weather, together with an almost complete lack of wind, meant the lake was littered with scores of small sailboats drifting aimlessly, some filled to capacity with young and old, many stripped to the skin to absorb the thin filtered sunlight. ‘Number three your time is up’ in these conditions requires the hire company sending out a power boat to tether all the small yachts in strings to tow them back to the marina. They look like mothers and chicks.
Now that the bilge and engine have been cleaned, my chief issue on this trip was to observe the engine room to discover where any engine oil or water leaks are, how much oil is used and how the temperatures and pressures change under load. To my great pleasure, apart from some spillage from the rear of the block after I ran the oil pump, there were no problems evident. This ancient engine has a press lever on the side to operate an oil pump that sends fluid to service the tappets, valves and assorted springs at the top of the engine. This is done every 2-4 hours depending on how hard you are running the motive power. Since the block slopes, surplus oil runs to the lowest point and some leaks out the back end. I will just send less oil up there in future.
We arrived at the island marina and took up a position almost obliterating the view of half the boats, due to our imposing size, and the kids went off to swim while Frank and ‘Pop’, his father (who had joined us at the island), went off to fetch the Tjalk (his other barge still under conversion as his new home). Since I had taken all my gear to the hotel on my trip to pick up Frank this morning I had no shorts and was now sweltering in the afternoon heat. I commandeered a large towel which made an acceptable sarong (something I think we will need plenty of) and settled into a rickety cane chair on the huge afterdeck with a beer to observe ‘hollandius femalus strippen’ - bare breasted, blond, Dutch maidens slowly sailing past on hire boats.
Some time later the Tjalk and crew arrived and after securing her, Frank departed for food. I paid for a Chinese takeaway for us all to have on the boat. This was accompanied by kids games and a few Dutch language lessons followed by an eventful trip back to shore and the cute hotel I was in for the week. Eventful since the bow line disappeared under the boat shortly after leaving the island and became secured to something, but not the propeller. I held it all the way into the jachtharbour and left Frank to do the underwater business as Pop and I departed.
Reopened just last week, the Heineke Hotel’s rooms are the size of our former walk-in wardrobe but are very nicely renovated and decorated and have tiny but functional en-suites. This is bliss after the shared bathroom in Houten and the primitive facilities at the boatyard. I showered and repaired to the street front terrace for a drink before bed, only to be accosted by the owner who doubles as maitre ‘d and waiter. This episode must have been my fault to some extent as I had asked for an explanation of the Dame Blanche - a dessert I was unfamiliar with. Walter, the owner / waiter (to the great amusement of the other nearby patrons), proceeded to tell me that no self respecting person would eat shaved ice with chocolate sauce while drinking beer, as I was. He then disappeared briefly, reappearing with a fresh beer and a glass of red wine - which, he explained, was the only acceptable drink to take with Dame Blanche. Then, he thanked me for buying him the wine and drank it ! At this the rest of the guests roared with laughter and the only course of action left to the unfortunate butt of this huge joke was to go along with it. We saluted each other and the other guests.
A few moments later a small group arrived, settled at a table and after a brief look at the menu, made an inquiry about one or more of the items or conditions on it. Wrong option guys !. Walter then gave them the treatment, had another free glass of wine and we all had another big laugh. New arrivals sorted out, he then sat beside me and asked what I was doing in Loosdrecht. I replied I had come to buy a ship.
‘No, do not buy a ship, buy a smart car and a nice house’.
‘Too late’ I responded, ‘the deed is done’.
‘Then we need another drink.’
‘A carafe then ?’
We proceeded to make short work of the small carafe of red while he and the other waiter questioned me about Van Nelle and what we were to do with her. They were satisfied that this was a good ship and it had gone to righteous new owners, especially if she was to stay under Dutch registration and carry the pride of Holland abroad. We drank to that, and seemingly to lots of other things. Walter had done about four tables with the free red wine trick and had half a carafe with me before, somewhat unsteadily, he announced he was off home. His wife had left earlier with a sniff at him and with their dog in tow. I guess he was heading for the dog house too.
Loosdrecht is actually only a large dyke running between too large bodies of water, one of which is the lake system for which the town is named. The dyke is quite wide and has this hotel and many other buildings, shops, homes and boat yards on it. A road runs through the middle which the hotel fronts onto. On both sides of the road are boat related businesses and restaurants. According to photos and documents framed on the wall (including one of the original owner’s very beautiful wife), the hotel was a pensione / camping ground and water-sport facility from before 1900. At that time it probably fronted the water, some of which has been reclaimed to make provision for the growing number of holiday-makers who flock here. Much is within walking distance, including a cash machine, but like the road, it is closed for repairs, requiring a 3km drive to the banks.
It is holiday time in Europe so there are lots of couples and families here for a break. You recognise all the types, disgruntled teenagers with over happy parents, disgruntled parents with sullen kids and happy young families. Then there are the couples and small groups, both happy and non-communicative. I’ve been writing this for a short while now and am now disturbed by Walter who is yelling at a couple who brought their dog into the terrace and now want to steal bones off the dinner tables of other patrons to feed it. It’s turning into Faulty Towers here tonight - a small waterside hotel with an erratic owner and six different ways to serve potatoes, even mashed if there is time !
Tomorrow is Sunday. Frank is going to spend quality time with his kids at the island and I will discover the markets and other places of interest. I can’t believe that it is only two days short of two weeks. So much has happened in that time. I am delighted and uplifted when I think that this adventure does not have to end. It is the first time I have had an open ended opportunity rather than a finite time in which to achieve something. This is totally unlike a holiday or an overseas assignment where, eventually, you have to go home to return to work. It’s a bit scary and exhilarating at the same time. Now when I look at my watch it’s for interest more than anxiety since if I don’t do ‘it’ today, there is always tomorrow.
Sunday
It’s amazing how quickly your world can come crashing to a stop.
Maureen’s email today brought news that her mammograms had show tissue that would have to be investigated by biopsy. As much as both of us believe and hope they will be nothing to worry about, the fear grips like a vice. She wanted me not to call her and I tried for an hour but couldn’t. We connected and really couldn’t say anything much to each other for minutes. I felt wretched, a long way from her and amazed at how brave she is at times like this but also how brittle. It will be terrible if this problem becomes a major issue as it will affect her deeply. We have both invested so much into this project, to have it come to a halt by such a random act of biochemical viciousness will be a terrible act. It will be Wednesday before the results of tests made on Monday will be known. The wait is already creating stress which can only increase as the time drags inexorably on to Wednesday.
It seems that this adventure is to be one of incredible highs and lows. We had a long wait and several reductions of price on our house as the time came closer to our deadline - and then a satisfactory sale. Then the realisation that there was only one suitable boat - and the purchase at just the right time. We have watched the Aussie dollar go through the floor, then rally just when we needed it to and I had the stress before the survey of Van Nelle’s hull, and then it’s perfect score. Even relatively minor things like the engine test have been marked by days of apprehension followed by minutes of elation and relief - but nothing as momentous as the possibility of breast cancer.
I wanted some company today of all days and it was the day when I did not even have Frank. Now as the day draws to a close, I really don’t want to have to wait until Wednesday but I know I have to. I don’t want to go ahead with decisions on the outboard motor and dinghy and the Peugeot scooter but I will have to and going to the bank tomorrow to arrange payment of Brouwer’s invoice will seem like a waste of money. Most of all I don’t want Maureen to be distressed or disfigured. She has a lovely, shapely, soft and curvy body which does not deserve to be at the mercy of some surgeon’s scalpel or to have to face the other ramifications of this dreaded curse. So all we can do is wait and hope. It will be whatever it will be, nothing can change that. I believe more and more that fate of some kind is guiding us to a destination that we have little influence over and maybe no knowledge of. We can only hope it fits with our plans.
Monday 25
Well Louise has made her position clear according to Frank. Van Nelle is her home until she has to leave on Saturday and so no work will be done by me. The baby has sleep times and will not be kept awake by some Australian wielding a rust hammer. I can’t blame her. According to Frank he is no closer to finding a home either.
I spent the day going to Hilversum (a largish regional town/city) twice to find a motor scooter, pay the shipyard via the bank transfer system (they have no cheques in Holland) and finding the laundry. I did the latter two on the first trip and in between I bought the outboard motor - a Mariner 4hp for those interested, and the dinghy - a little clinker sailing boat in fibreglass with a bit of work required and a tendency to travel with its nose in the air as if to say - ‘I am the vehicle of the owners of Van Nelle and all you piddling little pleasure boats better watch what you do or I’ll have my big brother fix you up’ !
I had to buy a piece of timber for a seat since to sit in the stern would court disaster of the wet posterior kind and also a length of poly pipe and some tape to secure it to the hand throttle, since when I now sit in the centre I can’t reach the throttle without it. I could do Rod Cummins’ trick and put a little centre console in - except that this is a sail boat and that would stuff it right up. I have not yet tried or even picked up the mast, sails, centreboard and rudder as they won’t fit unless rigged and that is too hard. I will just borrow Frank’s big dinghy to transport them to Van Nelle later.
Everyone is very helpful. I tried to find a short thin piece of timber to use as a spacer in order to point the prop further down and therefore lower the bow. As I was poking about in the boat yard, one of the guys from the workshop asked what I was doing and then selected a piece of his bosses prime timber, cut a piece off to my specifications and handed it over, affecting a pained look when I offered money. I later went to the office of another yard that is conveniently placed opposite the hotel to ask if I could leave my dinghy there overnight. ‘Is it secured with a chain - there is no insurance ‘ he said and that was that ! I immediately rushed off to the boat shop for a length of chain and a lock - and also asked if they had instructions on how to splice ropes.
‘No, but come back early morning and he will teach you, he has better English’. The owner said pointing to his son. Amazing. Who said the Dutch were difficult. Expensive at times, but so far very helpful is my experience. Maybe I’m learning to smile as I ask - who knows ?
So. The lady at the Wasserette wants to do my washing -‘just come back one day later - all finished’ - the bank are happy to do the transfers in person - none of this machine stuff, the yacht yards are happy to oblige, the scooter man offered the right model with extra options at a much lower price than the company in Houten and the only problem today was not getting to play with the boat. By the way, the scooter man offered to order in the correct model scooter so it could be ready for Saturday even though I am not prepared to commit to it till after Wednesday.
Walter the crazy waiter was in full flight again tonight, drinking the health of everyone with my wine, good, bad or indifferent, and there was an English couple (East enders who now live in Spain but caravan to Loosdrecht each year) who he put next to me for company. We talked boats and houses in Spain and other bits and pieces till Walter finished our drinks and we all went off to bed - or to write a journal or whatever.
So it is now 2 weeks since I left Australia. I have inspected a number of boats, selected one, made an offer and had it accepted, sailed the boat to Amsterdam and had it surveyed, insured and substantial work done on it, brought it back, found and bought a dinghy and motor, a scooter, a hotel better than the previous one, several hardware markets, Ikea - and - in the last two days I have not been lost ! I am even starting to understand a bit of the written Dutch - but the spoken words are still on the horizon. It’s the accent. Its terrible. Someone ought to teach them some elocution.......
Tuesday 26th
The next four days were mostly repetitive but at least I could work on Van Nelle. Scraping old varnish off the wheelhouse windows and doors and preparing the timber for re-coating was relieved by short trips to Hilversum and Oud Loosdrecht for supplies and bits from the hardware store. Well, you have to have bits from a hardware store. Someone told me once that every job needs another power tool !
Life is pleasant at the Heineke Hotel where mad Walter reigns supreme and I have now found a café where good cheap food can be had nearby. The young guy in the office of the marina was busy at the time I confirmed my dinghy parking space and he just told me to park it, chain it and he would check later. He hasn’t and I haven’t asked. However, I move to the ‘lighthouse’ marina after Saturday when I move onto Van Nelle permanently. It’s the place where Frank has his mooring and I can leave the dinghy and scooter there when I am out on the lake.
Wednesday 27.
Test results showed the lump in Maureen’s breast was a benign cyst and the relief was overwhelming. We were both pretty emotional and happy and full of enthusiasm looking forward to her arrival. Work took on a different, happy aspect.
Thursday 28th
This was another of the repetitive days except I took Frank and Louise to dinner. Frank was to have booked a table at ‘de Otter’ restaurant where jazz is played on Thursday nights. I found out on Thursday morning that he had forgotten and the restaurant was fully booked. We went there anyway since they have an outdoor area which they don’t take bookings for. It rained as we arrived so I suggested a small restaurant at the marina where I keep the dinghy. They had a table and a great menu.
I ordered a red and a white. The white was just OK but not really to my taste as it was a bit tart but the red was awful. I reluctantly called the waitress over to suggest the wine was corked and after a quick sniff of the bottle she agreed, accepted my request for a different wine and happily left advising that the wholesaler would take it back with a refund. It is unusual to get bad bottles of wine in Australia but apparently not here. We ended up back at de Otter after dinner to listen to the last hour of music. Frank disappeared and I chatted with Louise until the music finished and Frank reappeared. They don’t seem to spend a lot of time together.
Friday 29
We all faced Friday and the move of the deJong family off the boat with hang-overs. Frank had hired a couple of young guys to assist him with the work on the Tjalk but today they were roped in to removal duty. I came along to help out as well and to put aboard my big suitcase in order to make my move onto the boat on Saturday easier.
We spent the day removing items, boxes, furniture etc and carting it to the warehouse where Frank had negotiated some space. Hot work as it was a boiling day, but it all went according to plan. I was thinking as the boxes came off that they seemed to have fewer than we have to go on ! I’m sure ours will all fit - somewhere ?
Friday night was Beach Party night at Heineke Hotel. Crazy Walter had arranged a ute load of sand (very gray and grainy), lots of umbrellas, candles, beach balls and other paraphernalia. Everyone was greeted with a paper flower lei and a glass of Sangria, which tasted a whole lot better than their house wine ! I suppose this was a party for locals as they all seemed to know each other. Lots of loud music and even louder shirts, some dancing, mostly talking (Dutch, so I picked up little) and drinking. It seemed that it was planned to end at 1.00am but about 12.30 I slipped away to bed.
Saturday 30
I had arranged for Frank to pick me up at Schipol airport since I had to return the hire car by 10.30am. That was done efficiently and Frank arrived at about 11.00 to take us into Amsterdam to look for portholes. I need a couple of a particular size which we have not been able to locate at any of the usual shops. We went to a barge moored in Amsterdam which, below decks, is an amazing store of boat accessories - mostly brass and copper portholes, wheels, bells, lights and other hefty stuff. The operator of this emporium is a slip of a girl who apparently started her working life as an air hostess but moonlighted by bringing in brass fittings two at a time in her bags. She made contacts in Singapore and India where these fittings are made. She now brings in container loads of the things, selling them in large lots to shops and boat builders. Unfortunately she did not have the size I required but Frank bought 3 for his Tjalk.
We headed back to Hilversum for me to buy a doona, doona cover, pillow, sheets and towels so I could sleep properly on Van Nelle. I bought the items in a rush as Frank had arranged for two young guys to be ready on board for a days work at 1.00pm and it was now 12.45. He left with my sleeping accoutrements (which I hope will fit with Maureen’s decor plans) and I headed of to the scooter shop. The scooter was ready but it still took nearly an hour to arrange the license plates, insurance etc. I then put on the new helmet, started the awesome 50cc engine and puttered off to Loosdrecht. It’s a cute and very manoeuvrable little machine and once it has been run in over the first 500km (nothing over 50kmh and please do mostly city driving - no long country trips) it is supposed to be capable of up to 70kmh. I can’t wait. However it is a good choice as it is quite light and should be easy to winch onto the boat. It can carry two adults for reasonable distances on the smell of an oily rag. I had an extra luggage box installed on the back so we can even take a spare pair of knickers for an overnight stay away from Van Nelle - or buy a dozen bottles of wine to take back to the boat.
On arrival back at Loosdrecht I arranged to leave the scooter at the Heineke Hotel and took the dinghy out to the boat after a quick trip to the local supermarket for some necessities. Its amazing that when you move into a new abode you really have to restock everything and there’s a lot of ‘everythings’. I guess by the time Maureen arrives I will have just about got it all.
Saturday night was the night for a fight with Frodo.
Frodo is the de Jong’s cat. A male, black cat, quite young and now on its third boat. Except its not on its third boat, it is still on Van Nelle. Now how did that happen ? Well apparently there is no room for it in Louise’s mother’s home with all the other lodgers so Frodo gets to stay at sea. Its supposed to be on the Tjalk, which today is still tied to Van Nelle. The cat however hates the noise of engines and the Tjalk has its generator going most of the time - so Frodo, even if it liked the Tjalk, would not stay on it. However, while its food is on the Tjalk, now that I am cooking on Van Nelle, Frodo has arrived for dinner
.I pick up cat and carry it (carefully since it is kicking, fighting, wriggling and trying hard to disembowel me) to the Tjalk and dinner. Once released, Frodo is off. I retreat to Van Nelle’s kitchen and some hours later become aware that Frodo is back. Despite me closing doors and windows, this cat can find its way back in a snap. Another traumatic trip to the Tjalk - now quiet since the boys have finished work and departed. The cat this time reluctantly eats some of its food after being stroked into submission. I leave again and all is quiet.
At about 3.00am I become aware of movement in the bed. An exploratory hand encounters a furry, purring object. Purring abruptly ceases as Frodo is sent hurtling towards the door by a well meaning lift of one leg. We all settle down again with Frodo now convinced he is not welcome in close proximity to the strange creature now inhabiting his home. He is found the next morning, asleep on the office chair, the only soft item apart from the bed.
I wouldn’t mind if the damn cat would just catch and kill the mice he has so generously introduced to his home but he doesn’t and I am allergic to cats. The scratches I was unable to avoid are now red welts that itch and threaten to precipitate hay fever or worse - asthma. Frodo and I are not going to be friends. Later the next day I find him curled up in the extreme point of the bows. I take a peace offering of a bowl of milk but get little in return.
Sunday 1 July
Varnishing. Will it ever end.....not in my lifetime I suspect. I had started the varnishing by starting to sandpaper and scrape back the old, peeling varnish while in the yard in Amsterdam. Some further work had been done on return to Loosdrecht but was intermittent due to the other inhabitants on the boat till the weekend. So now I was able to really get to grips with this and other time consuming (and sometimes painful) jobs. There is one consolation, I now have no leaves to rake as I am on a boat not in a house ! I can take the varnishing since I know that once done, it will not need more than a touch up here and there for some years to come unlike the weeding and leaf raking back in Perth at the now sold house. (And hope springs eternal !). Another day of varnishing punctuated by a trip to Gamma (the hardware store) for some parts to make showering possible.
One can buy a shower kit to convert a blank wall and a bath into a shower. A two metre hose, a chrome adjustable shower head holder, a soap holder to fit and presto. The bath (yes folks this ship has a full size bath) now has a shower as well, with full head height and full pressure, very hot (and cold) water. Mind you we still have a few little details to work out - such as a shower curtain (the new shower screen is on order) and some towel racks. These would have to be bought and fitted Monday as Gamma closed at 5.00pm Sunday, too early for me to get back there for the additional bits as I was also slaving over a hot varnish stripper.
I celebrated my little achievements with a snack dinner of Camembert, a French red, some sausages and potato salad. Yum.
Monday 2 July
Its now three weeks since I left and in record time I am living on our little ship and it is starting to show the effects of the work I have put into her over the past week or so.
A trip to Gamma the hardware store for the shower was followed by atrip into Hilversum for some kitchen things, like a draining board and washing rack thingo. I found the shop, it had all its chairs and things out on the pavement but the woman in charge ran me out onto the street declaring they were shut until 1.00pm. As it was only 11.30 I was not about to wait around but was somewhat bemused by the open shop that was shut. Strange ways these Dutch. They close shops for a day or two each week but not all on the same days - so its pot luck as to whether the one you want will be open on the day you visit. They also start very late (1.00pm) some days and close at 6.00pm normally but earlier on some days. ????? I guess I will get the hang of it just before I leave.
No sign of Frodo today as the Tjalk has moved to the nearby island marina for Frank to do some painting and the boys to finish off smoothing the hull. I pottered over there a couple of times during the day to sharpen my varnish stripper on Frank’s wheel and to chat with Ben, Frank’s father. He is a lovely, jolly chap, a retired bio-chemist, now working long hours on his son’s boat.
I achieved a fair bit today. I installed the shower curtain, the towel rack, a Dutch power plug on the computer power cord and finished stripping the old varnish off the outside of the wheelhouse. I even put on the first three undercoats of new varnish on the exposed teak windows. Inside, I still have 2 steps on the staircase to strip and all the timber to put two coats of finishing varnish on, I feel like I am near the end of this bit of this job and am now kicking myself for having rushed some areas.
There are still a bunch of jobs to do. Install a working foul water tank and pump system, build a bed in the forward bedroom, install kick boards in the saloon, scrape rust and tar off the decks and repaint them, scrape rust off the coach roof and repaint it, fix the mast so the light cable is inside and it lowers to the height of the folded down wheelhouse, finish the walls in the forward cabin and arrange ventilation for the 3rd bedroom. I am leaving much of the interior work for Maureen but will probably start on some areas where the walls need repainting and some lights need to be installed. I have also to cut off the improvised rear flagstaff and created a new one plus welded crosstrees to the mast for the raising of the ship’s pennants.
So, to bed and to look forward to some varnishing tomorrow - what joy !
Tuesday 3 July
Today is the day of the BIG PARTY. Before I arrived, Frank had arranged with a friend who runs a party boat to provide Van Nelle as the deck for some kind of a buffet, so a whole bunch of things had to be finished in time for the fit out and the arrival of the guests. His friend was arranging the catering so all we had to do was provide the ship and hang around for free food and drinks.
I worked from 7.00am until lunch time (lunch is a variable that often gets either forgotten or put off until 4.00 or 5.00pm), doing some painting and finishing the varnish work on the wheelhouse. Frank had gone off with the Tjalk to put it in the yacht harbour and left me with instructions to start moving the boat to the yard where the caterers would load their equipment. I began the process, starting the main engine and raising the anchor. Once I had done all the serious work and was about to enjoy sailing the boat for a while on my own, Frank appeared. Maybe he was hiding around the corner of the island until the anchor was up - a heavy and sometimes grubby job.
We got under way and soon arrived at the yard where there was just enough room for Van Nelle to slide quietly between the rows of moored pleasure craft to the Tami lift (boat crane) at the end of the pier. Standing on the jetty was a rather large Douwe Egbert coffee trailer, resplendent in its company colours of red, yellow and white. A bunch of nervous looking PR people stood around as the party boat operator, caterer and exhibition manager discussed putting the cart onto Van Nelle. It would have to be winched over the bow onto the coach roof and settled to one side so people could access the service side for coffee, but the mast was in the way.
I had suggested to Frank some days before that the mast was a problem that needed fixing since when lowered it was still higher than the wheel house and would therefore be swiped off at the first low bridge. He now saw the wisdom of my request but try as he might, was unable to do anything about it since he now found that the deck power point was not connected. (This was s stroke of luck for me since it guaranteed it would get fixed, which it did, the next day).
In the end we were able to move the boat sideways a little and edge the caravan past the mast onto the boat. Once secured and when the caterers had loaded tables, benches, food and other assorted boxes, we set off for the island, ‘Markus Pos’. We arrived soon after and began setting up sound equipment, lights, tents, tables and chairs and other items essential for the party. While part way through, the Douwe Egbert’s exhibition contractors called a lunch break and handed out thick soup, broutjes (small rolls with ham, cheese or salami) and drinks. Things were looking pretty good, especially in the personnel department as the girl running the show stripped to a short top and shorts and started moving furniture around.
Pretty soon it was all organised and the crew settled down for some serious beer drinking. It was then that the coincidence of the situation began to be discussed and Dick, the enormous man who runs DE’s exhibitions offered to get their museum to send whatever information they could find about Van Nelle to me at our ‘official’ European address, Maureen’s aunt’s house in Glasgow, Scotland. I hope he follows through.
Van Nelle is a coffee and tobacco company and so is Douwe Egberts. Some time back, the Van Nelle company was bought by Douwe Egberts which in turn was bought by Sarah Lee. So now, here was Van Nelle, the original ship of the coffee and tea company and Douwe Egberts coffee cart, united by happenstance. The situation was explained to the company executive who had come to the island to address the guests, (university graduates the company was out to recruit), and he used it in his speech.
The guests seemed very impressed with Van Nelle but less so with an hour and a half of speeches, some of which were illustrated by expensive looking placards that had so much information on them they could not be read. What made the situation appear more like a "how not to give a presentation" were the actors who were hired as MCs and general people movers who now picked up the placards and wandered through the crowds with them. The graduates looked like they were trying not to laugh at the situation while we hid until it was over.
Presentations, music, great barbecue food and free drinks were supplied with great enthusiasm and the party went on until midnight. The guests boarded their party ship and sailed off as we, the crew, loaded the logistics back onto Van Nelle and headed back to the ship yard. By 1.00am we were free of the gear and the yard and were heading back to the island. My suggestion that their brilliant, huge umbrella with the Douwe Egberts logos would look great permanently attached to Van Nelle went unheeded but some company sweat shirts were presented and then the BIG PARTY was over.
Chapter Two - We own Van Nelle.
Wednesday 4 July
This day is the official transfer date of Van Nelle ! I can’t say it felt all that different from any other day since I was living on the boat and had to all intents and purposes taken delivery of her, but still, there was the reality of it to be considered and savoured. I did get a kick out of it later when just by chance our dear friends Ian and Helen Palmer called from the Red Herring restaurant in Fremantle, Western Australia where they were with Maureen. I had the chance to mention it to Maureen and chat with Ian and Helen quickly about the fact that the dream was very much a reality.
I have not previously explained how we managed the process of the purchase, so perhaps I should do so here. In searching for a suitable barge during the previous two years, I had discovered the recommendation of another buyer in Blue Flag (the Dutch Barge Association’s magazine), of Tony Charman, an English broker. I had contacted him and he had kindly met me in Holland and driven me to a number of potential buys in the year before I came to buy. When I had definite plans to return and buy I had contacted Tony, who was unavailable to come personally as he was moving his office at the time. He recommended his Dutch counterpart - Sander Doeve - and Jitse, the son of Sander, was appointed to assist. Tony had recommended against Van Nelle as he saw a lot of work to be done against a high price. I felt I had negotiated a great deal for the boat I really wanted and so Jitse sprang into action to get the boat transferred into our name.
Sander Doeve, the father and founder of the company that bears his name, is also a notary so they were able to arrange the legal issues in-house and quickly do the searches and transfers on the Netherlands Kadaster - the register of property. They check for mortgages and loans made against the boat, any other registered owners and then transfer the boat to your name/s on the Kadaster. Once done, the boat is yours. Since we were going to continue to register Van Nelle in the Netherlands, it made the use of the Kadaster relevant and made low cost, wide coverage insurance and legal protection available.
I had told Jitse I wanted the transfer to happen within a month and he pulled out all stops and achieved it in a week less. I had made the offer on June 15 and here we were on July 4 with the deal complete.
This day I also finally received the quote for electrical work on the engine. I think they want to get rich on our dwindling resources ! 6,900 guilders plus 19% VAT, and a little clause in the quote that said that any items not specified would be added later - call it 10,000 - 11,000 all up. I balked at that.
The guy who had done the quote had really impressed me with his knowledge and advice and the fact that he also had an old ship and appreciated my desire to keep the look of the old with some new technology to back it up. On the other hand, he assumed he and another tradesman would take up to 45 hours to do the job at 90 guilders an hour plus the 24volt alternator and some wire, it. Seemed a bit on the high side, so I deferred action on that front till I could get a second opinion.
Frank and his father Ben arrived this morning to do the finishing jobs Frank had agreed to. We had negotiated one ‘free day’, after which he would charge me at least 45 guilders per hour plus parts. We headed off to Gamma, the hardware store, to buy the timber required to finish the walls, create a bed in the front cabin and do the skirting boards. Frank’s father Ben was left to start the wiring and the preparatory timber work up front.
I have to give it to Frank, he’s a good carpenter. A bit slap happy, but good and quick. He rounded up a bunch of different sizes and shapes of boards and we headed back to the boat. He then took most of the day to do things on his boat which was moored nearby, while his father did some of the real work on Van Nelle. To be fair, he did arrive at about 3.00pm and built the bed and finished the walls in about 3 hours flat.
Thursday 5 July
Work progressed on the upper hull with preparations for paint work and I also did some little jobs like fixing the navigation lights. On the Big Party night we were traversing the lakes without any lights, something I was not at all happy about but Frank was uninterested in, so I decided to fix the problem myself and had it done without much hassle. I now not only had working nav lights but had also placed the cables through the centre of the mast to the riding and top light, much tidier, and I now knew how they worked.
This process of actually finishing the conversion on Van Nelle was very valuable in that it gave me the opportunity to really get to know the entire workings of the boat - under the skin - that would be invaluable later when maintenance and repairs were required.
The day was filled out with the normal routine of scraping, scraping and more scraping. My hands were now pitted and scarred and stiff as two boards when I woke each morning. Not that I’m complaining mind. While I have my irritations and hours of fairly boring, repetitious manual slog, its not a bad life being out in the fresh air and seeing the results appear before you. Pity I’m not that good at it.
Friday 6 July
This was sort of a hand over day for Frank and myself. We went around the boat as he explained this and that and we checked that it all worked. Frank is an 80% guy. He starts a job but when whatever it is that he is making works - that’s where he loses interest and moves on the next job. Everything is about 80% finished. The bits I am now working on may bring it up to 95% but only a skilled tradesman would really finish it to 100%. My philosophy therefore is to have good tradespeople do the important jobs on engine, electrics, gas etc and for us to do the simple things like scraping, painting, varnishing, decorating etc. Well, some of the other things have to be done and I’m the only one here - but the really important ones......
I am frustrated with the exhaust fan for the bathroom. Frank has supplied one that appears to blow instead of suck, is 220v whereas the bathroom is normally 24v and it is not wired up or supplied with a switch. I started its installation by connecting the cable to the unit, placing the unit on the vent supplied and tracing the cable back to the fuse box. I now have to wire it into the fuse box and install a switch near the 24v light switch and then remember to have the inverter, generator or shore power going when someone takes a shower. There are no other ventilators to the bathroom. This is probably OK when all around you is frozen and you are plugged into shore power but no good for 6 people constantly using the bathroom. A problem to be solved. (Oops - I’m becoming an 80% guy).
Today I began painting the top of the outer hull in a sort of royal blue. I need to use standard paints and standard colours so we can patch up with the same paint when necessary. Any made up colours will invariably not blend in, requiring complete repaint jobs later. Unfortunately I think the standard Epiphane 29 Blue is a bit dark and tends to blend in with the black hull. Perhaps a white stripe would lift it.
I also ordered a steel wire harness to lift the dinghy onto the boat and bought a lifting strap for the scooter. The addition of a 300kg breaking strain stainless wire for the winch will bring it all up to a safe level for swinging these heavy, precious items aboard.
Frank departed the island Markus Pos where we had been for some days to take up his position in the jachtharbour Vuuturen (Lighthouse). That left me finally on my own. I now will definitely get to know the machinery and other operating systems. It leaves me however with a dearth of tools since I have been relying on Frank’s extensive range of power and manual equipment, huge store of nails, screws, wiring, sharpeners, files etc. His Tjalk is a carpentry shop and warehouse.
I weakened and went to Gamma for some basics like screwdrivers, pliers, a shifting spanner and a two handed Black and Decker drill with bits and screw heads. This and the ‘nipple ripper’ is to be my great labour saving device.
The ‘nipple ripper’ I have named because of it’s appearance and it’s use. This is a double wheel of a sort of hardened rubber, impregnated with metal nipple like extensions around both circumferences. It has a central axle which fits into a normal electric drill, thereby rotating the wheels at a frenzied pace, allowing the nipples to rip away old tar, paint, rust and other materials foreign to and coating the underlying steel. It really works well and makes cleaning areas of rust a breeze - but noisy - more like a howling wind.
A German guy and his nephew had arrived on a 28 foot yacht during the day and we had chatted a couple of times, so at the end of the day I invited them aboard for an inspections and a drink. He accepted and brought a very pleasant German beer along for me to try, said very encouraging things about the boat and explained that he had been coming to Loosdrecht for 32 years since he had bought his first boat here back then. He worked for Bayer, selling pesticides and importing chemical components until recently. I gathered he was not all that happy about being unemployed but he was certainly old enough to retire.
A plate of pasta with some French red wine and eight e-mails waiting. Looked good until I opened the mail - mostly business about the boat. Bah.
When Frank took the Tjalk away he overlooked taking Frodo the cat who was onshore at the time, hiding out from the terrors of the generator engine, which he hates. So, at 11.00pm, just after going to bed, I heard the meowing of a very hungry and frustrated cat. I guess he had discovered that the boat had gone, waited until nightfall and then decided that living in the wild was for the birds and every self respecting cat needed a home.
I got up and allowed him in, gave him a meal and some milk and instructed him that the wheelhouse was as far as he could go, and went to bed.
Saturday 7 July
No Frodo. Oh well, probably off in the wilds of the island.
It rained. I decided to go to Hilversum since I couldn’t do any painting. I had two pairs of broken glasses that I hoped could be repaired and a few other things that you can only do in a town bigger than Loosdrecht. The trip on the scooter takes about 15 minutes and is quite pleasant since the bike path takes you through farm areas before entering the industrial part of the town. Hilversum is the video and TV production centre of Holland so there are many production companies and service companies here.
I was breaking glasses (spectacles that is) since I was wearing them around my neck in order to have them handy. Unfortunately this also makes them likely to get caught on protruding objects as you work and as you stretch up, presto, a pair of broken glasses. Later I found the cheap $25 specs that are just magnifying glasses that are just fine for general work and retired my expensive prescription sets to reading and computer work.
I found a willing optician who would fix the glasses into new frames in the next one and a half hours so I had some time to kill and spent it window shopping for beds, refrigerators and so on. It seems that everything closes down here in three weeks for the summer holidays, so if you don’t get items ordered and delivered now you could wait up to 10 weeks ! Beds and mattresses are OK price wise but getting the right sizes in the right types is the trick as they come in a range of sizes and I was not sure that 80% Frank had made the beds to standard sizes. I did not want to have to have mattresses specially made !.
Sometime after arriving back on board Frank passed by for a chat. I mentioned the cat. "No problems" said Frank, "I called by at 11.30pm last night. Frodo recognised the outboard motor noise, raced out to meet me and I took him away". Great. I am finally free of Frodo the mouse delivery cat.
Sunday 8 July
More rain, so more inside jobs.
I started work on the bathroom door since it does not shut properly - just 80%. Not having a power sander I took the scraper and sand paper to the door jam. Made a nice mess and absolutely no difference to the door closing efficiently. That looks like a job for the first mate !
Today I discovered a whole array of old machinery in the store area behind the wheel house. Obviously Frank, generous to a fault, had decided that Van Nelle could use it far more readily than the Tjalk. Pity he didn’t ask me what I thought. There are big bins on the island that are emptied almost every day - great place for a half tonne of unusable generators, pumps, valves and twisted steel.
Frank had done some welding for me, fixing the mast so it lowered completely, but in doing so had disconnected the battery monitor metre and it had reset itself for 12v power. I now had to discover how it worked and reset it to 24v so it accurately told me the state of the battery bank. The instructions were (I think) translated out of American to Dutch and then back into English in Holland. The text was somewhat tortured but after experimenting with the equipment I think I got it right. I then had to charge the batteries to capacity in order for the metre to calibrate itself. I ran the generator 4 hours Sunday, three on Monday morning and another three on Monday night before it flashed the signal that all had been accomplished. I hope I set it right !
This piece of equipment was key to trouble free cruising as we had to provide our own power for essential equipment such as refrigerators, fresh water pumps and lights and other nice to have equipment such as the stereo and computer. The battery monitor told us how much power we had in the batteries, how much we were using and how long we had left before recharging was necessary.
We generate 220v power using a 9kVa diesel generator situated in the engine room, running it two hours morning and evening or at times when using the washing machine and dryer or power tools. This also stores 24v power in the battery banks which in turn is inverted to 220v power when the boat is not connected to shore power or running the generator. Our final configuration of 4 large 12v batteries gave us up to two days electricity without recharging.
Monday 9 July
I have received news that the container will arrive in Rotterdam on the 31st. The local shipping company sent me a whole bunch of forms by e-mail to fill in and attach to official local council forms showing I was registered as a new immigrant, had a job and an address. This would exempt us from paying the customs duty of up to 32%. What customs duty of 32%.......???????
This was now the disaster I had been waiting for since everything had been going so smoothly.
Off I went to the local council to see if they would register me. Not if I was on a boat and intending to travel. What if I intended to stay ? But you don’t intend to stay, you have told us that ! Catch 22.
I put a call into the shipping company. How much are we likely to be up for ? They didn’t know. Why not ? It depends on which items you have to pay duty on and what rate the customs people decide to charge. And so on. What is the worst case I finally asked and they told me they would consult their associates and get back to me.
Some time later they came up with a number that was 32% of the declared value of the whole shipment. I could have done that. The advice now is to supply a copy of the inventory with very low but believable values so the amount will be as low as possible. More work that we were not made aware of when employing Grace Brothers removalists in Australia to ship the goods.
At this stage I was still moored to the wooden jetty at the island Marcus Pos. This was convenient as the little island is not regularly used except during the summer holidays which had not yet started and it gave me a solid, stable platform to work on the outside of the ship’s hull.
Yesterday I had been able to complete one side of the ship’s royal blue topside paintwork and the white stripe down the side. The job is a bit rough because it is going over 90 year old, somewhat careworn iron and the number 29 royal blue hasn’t faded in the thin sunlight (which does appear briefly between cloudy or rainy skies) but over all, it looks pretty good. Now for the other side. For this I have to turn the ship around 180 degrees.
Start engine, undo lines, there’s a fair breeze blowing so take care not to lose control of the ship as the wind takes it. There is also a pole near the bow on the outside of the boat which I have to reverse to miss. Watch I don’t crush the dinghy or demolish the jetty, a bit forward, a bit back. Van Nelle slowly, majestically swings 180 in her own length with me controlling it all from the wheelhouse. My first single handed manoeuvre ! Reattach the lines and we are secure again, snug against the jetty. Now to paint the second side. I started up the nipple ripper and immediately drew the ire of an old gentleman who had just arrived on his 22' yacht. He glared at me and I tried to ignore him. He moved closed while his mouth looked like he was trying to say something, which it did eventually - in Dutch of course.
"I’m Australian" I said "I don’t understand. I’m sorry if the noise is disturbing you but I will only be 10 minutes or so".
"This is for recreatie, iss not a yard for shipverk. I call police". He replied in quite good English.
"Please do as you wish but I have arranged for this work with the harbour master and I will be only about 10-15 minutes".
At that he stomped off to his boat and I continued the howling, ripping, dust storm provoking, rust removal. True to my word I took about 12 minutes to complete the job (about 80%) and cleaned up then began to apply rust preventing paint. While doing this I felt a presence behind me. I stole a glance under my armpit (crouched as I was daubing paint at a low level) and there was the old gent. A minute or two later and a gentle prod and his finger pointed to a place I had missed. I apologised for the noise and we began a dialogue that lasted over the next two days. I invited him to look over the boat.
"Iss permissed ?"
"Of course, please help yourself".
He climbed slowly onto Van Nelle and disappeared inside as I continued painting. Some time later he re-appeared and chatted about what a great ship it was and how perfect for discovering France - especially with such a big bed. I got the feeling he had some pleasure in lands south of Holland.
He advised me that he had bought a steamer when he was 59 (he was now 72), in order to travel through Europe, but before he could get away from his work he had a heart attack. The ship had to go and he had to stay. As he stood there looking blankly out at the lakes I could see that he was already driving the ship away to adventures with the big double bed.
He spent two days on the island Markus Pos and sailed away as he had arrived, quietly, dressed immaculately in jacket and tie.
During the day the ’pirate’ had arrived. A rather wild looking fellow with grubby clothes and an explosion of bottle blond hair. His ship was similar in appearance to himself. An old 60', timber, power cruiser that had seen very much better times. The ‘pirate’ said the boat was very glad to have met him since when he took it over it was a wreck. To my eyes, nothing had changed. Since I was working just across a narrow jetty from him he set to as well. He chiselled and hammered and pottered about, trying occasionally to get his equally wild looking cat to get out of Van Nelle as he joked that he had trained it to steal but the damn cat would only steal food, not video cameras or Rolex watches. I began to worry about my video camera and watch.
Night fell and the pirate and his very South American girlfriend (he had told me earlier that he owned a barge in Argentina that was used for tourists) left in their rubber ducky for the delights of Loosdrecht. I went to bed at 11.00 and at 11.30 heard them return. Then began the concert.
The pirate would have been able to hold rock concerts on his boat since his stereo sound equipment would have powered a heavy metal band. Reggae at 11.30 until 1.30 or so. No chance of sleep as I was only some 4 metres from the sound source. What was really irritating however was that he would allow the song of the moment to get about half way through before stopping it abruptly and starting a new one. When he got tired of reggae his girlfriend (I assume) went for the South American love songs. I wondered what another old gent who had arrived earlier in his neat sailing boat tied up just in front of the pirate felt about that sound source.
Tuesday 10 July
The harbour master had visited the day before and since he spoke no English we had an interesting time getting through the rules, the key one being that you cannot spend more than 3 consecutive days attached to the island. Van Nelle had been there for more than a week, so he had been very patient but had to be seen to be doing his job. I had negotiated that I would leave today when I finished the painting and so I set to on the other side and on the coach roof which was scarred by Frank’s steel detritus. Of course I had to A) run out of paint and B) get more rain - but by the end of the day it was done and it was time to leave.
Some time earlier in the day a small boat had arrived with a 30ish couple and their 13 year old daughter. The fellow was pretty chatty and since he had moored where the Pirate had been, directly opposite me, I had spent the afternoon chatting and answering his questions. He was interested in Van Nelle and since he was on a small boat with two women, in need of a bit of male company. I invited him to come for the ride out to the place I had selected to anchor and he jumped at the chance.
We set off, cautiously departing the jetty and looping around to come head to wind in the lee of the island. Gales and rain were forecast but had not yet arrived although it was looking threatening so it proved time to move. Of course, as soon as you decide to take action requiring outside work the rain comes and it did on this occasion. Into the bargain I threw the anchor out to secure Van Nelle in the lee of the island and found it was hopelessly twisted inside the chain locker. That required the need to run back and forward from the wheelhouse to the bow to alternatively put pressure on and take pressure off the anchor in order to release the chain and give it a chance to straighten out. That was a half hour of exciting physical work with an element of danger from the winch, a heavy chain and a heavier boat.
We, Sebastian and I, completed the manoeuvre safely and retired to the wheelhouse for a well earned drink. A few restorative beers later we agreed to meet after dinner for a glass of wine before retiring and I took Sebastian back to Ellen (his partner not wife) and her daughter Michelle.
Sebastian had an interesting history. He told me his father had died when a drunk driver hit him on one of the local roads. Sebastian was six at the time and his mother later took up with another man who had ‘loose hands’. This it transpired means he couldn’t keep from using them to beat Sebastian’s mother. As a kid, he said, he took the beatings he received but told the man that he would return the favour when he grew older. He studied martial arts and gained strength and when seventeen, arrived home one night to find his mother with a cut head requiring 16 stitches. Sebastian took up his hockey stick and sent his step father to hospital in a critical condition. He asked his mother to get rid of the man but she was scared he would come back to beat her up so Sebastian gave him the option. Stay and die at his hands or leave and never return. He apparently took the latter. Shortly after, Sebastian left for Germany, Italy, Spain, France and England, working as a DJ, bouncer and finally a pub owner in Luxembourg.
His Irish / Dutch pub went well but Sebastian thought all the income was his to spend and when the tax man caught up with him he lost the lot. Again he went out to work for others and bought a computer. He learned quickly, became interested in the internet and now has a small company making and maintaining web sites for the Amsterdam sex market and one stock market company.
Ellen, his partner, is a nurse who is recovering from her sixth operation to remove cysts that grow to the size of grapefruit. The last operation removed the latest cysts and the rest of her womb with it.
They are a happy couple that obviously like each other a lot. They share their three room apartment, and on this holiday, Sebastian’s aunt’s boat, with a lively Australian sheep dog. We made arrangements for a barbecue on Van Nelle for Wednesday night if the weather was suitable.
Wednesday 11 July - a month since I left Australia. (My, how time flies).
I woke this morning to a full force 6 or 7 gale (40-60 knots - 70-100kmh) with rain squalls and occasional heavier fronts battering through the lakes of Loosdrecht. White topped wavelets are racing down towards me from the expanse of water to the south west and causing Van Nelle to roll gently when swinging from side to side.
Unfortunately, the area I chose to anchor is not fully in the lee of Markus Pos island, just slightly to one side of it, but since there are reed banks 50 metres to my port side I could not tuck further under. Everything is holding securely so far and I have taken the day to catch up with this journal.
I’ve just been out on deck, over which the wind is whipping at what must be over 40 knots. This is like one of those winter gales off Fremantle. All grey seas and skies, white tops blowing forward of the waves and rain sheeting down from time to time. It is the kind of weather that invites a fire and a view of the sea, a long roast lamb lunch with a good old shiraz and a warm body to cuddle up with. No such luck here unfortunately, just close the ports and doors, a few nervous glances from time to time at the position of the boat in relation to the island, a 2.50 guilder Argentinean white wine with week old pasta and a hefty pillow (kussen in Dutch) to lie a-bed with later.
Just had a call from Jitse Doeve, our boat broker, to say he had received the second power of attorney document from Maureen - they lost the last one in the post - so he can proceed with the final arrangements. Also had a call from the shipping agent to clarify if we were planning to stay 6 months (in which case a temporary clearance would be possible with no import duty) or 5 years (in which case the tax has to be paid). At least there are some people on our side. Unfortunately this option seems to have been started from more misinformation from Grace Brothers the removalists in Australia.
So now it’s 3.00 in the afternoon and I am wondering when this storm will abate. It’s been blowing now for at least 12 hours.
Today I have also arranged for two mattresses, one for the front cabin and one for our cabin. They can be delivered on Saturday week or the following Tuesday. If I don’t order them now and pay by Friday I will have to wait for up to 10 weeks. Not a good option. At this time I am going to leave the third bedroom vacant to save funds and give Maureen some decisions to make. I had better make her a list of things to do - that shouldn’t be hard - there are plenty of them.
At least this really strong wind and rain have shown me where the little leaks are - they all seem to be around the forward facing kitchen skylights that have no rubber seal around the rim. Another thing for the shopping list for Gamma, the hardware warehouse. Will the shopping ever end ?
Thursday 12 July
Today I discovered engine coolant in the sump as I did a regular engine check. This is not good news, indeed it could be a disaster as coolant in the sump normally means leaks around the cylinder liners in the engine. We had a similar problem in our boat in Australia which necessitated removing the engine, stripping it down completely, applying new O rings to the top and bottom of each cylinder and rebuilding and re-installing the engine. This is a huge task and expensive.
I called Jitse to ensure the broker is aware and that any actions now regarding this catastrophe are with his knowledge. I then called Frank who arranged to come over with a sump pump to pump out the oil to check for contamination. That would have to wait till tomorrow.
I picked up the harness I had designed and ordered from Vrijheid, the best boat supply shop in Loosdrecht. It worked very well despite the low ratio on the hand winch and the number of turns required to raise the jolly boat (as the Dutch call a dinghy) onto the deck.
Friday 13 July
Frank arrived and we pumped out about a litre of green coolant and then some oil. Once that was done, the oil, which had disappeared completely from the dip stick, re-appeared. Frank recounted that the previous owner had reportedly rebuilt the engine but had then discovered he had a very small coolant leak but was not able to trace it. Frank is under the impression that this is a build up of four years of operating but I am waiting for a technician to inspect the engine to be convinced. Jan, the local motor tech is apparently going to do a house call next week. We will see.
We also discovered that external cooling water was not getting through to the engine easily at low revs. We took the screen out of the main engine water filter and found it almost completely blocked. It took me 20 minutes with a wire brush to clean it off. Replaced, the water rushed through and the rather heated engine of the past was reduced again to a very cool 40-50 degrees indicated.
For the rest of the day I managed to contain my anxiety regarding the main engine - our only motive power - and do, guess what, more scraping and painting!
Saturday 14 July
Among the regular round of chipping, scraping and painting, today I decided to take the ship for a run around the lakes to test the engine and have a break, and to do what I am here to do, have fun in the boat. Van Nelle and I travelled happily for a couple of hours touring the edges of the five interlocked lakes and checking out the route to freedom - the entrance to the Vecht (almost impossible to find without knowledge) to the Nieuwsluis canal to the Amsterdam Rhinecanal. Several checks of the engine ensured that all was working fine so far. I celebrated this evening with a trip into Loosdrecht for spare ribs and Californian Chardonnay - V. Good.
Sunday 15 July
Having been away from the island for a few days I figured it was safe to go back to do some more painting with the aid of the jetty that I tie Van Nelle up to. The relocation completed I actually got a fair bit done but I despair at my impatience and lack of skill on the end of a paintbrush. Wiggly lines point to me becoming 80% Jay. Every part I paint will require going back to tidy up the edges - Oh well, something to do for the next 10 years.
I had a bit of a panic today as the generator shut down soon after I started it. Over temp read out and no water being exhausted. A call to Frank to confirm that it was probably a shredded impellor, the little rubber part that pushes water through the cooling water pump. Fortunately Jan, the local engine man, was working and had the required impellor for the pump. What a performance to get to the impellor installed in the pump however.
The pump is on the hull side of an enclosed generator which cannot be moved. The panels come off on top and front and back but you cannot get your hand in the back and getting in through the front or top gives very little room for movement and almost no line of sight. Having worked on this kind of pump before I knew that if I dropped a screw the pump would be useless until the screw was replaced. We had a Jabsco version of the pump on Tension Cutter (two in fact) and I had replaced impellors on a number of occasions when they wore out, but this was a real stinker. It took an hour to take the face plate off the pump without losing any of the 6 screws. Fortunately the impellor came out quite easily and I made sure I noticed which way it rotated as getting that wrong can mean having to redo the job.
The new impellor was not so willing to go in since it was in pristine condition unlike its limp predecessor. After worrying it for some time and with the careful use of objects such as a screwdriver to assist, it finally slid onto its shaft in the right configuration. No mean feat since it was liberally coated with detergent to allow it to work initially without water since there was no way I could prime the pump in its position. Now to get the plate and screws back on.
It was about that time that the local water-ski school decided that Van Nelle was an excellent object to circumnavigate and did so incessantly, creating a wash that rocked the boat, sometimes quite violently. This is not the best condition to work in when attempting something as difficult as brain surgery on a difficult pump with no vision, greasy hands and tiny screws. It took forever but one by one they went back in and finally, with the help of a short screwdriver I borrowed from Frank, it was all back together and ready to try. I primed the line from the filter to the waterline with the hull water cock shut and went to the ‘office’ to start the engine. This procedure required starting the engine from the remote panel then dashing up on deck and down into the engine room to open the shut off valve to allow water into the system. Fortunately that worked, I made it before the impellor shredded again and water happily spat out rhythmically to the beat of the little Yanmar engine. Power was again at my disposal.
I had mentioned to Frank while we were with Jan at the marina office and workshop that a non return valve would solve the problem and he was quite mystified when Jan produced one for me to fit. I did that the next day when I was able to get the parts I needed from the chandler Vrijheid to fit the existing inlet valve and water pipe. Apparently non return valves were outside Franks sphere of knowledge - one up on him then !
Monday 16 July
I woke this morning to quiet and one of the most beautiful vistas surrounding the boat. Still, slightly misty water and reflected images of the shore line clearly visible all round. I took some digital stills (I thought) with the video camera, only to discover later that this model, despite having the picture button which makes impressive shutter noises and actions in the view finder, apparently does not have still picture capability - Bugger!
Today I decided to ask Wetterwille Jachthaven if I could come in to the very restricted space of the marina to fill the water tanks. This would give me a rehearsal for the day the container arrived which I had already had them agree to. They readily agreed to let me come in and tie up to another barge on the end of a jetty. It was such a beautiful still day that this somewhat nervous skipper, on his own, actually made a masterful job of coming into the harbour, manoeuvring almost sideways up to the other boat and snugging up without scratching a millimetre of paint.
I then spent 2 ½ hours watching and listening to water refill the tanks, 150 litres at a time, driven by 1 guilder tokens for each 150 litre allowance. I thought 12 ought to be enough, after all, if their gauge was accurate that would be 1800 litres. In the end it took 15 tokens before a rush of water escaped inside the boat from the transparent sight tube used to keep a check on the level. That required a quick mop up and another drying session for some dampened clothes on racks near the sight tube.
I decided I had enough excitement for one day and after taking Van Nelle back to its anchorage about 150 metres off the shoreline, I took out the maps I have of Holland and the north of France to start working out how to get out of here. A very pleasant break from the monotony of scraping and painting.
I felt a bit guilty not doing a solid 10 hours manual labour today so I worked out a to do list for Tuesday.
Tuesday 17 July
On my list were a number of phone calls. First to the import company to find out what progress they had made with our container and the duty issue. Practically none and they did not sound very helpful about ways to reduce or eliminate the payment of import duty. The way it works they explained was that Customs take the value of the goods - say $A 6,000 (if they believe your values) and charge 12% - that’s $ 720. They then add the 720 to the 6000 and charge 19% VAT - that’s 1277 plus the 720 - that’s about $ 2,000 times 1.3 for conversion to guilders - presto 2,600 guilders. Not a bad day’s work for nothing on used goods that are not even staying in the country. At their lowest rate of 6% the figure is just under 2,000. Bugger !
Second call was to Mynheer Post of Brouwer’s Shipyard. I had decided not to take Van Nelle back there for the electrical work since a local named Johan who Frank had introduced to me had offered to do the engine work here. Jan from the Jachthaven had also agreed to supply and install the new Bosch 80 Amp, 24v alternator, the second part of the electrical requirements. So I explained to Mijnheer Brouwer that the quote they had provided was far too much and that I would later come down to pick up the double gas cylinder enclosure I had already paid for. He agreed - reluctantly.
Third call was to Frank to see if he could arrange for Van Nelle to be in his Jachthaven for the installation of the alternator and engine check by Jan. ‘No deal’ he insisted, the yard manager’s mother had just died and now was not a good time to ask.
I decided to go to Hilversum to buy a pillow for Maureen (who was about to arrive), arrange a hire car to pick her up and to get citronella to dispel the mosquitoes, since none was available locally. I did all these things as well as calling in to see Jan on both the outward and return journey. No Jan. There were people in the yard office however and they agreed immediately to let the ship in for the work. So much for Frank’s help. I will take her in on Thursday.
I then set to work on the aft deck and the scuppers. I cleaned the rust and old paint from under the rails along both sides of the deck and treated the areas with rust preventer. I cleaned the back deck, moving everything (mostly Frank-junk) to the bow and then wrestled with stupid piddling little paint rollers that were hopelessly inadequate for the task, ending up on my knees painting the very pitted and uneven back deck in its new colour, just off white. (It looks good and it will be cool underfoot but may also show dirt very quickly and may be slippery). I then painted the scuppers with black tar-like paint obtained for the job from Mynheer Post at Brouwer’s. All in all a pretty good day.
I also received some e-mails including one from son Sean, now in a much needed job working for Michael - bless his heart - Kiernan, a friend with a big mining business in Australia. There was another from Helen Jordan who, with her family, are on their barge Mea Vota on their return trip from the Midi to St Jean de Losne where the ship will be laid up for 10 months as they return to Canada to their real lives. Helen had shared the highs and lows of the Barge Handling and PP courses in Cambrai the year before when part way through a year on their barge with their kids. I suspect a few tears will be shed on their departure from France back to Canada.
Wednesday 18 July
Rain - HEAVY RAIN. If I thought I had seen it rain here I had only experienced the overture. This was the real thing and caused me to quickly tour the boat to close windows, ports and skylights to quell the drips. Van Nelle has proven to be a dry ship under the most drenching conditions except for a couple of spots where a rubber liner will sort out the problem - and there it’s only drips. ( As I write this on Wednesday night, the deluge has started again).
Jitse Doeve came by in a small tugboat he was doing sea trials on for a prospective buyer. I had recently given him an earful about getting the ownership details finished and delivering the papers (which he wanted to mail or for me to pick up), so this was a perfect way for him to combine delivery with face saving all round. We had coffee on a really atrocious morning and he and the other two men with him went off again into the rain.
I decided that there was no chance of painting or a trip to town (it was blowing a fierce 20-30knots (40-60kmh) and the waves were big enough to toss Little Nellie (the name I am trying out for the dinghy - suggestions gratefully received) around with me in it. I decided therefore to install some lights (three done perfectly thank you) and again go back to the maps whilst trying to decipher some of the Dutch Almanac - one word at a time from the dictionary. The Almanac is the Dutch maritime bible and must be known if questioned by the authorities. It is in two volumes and contains all the rules required for safe boating plus timetables for locks and bridges and navigation information.
The more you see Dutch in written form the more words become understandable but not enough so far to understand more than a phrase let alone a sentence.
Only 3 days ago I bought 80 guilders worth of phone cards which topped my account up to 111. Today my check revealed only 26 left - where does it go ??? We have to find a less expensive communications channel.
This Saturday and Sunday see two days of festival in Loosdrecht - street theatre, Roaring 20s music and markets - could be fun. Saturday is also the day the mattresses are being delivered but Jachthaven Wetterwille has agreed to store them until I can pick them up.
Thursday 19 July
More rain today but despite the weather I decided to move the ship to de Drektakker, a yacht marina some distance away where the boat was located when I first saw it and where Frank has his Tjalk. This means I am closer the source of tools, advice and bits and pieces - all of which Frank has on his boat.
Jan, the engineer, came by at 1.00pm to install the alternator. We needed to make a new bracket for it so after issuing instructions he left. I made my way to Frank’s boat to make up the parts for him to weld into place. Fortunately the arm that is used to tension the fan belt fitted the new set up perfectly and so some time was saved. I could not finish the job until I bought a few minor but significant electrical bits that will have to wait till tomorrow.
I had ordered professionally made name transfers of ‘Van Nelle’ and ‘Loosdrecht’ from the local sign writer to apply to each side of the bow and on the stern over the new paintwork. The names for the ship arrived at the yacht shop Vrijheid so I picked them up while getting some bits and pieces needed to finish the starter and alternator installations. Unfortunately I ordered the names in a type style that came out much too small. Ah well, another set to be ordered tomorrow before the sign man goes on summer holidays for three weeks.
I also bought a switch panel for the wheelhouse electrics and took fright when I looked at the underneath where it is all wired up waiting for connection to gauges, lights and radios etc. Another challenge - electrical installations. Fortunately I have Johan coming to do the main engine electrics soon and can call on his expertise to assist. He is an electrical engineer with a local television production company but spends his spare time messing about on old boats. Very useful chap I hope.
Friday 20 July
Another soggy day but a good one for doing electrical work inside. I also arranged for the mattresses to be delivered today to the marina which made the job a lot easier for the bed shop and me, since Saturday is festival day and parking will be prohibited in town.
I caught up with Jan who inspected the work on the alternator, made a couple of small adjustments and declared it ready to run. I turned the motor over and all the things Jan expected apparently happened so he declared it done. Now off to the bank to pay the man his 900 guilders for the alternator and labour. So far this is working out much less expensively than if I had gone to Brouwer’s yard.
The rest of the day was spent deciphering how the switch panel worked and therefore had to be installed, doing the necessary carpentry and wiring to fit and testing the result. Everything worked except the navigation lights, a series of red, green, and white lights situated around the boat. I tried different combinations but no luck, I then decided to check them one by one to find out which was upsetting the rest. They all worked individually so I connected them back together and presto - they all worked. I have no idea - its all abracadabra to me. I have to confess to being just a bit proud that I was able to make the installation and have it work - another one to me !
Saturday 21 July
A dismal day for a festival with rain and cold prevailing - still, it doesn’t start till 6.00pm so maybe things will come good in time.
Today I worked under instruction from Frank to fabricate the pieces of steel that will make up a bracket for another two batteries. First do the measurements and plan, then select and cut the steel to size, with 45degree angles, ensure it all fits together and leave it to Frank for the welding - I’m not up to that yet.
Metal work completed it was time to spruce myself up for a night in town with some of the usual suspects from the Heineke Hotel. These include a bunch of guys and girls who live in town and are generous enough to allow me to hang around on party nights for some company. They are also kind enough to use English most of the time.
The festival is basically a series of market stalls along the main street - well the only street really - with music in various places and bars and restaurants open along the strip. We plan to look until eight then go back to Heineke for dinner. All great plans ..... The others decided to have a few drinks first so the tour didn’t start till seven and a bit. By 8.00 we were less than half way so a quick rethink had the table booking altered to 8.30. We eventually got back to the hotel a bit before 9.00 and I could have ripped the legs off the tables and eaten them. However, a pleasant meal and then another sortie to check out the music - disappointing. The main stage had pre-recorded backing tracks for a series of pretty lack lustre acts - male singers - one with a couple of go-go dancers to liven up the event. Boring - even the boot scooters were more interesting. However, Sunday is another day - if the rain holds off as it did during the street festival.
Sunday 22 July
What unbelievable luck - a sunny day ! Things are looking good for the day’s outing. We planned to take in the sights on the water on Van Nelle as the day consists of a series of locations where vouchers in a program allow you to taste wine and cheese or participate in silly games and competitions at different moorings around the lake. There is also jazz to be found at the Niewersluis, a pretty, almost semi-circular lock on the Vecht, the canal that leads to the Amsterdam - Rhine canal.
All aboard at the local marina and we made it to the first stop where we tasted a couple of indifferent wines and some good brie, then continued cruising on to the Niewersluis. By the time we got close there was a kilometre long queue of boats waiting to get through. That, according to others in their boats in the queue apparently required a two hour wait. We reversed along the canal to an appropriate spot, tied Van Nelle up and hitched a ride to the lock on a passing ski boat.
This is what it is all about. A sunny day, good jazz, a passing parade of boats and people to gawk at and some good drinks plus the odd smoked eel to nibble on. Jacques, Anke, Corry and I had a lovely afternoon in the sun watching the TV personalities parade around, completely upstaged by the mad lock keeper.
The Niewersluis lock keeper is famous. A real personality, he was wearing a pair of over size shorts held up by braces that featured naked women, a shirt featuring 40s female film stars in underwear, one red and one green sock and a little straw hat. He had, for company, a couple of mannequins dressed in suits that were positioned to oversee the operations of the lock. He earned his money today with an unending stream of boats in both directions. It took about two hours for the boats we were with in the queue to appear and get through.
We finished the day with a barbecue on shore after our return to the lake and wove off to bed - me hurtling down the dark road on the new and trusty scooter.
Monday 23 July
Cloudy but dry - a good day to paint the decks grey.
I have to admit to being a bit worse for wear this morning so I decided I would do mindless things like going to Gamma for switches, Berepoot for a fan belt and Morpheus for some mattress covers. Being Monday most of the shops are shut or do not open until 1.00pm. I got the first two errands done and headed back to VN to fit the switches and locate a spare power line Frank had laid in the bathroom to connect the bathroom exhaust fan. Good work for a hang over.
Mission accomplished. I now have an exhaust fan that works, a spare wire located and ready to attach to a light, a couple of appropriate mattress covers and a dubious fan belt - I think the lad in the shop measured the outside rather that the inside of the fan belt - ah well - another thing to exchange later.
I checked up on Frank and the welding. Nothing done as he was a bit slow this morning as well and was off to the funeral of the mother of the marina manager. By 5.00pm I had decided it was time to paint the decks grey. (It should be remembered here that the days in this part of the world start at about 4.30am and end about 10.30pm with the passage of the summer sun). An hour later I was about 1 square metre short of paint and Vrijheid had just closed - oh well, I can finish it tomorrow before I go to Hilversum to pick up a hire car I had booked and get the things only a station wagon will carry.
Only one more day to wait for the arrival of the ship’s real captain - Maureen.
Tuesday 24 July
Very good weather today - sunny, light breezes and no sign of nasty fronts on the way in. Perhaps this is in preparation of Maureen’s arrival. It would be just right for her to arrive into blazing sunshine after I had been describing how bad the weather is here. Credibility zero.
Today I have to pick up the hire car, actually a station wagon, and do some shopping for heavy, bulky objects like the outdoor chairs. They are on special at Gamma for about ten guilders each. I’ll buy six and who cares if they break.
A scooter trip into Hilversum through the meadows, bordered by narrow canals in which the locals float about aimlessly or dash from one end to the other and then return in the same haste. I travel down the cycle / scooter path next to the main roads. The Dutch have developed a good system with their small roads accompanied by bicycle paths and main roads having wider integrated or separated bicycle / scooter tracks.
After securing the scooter in the hire car agency garage I did a bit of shopping. I needed a haircut and I wanted to make additional inquiries about refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, carpets and so on. I soon discovered that a haircut was out of the question unless I wanted to make an appointment for the next day. Oh well, I’ll just have to use the kitchen scissors.
After hiking to a couple of white goods shops in town I have however now found a frig of the right size that is an A performer in the energy efficiency stakes. It is a Bosch, and the price is 700 guilders. With two extra batteries for the ship to provide sufficient power at a cost of 750 guilders, total cost is about 1500 - about the amount I suspect Frank would want for his old 24volt model I am borrowing and about 1500 less than a new 24v model. All my inquiries had suggested a normal household frig would use only an extra 1-2 amps per hour energy consumption, a figure well covered by the extra batteries and we would get extra power on top for other requirements.
I spent the afternoon shopping and squeezing bulky objects into the Mitsubishi Spacewagon I had hired at the rental agency. Really comfortable and very spacious but still economical. Being at Jachthaven de Drektakker is also a boon as I can load the items onto their barrows to go straight out the dock and onto the boat.
Wednesday 25 July
Again great weather - so that’s my cover story about being tied to the boat shot to pieces - but it’s a good day for an arrival. I had been worried about fog diverting the flight to another European capital as it was as thick as pea soup a couple of days earlier, but this day it lifted quickly as I drove to Schipol airport at 6.00am.
I arrived at 6.40 and parked exactly where I thought I could, right outside departure gate 1, just above the arrivals area but unfortunately at the opposite end of the terminal. Now the quandary, do I stay with the car or go to the arrivals hall to try to intercept Maureen. I decided to try arrivals. Of course it was pandemonium down there with a large number of people spilling into the area from multiple early arrivals plus all the visitors there to greet loved ones. Plan B - go out to the exit area upstairs which is the most likely route someone would take if looking for the departure area.
Bingo - got her in one. A stray figure anxiously scanning the car park area with her back to me.
"Can I be of assistance madam ?" - in a heavy Indian accent from me.
A slightly annoyed look over the shoulder as if to say "Piss off, I can look after myself thank you" which quickly turned to relief and then joy at being met. After the inevitable greetings and the odd tear it was off to the car and Plan A for the day - Amsterdam for charts and a look around.
Now it was back to my hit and miss navigation system. Follow the A2 to Amsterdam then the elephant signs that direct you to the zoo, turn right for the central station and then left into the little car park. Pretty good - just one wrong turn that took us through the bus park in front of Centraal Station, through an amazed crowd of commuters and tourists and back onto the main road towards the car park. It’s a good thing that there are no Politie (police) about while I am driving here - I would be in jail.
By the time we parked it was only about 8.00am so off to coffee through the red light district - not much action at this time of the day but a few shops open with their thousands of videos and improbable looking ‘toys’ and lots of signs for pot and ecstasy. A continental breakfast on the main street, purchase of a tourist map and a decision to go to the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam’s answer to the Louvre. We took the No2 tram and got off a stop after the museum since we were past it before we decided it was indeed our target. On arrival at the front door we found the opening times for the day were at 10.00am which would leave little time for looking as the car park voucher was only good until 11.00 and fines in Amsterdam are very expensive. Back onto the No2 tram and back to Centraal for a quick walk to the chart shop.
We were the major customers for the month I suspect when we bought nearly 1,000 guilders worth of charts of Holland, Belgium and France. Better now that not at all. We carted the goods back to the car and set of for Utrecht to Ikea for additional furniture.
I had sussed out chairs and other necessary items so it was a quick visit that turned long as we added things to the list like a table for the wheelhouse. Ikea can be good for putting bits and pieces together, the problem is that after you buy the stuff you have to put the bits and pieces together and some end up looking very strange, especially with Dutch instructions. We found all the things we needed and actually managed to fit them in the car. Time to head back to the ship.
I had to giggle when Maureen decided she had to take the dinghy ashore to the shops and on departure banged all the way down one side of Van Nelle and up the other, ignoring my instructions on how to handle the little boat and motor. I was threatened with mutiny until I shut up and she disappeared shorewards. Returning was conducted with greater aplomb and no instructions.
The rest of the day was taken up with Ikea construction games, dinner, champagne and bed !
Thursday 26 July
Weather fine - credibility going further south.
An early start as we had the car only until 2.00 in the afternoon and we needed carpet, a longer list of small items from Ikea and lots of other useful stuff. Eventually it was all bought and installed back on the boat and we went back into Hilversum to return the car, except that on arrival at the rental agency I discovered that I had forgotten the scooter keys. Back to Loosdrecht and return - 20 minutes round trip (fortunately no Politie) and then off to the shops to confirm the frig and vacuum.
A rather vague chap at the ‘Modern Electronics’ store assured us all would be well for purchase and delivery and we headed back to the boat.
Having spent most of the afternoon completing the Ikea constructions, carpet cutting and fitting and other make and install tasks, the harbour master gave us the unwelcome news that we would have to vacate. The area we were on was not his and big brother would prosecute them. So, back to the lake, off shore power and extensive use of the dinghy was to be the order of our future days.
Friday 27 July
Weather OK today for our move out of the Jachthaven and onto the lake so I decided we would make a trip of it to see the lake system and run the engine a bit with the alternator now in place. But first to leave.
De Drektakker is a marina accessed by a narrow entrance off a narrow canal. Getting Van Nelle in and out is a great feat of seamanship - well - it ain’t easy. To get in you have to first get through the canal and then take the very sharp corner into the marina. The width of the canal is about three times Van Nelle’s beam and the entrance two times. Once inside you have to turn 180 degrees in an area about 5 metres wider than Van Nelle’s length. It is indeed fortunate that Van Nelle, like most barges, can turn almost within her length since manoeuvring is done by the power of the water from the propeller pushing over the rudder rather than the stream of passing water caused by speed.
Getting out requires separation from the bank almost sideways since there is little room fore and aft with boats tied up in front and behind. Again, Van Nelle’s characteristics assist since when put in gear in reverse, she almost walks sideways by the propeller grabbing blade-fulls of water and throwing them away. This moves the stern outwards to the port side (left) - so - as long as you are moored starboard (right) side in, you can get out relatively easily. If moored port side in you have to revert to forward thrust and rudder or the huge boat hooks we have inherited. Remarkably, it takes a lot less effort to push and pull the boat manually that I expected.
We made the exit gracefully, trying not to stir up the shells and rotten leaves on the floor of the marina since they tend to get sucked into the engine water inlet and reduce the cooling water flow. We slowly headed off for a pleasant trip around the lake, with a bit of steering instruction thrown in on the way for the new crew.
Once back in place and anchored securely in front of the main street marinas, it was time for more shopping - especially for the correct colour grey paint, which unfortunately was still not available.
A note about the anchor. This is a huge object of great weight that hangs from the bow, or more accurately, its shaft fits neatly up the chain pipe that leads up to the deck winch from the outside of the hull. The anchor is secured by a very heavy chain and the whole is operated by a simple lever and ratchet winch. Since the lake is only 2-4 metres deep, about 10-12 metres of chain suffices to keep Van Nelle in place securely against all winds (so far up to about 60knots), so pulling the anchor up is not too hard. You pump the lever back and forth and it rotates the axle on which the chain pulling gear is located, securing each increment with the ratchet. About 20cms each pull has 12 metres up in about 60-100 movements. If it gets too heavy, you just wait, since the boat starts moving forward when you start winching and taking the swing caused by the wind into account, you can complete the operation in about 10 minutes. Once the anchor is off the ground you have plenty of time to secure all forward before having to get to the wheel, since VN stays where she is for minutes despite quite strong winds before slowly paying off and drifting. My experiences so far in handling her have all been pleasant and full of admiration for the characteristics of this early transport technology.
We decided it was time to take in a meal in a restaurant and so headed off to the Hotel Heineke for spare ribs and fish with some nice French white wine to wash it down - and of course an introduction to mad Walter the waiter and his trick of delivering the wine - partly consumed.
Saturday 29 July
Weather still very good so some indoor and outdoor activities planned for the day.
Under strict instructions that ‘a boat has to have an oven’ I had been able to locate a very nice maritime model at the boating second hand shop and we had bought it on the way back from Utrecht in the hire car. Today was the day for installation. One can buy all the necessary gas fittings at various shops around Loosdrecht where I inquired for a gas fitter, only to be told there were no installers. This is a DIY country.
Access to the installation position was good and the cook top allowed for a ‘T’ piece to provide gas to the oven from the cook top. So, apart from one wrong move causing me to have to get a replacement coupling, it all went together easily and on test proved secure. We used the door of the cupboard into which we placed the oven as its new surround so it fits in perfectly and works a treat. Its so good to have alternatives to frying and boiling.
Maureen went scootering (wobbly at first but with greater skill and confidence coming with the mounting kilometres), off to the hardware and supermarkets to soak up oils and lacquers for various bits of furniture and flooring and to buy a chook (Australian for chicken) to roast for dinner - with real vegetables.
An afternoon of painting for me since I had managed to find the correct colour grey deck paint at a rival boat supply shop after having waited a week for Vrijheid to get it in. Maureen applied lacquer to the bench tops which unfortunately rejected it since they had previously been oiled. Back to oiling them then. The new finish worked a treat on the new wheelhouse table which now looks very grand and fits perfectly for lazy meals out of the weather with a 360 degree view. It also rotates, making it easy to get people in and out and for use as a coffee or work table when turned 90degrees. We eat all our meals there and really have a million dollar outlook. I can’t wait for the now familiar Loosdrecht scenery to be exchanged for that of French countryside !
We found a good little wine store in town and so laid in a supply of French wines - Bubbly at about $10 per bottle (Café de Paris), Bordeaux red at 10-15 and various others between 8-15. Also some very old Dutch Genever (forerunner to gin) and Schipper Bitter, a sort of local spirit based aromatic schnapps. Very good start to the exotic onboard cocktail cabinet and wine store.
Sunday 29 July
A beautiful day on the water, hot and sunny.
Up early for a quick morning of work - Jay to paint grey decks and edges, Maureen to strip the bench tops of the unfortunate lacquer and paint the bathroom door, in which we have cut a solid section out and installed a louvred section in to allow better ventilation. With the ventilator fan and the louvres it improves the airflow enormously, eliminating mould entirely.
We had a late brunch and an afternoon siesta - that’s a first - and then off to the waterfront bar ‘Ottenhome’ for a few afternoon beers and a walk through Loosdrecht before a hamburger and a few more beers... Well, why not (as Sir James Hardy is wont to say), it is Sunday !
Monday 30 July
Things were moving too slowly on a number of fronts so today was whip day on the phone. The brokers about the ships papers and insurance, the import company about the furniture, Brouwer ship yard about the gas box, Piet Huebe about the dirty water tank and Vrijheid about pump kits and safety gear. Those calls completed it was time for the arrival of Johan, the TV electrical engineer who is to rewire the engine and control panel.
Johan, all 6' 7" of him, arrived at dockside with his tools, ready for work. He is a character. About 35ish, a bachelor workaholic who travels all over Europe troubleshooting TV live event coverage crews and equipment. He lives on a sailing barge (a Tjalk) which he has been converting for 15 years. It still looks as though it needs 15 years work so it must be true that he spends most of his time doing things for other people.
My dinghy is small and unstable, so when someone like Johan jumps in it is like circus time trying to keep it right side up and everything inside. We managed - somehow, with he sitting right on the bow making the boat very unstable as he unconcernedly rolled a cigarette and chatted about how nice it was to have good weather and a nice job to do. Somehow we managed to get to Van Nelle without a swim and installed him and his gear onto the deck. Coffee first is the order of any business activity in Holland so the kettle was fired up as we discussed everything but the job.
It can be very frustrating trying to do things efficiently here. Maybe it’s the place (Loosdrecht is a holiday centre) or the timing (this is the summer holiday period) but everyone I have contracted comes at least a day after the appointed date and then three hours after the appointed time. None of the jobs have been able to be finished in a day, all requiring a return visit or two for parts forgotten or not foreseen or to be changed for other sizes or capacities. I am definitely worried that we may be forced to spend more time here than we would like in order to get the jobs completed, like the dirty water tank, engine wiring, gas box and blue flag. Not that Loosdrecht and Holland are poor places to be, it’s just that we had a plan to go south for winter and we were not getting close to leaving.
When Johan got to work however it was a different story. He does great work and is really happy doing it. I’m very glad this is not Tension Cutter (our previous boat in Australia) since he would never have been able to squeeze into the spaces in the engine room. Fortunately on Van Nelle there is enough room to walk around the engine unhindered. Just watch your head (whack).
While Johan wired, I scraped. I’m getting quite good at it. He finished the day but not the job and left, promising a return on Tuesday.
Tuesday 31 July
Weather now is turning grey again - phew !
Into Hilversum today to pay for the frig and its delivery and to pick up a few bits and pieces from Gamma. On arrival at Modern Electronics I was not surprised to find that our refrigerator - the last one in stock, had been sold to someone on Saturday. The salesman, who had Saturday and Monday off, was apologetic and somewhat cowed at my controlled rage. He immediately got onto the computer and the phone to secure the absolutely last one in Holland at some place in the remote north. I paid and left him to arrange immediate delivery after also enquiring about the vacuum cleaner we wanted. This I found out was a superseded model for which they had no bags.
Hmm.
Off to the specialist vac shop up town. Yes they had the bags. I bought their supply (enough for a couple of years boat use and returned to the electrical shop to pay for the vacuum and delivery to Jachthaven Wetter Wille where we will hopefully load all this onto Van Nelle in a week’s time.
On return I retired to the engine room to clean areas of the roof and bilge that had been waiting to spread their oily blackness on me and quite forgot Johan’s return. Some time after immersion in bilge water I emerged to see Johan patiently sitting on the edge of the jetty, some 80 metres across the water. Maureen had taken the dinghy ashore sometime earlier and had not returned so, a quick call to Johan by phone, he then found the dinghy, loaded himself and his gear into it and headed out to Van Nelle.
I have to say I felt very bad about that incident. Here was a guy giving up his spare days to travel 45 minutes each way to do the work for me and I left him dangling on the side of a jetty. To his credit (and my shame) he made light of it remarking what a nice day to have time to sit and enjoy nature.
By the end of the day the wiring on the engine was complete, numbered and secured, cut to length and ended with beautiful connectors. I can’t wait for the return visit next week, complete with rewired control panel and eventually, the connection of the two.
Piet Huebe had promised to come today to start work on the dirty water tank. He was a no show and had the phone switched off all day. Worry ! I also arranged for a visit by a metal worker who had agreed by phone to build the ‘blue flag’ but he also did not show up. More worry.
‘Blue Flag’ you ask. When a downstream commercial vessel chooses to travel on the wrong side of the channel in order to make the most of the current, he shows a ‘blue flag’ (actually a blue board) on his starboard side. If you are the upstream boat affected by his choice you acknowledge that you will pass starboard to starboard rather than port to port by also showing your blue flag. It is essential to have the equipment for the busy major canals, so one has to be built for the boat.
Wednesday 1 August
A slow day with unremarkable weather. Lots of little jobs inside and out - mostly with me painting the edges of the various different colours where the lines were not straight and touching up areas where paint had spilt or run. Maureen refurbished an old deck table to use for cocktail hour. It is now a very handsome item with varnished top and blue legs. Unfortunately it was also our paint table so now that paraphernalia goes on the deck.
Thursday 2 August
The day seemed overcast and seemed to be going from bad to worse with the phone call from Modern Electronics.
"Good news and bad news" he said "The frig in the remote north is not the same model. The good news is that it is the later model, same size but higher price. The good news is that we will deliver it for the amount you have already paid". That sounded better. I worry about the salesman’s commission check or tenure in his job but that’s his problem.
No visit from the various tradesmen so I continued work on the stern locker and store area taking some four vacuum bags of grit, dust, paint flakes and rust out. It then received a liberal coat of anti rust oil.
We went to Gamma. Maureen had heard so much about the place I’m sure she was expecting some huge hardware hyper market but it’s really more like a smallish Bunnings. We wandered about looking for hanging rails, hooks and things and found a big umbrella that they arranged to deliver, complete with a concrete footing. This is for the back deck on hot, sunny days. I see myself lounging on one of the layback chairs, cool drink to hand, a pot of pâté close by and white fluffy clouds occasionally casting shadows over my closed eyes.
Later in the day we heard from the import company - the cost of duty was just below 2,500 guilders. I asked for the account to be sent ASAP so I could arrange payment from my bank and keep to their schedule of delivery next Friday. We are hanging out for some familiar items, furniture, books, linen, clothes etc - but for me - mostly some music. We have about 200 CDs to be delivered, unpacked and listened to.
Friday 3 August
I was becoming concerned about fuel and an enquiry to Frank proved that we had little more than 100 litres left. So today was the day to refuel but not completely. Fuel here is expensive, about 15% more than from the bunkerships in Utrecht. Since we will go past them in a week or so, I plan to fill there before completely filling the tanks with really cheap red fuel in Belgium on the way to France. All I have to do is ensure we don’t run out of fuel on the way. My calculations required about 100-150 litres for the next couple of weeks so we decided on 300 now and the rest later.
We went up to West End marina where the fuel is dispensed and went alongside for fuel (calibrated into the tank in 100 litre lots and water (about 1000 litres). That took till after 2.00 pm after which we went out to anchor in this much more protected and quite pretty area.
This is at the extreme west end (hence the name) of Loosdrecht and is an area favoured by water ski and junior sailing schools. Flat barges filled with little sailing dinghies are towed out in the morning and back in the afternoon for the instruction and amusement of lots of very small Dutch children. It is also the location of the Chinese restaurant and the aromas of delicious Chinese meals from lunch time on had us deciding to go there for dinner that night.
Meanwhile we were running the generator as usual to charge the batteries and when it came time to stop it, it would not. The automatic fuel cut-off was not operating completely, leaving the engine just ticking over and causing great vibrations. After a few unsuccessful attempts in the office using the remote I went to the engine room, took off the covers and manually halted the beast. Another worry. I had an experience once before in an ocean race where the engine would not stop and even if forcefully stopped would start again. We had to disconnect it from fuel and electricity to stop it. I called Frank.
Yes, he had it happen "a couple of times but it always worked OK afterwards " and "no, he had not done anything about it". I called Mase in Holland and got the number of a local servicing agent who came the next day.
The Chinese food was excellent - two for a banquet at 68 guilders, a bottle of French Blanc de Blanc (sparkling) for pre dinner and a reasonable red for the dinner. About 7 courses including soup, satay, pork, chicken, steamed and fried rice, lychees and other small dishes. Excellent and only a 2 minute dinghy trip.
Sven Krook, the Blue Flag man - had still not showed up despite repeated promises. Does his name suggest something ?
Saturday 4 August
Piet Huebe turned up at 2.00 after promising eleven and started on the dirty water system. Slow and methodical, he has great tales about the ships he has wired, plumbed, fixed and built. I took him on the recommendation of Vrijheid who imported the very expensive minimum and maximum water sensors for me on his recommendation. He did a nice job of setting up the tank on timber bearers and with new piping to and from it, also securing the pump which previously had lain on the floor. I cleaned the area and treated the steel work surrounding it for rust and painted the timber with grey deck paint. Seems a waste not to use it.
He left for the day with the job looking about 3/4 done. A jolly chap with a thirst for beer rather that tea or coffee - which he will drink only under sufferance.
The problem with the generator brought out the issue of water and dirt in the fuel leading to my job of emptying all the filters and getting literally gallons of water and muck out of the systems.
We felt quite satisfied with progress today and after dinner had a read of the Navicartes for France, and then to bed. We were woken at 3.30am by loud music and horns blaring. A party ship circling us for half and hour having a real good Dutch time of it. Pity we don’t yet have the mini cannons installed.
Sunday 5 August
Windy today with lots of rain early. I know that since we have an excellent rain gauge - the dinghy.
The weather is sure to put Piet off who promised to come at eleven again. He actually turned up at 12.00 and finished the job - except that the new switch (the very expensive ones now substituted with a time delay model instead of the auto minimum water level version) does not talk the same language as the others and therefore nothing works. Fortunately there is a manual override which we can use until he returns to fix it - maybe Monday if the parts are in stock.
Maureen scrubbed all the floors while I installed hooks, reinforced the front bedroom bed legs (80% Frank installed) and installed a board on which the bath pump now is secured. It was lying on the floor as well as the dirty water pump. They, and all their hoses are now organised, tightened and secured.
This evening we received a phone call from home. It was really great to hear the voices of Ian and Helen Palmer who had just returned from a camping trip in the North West, mustering cattle and tramping the gorges. I reckon Helen would only have to give ‘that look’ and the cows would all stand in line and salute.
A great end to the day and the week.
Monday 6 August
The weather looked good to start with but deteriorated during the early morning. We rose to ring Miria Cummins for her birthday and finally got through to her in her company’s office in Australia. It’s funny how we think we are privileged to get calls from friends at home but when you call someone like Miria the effect is great. She loved receiving the call and we were all quite emotional at being able to wish each other the best, but especially to wish her a very happy birthday.
It was also Simon (our younger son’s) birthday in Australia and we called him to get his news and wish him a happy birthday too. He was busy rushing around to cook for the occasion so we chatted briefly and left him to enjoy his day.
Surprise of surprises when Peter Hoobee (as his spelling turns out to be) turned up with the parts to finish the dirty water tank system and within a couple of hours it was working a treat. We celebrated with a beer - what else ?
We also called Jitse who was holidaying in Norway or Sweden in a caravan (brrr) to inquire as to the progress with the insurance company. We cannot proceed to France without full insurance cover for the ship as they insist on it for entry to commercial marinas. He agreed to chase it and called a few hours later to advise that the company ‘had sent the papers to our address and could not retrieve them, we would just have to wait as there was nothing else he could do’.
I decided to take further action, rang his father, elicited the name of the insurance clerk dealing with the account, called them and they agreed to furnish the papers by fax to the nearby Jachthaven - Wolfrat. Later in the afternoon the papers had not arrived so they received a further call, following which a letter arrived stating that they had taken the ship on an all risks policy with a hefty discount. Some progress at least. I then tried to arrange to pay their account at the local branch of my Dutch bank. No they said - you’ll have to do that at your branch in Utrecht. Difficult.
I decided then that the easiest course of action was therefore to go to Utrecht on Wednesday as a round trip to Amsterdam.
Tuesday 7 August
Weather indifferent but worsening
Johan was a no show at 10.00am, the time appointed to complete the engine rewiring. Bah. A call advised us that a colleague had gone sick and he had to cover for him. We agreed to meet on Thursday instead as we were off to Amsterdam on Wednesday.
The day was a sort of a knock-about day after that with a trip to the shops and some bits and pieces about the ship. We decided to go for a drink at the nearby café / restaurant but on arrival found it was closed Mondays and Tuesdays. We went up the shore a bit to the Chinese and enjoyed a bottle of French Brut de Brut and some Chinese dim sum nibbles - all very nice, but at 70 guilders a bit expensive as we try to throttle back on the expenses to meet our budget targets.
Wednesday 8 August
Wow - the wind had come up to 30-40knots overnight and was howling in the morning.
We got the dinghy underway at about 8.50 to get to Hilversum by scooter for the train to Utrecht and the bank visit. A pretty easy arrangement with the ticket lady selling us reasonably priced round trip, second class tickets. Only about 1 minute’s wait and a 15-20 minute trip and we were at the bank shortly after 10.00.
Disaster. The account was overdrawn. How ? The inquiries clerk got on the computer and right away I spotted a double payment to Nijmen, the import company of 2454 Guilders each. The bank, having made the error could not undo it so I had to call Nijmen’s and have them raise a payment to my account. I also put some cash in and gave them a cheque from the ANZ to boost the funds - that will take a week at least but we may need the pin card capability when it comes to paying for a couple of thousand guilders worth of fuel. And, there is the insurance bill to pay.
That completed we set off to show Maureen the sights - Utrecht Cathedral and some of the charming city squares and canals running through the central district. A market was on the in the main square also, adding to the bustle and cluttering the sight lines. We grabbed an applebak (cake) on the run and headed for the station for the train to Amsterdam. A 10-15 minute wait and we were off on a 25 minute trip to the centre of Sex City. A number 2 tram and shortly after 12.00noon we were at the Rijksmuseum - Amsterdam’s Louvre.
We were not disappointed as the vast building is crammed with Dutch master’s paintings and other beautiful crafts such as furniture, glass, silver and pottery. Two hours of wandering and we retired to the restaurant for some brootjes (rolls) and drinks before heading for the Volkspark nearby where a troupe of Dutch Wiggles wannabees were entertaining about 1,000 little kids with huge amounts of electronic amplification.
Out of the park to the tram stop and on to the Palace Museum. Built for the kings and queens of Holland, this impressive building stands next to the Niew Kirk, also from the 1600s and also a museum, but both buildings are still used for state occasions. Inside, the main hall was set for a state dinner with fabulous flatware and silver, crystal and silver centre pieces. By now (about 4.00pm) the legs were starting to complain and we needed to get back to Hilversum to pick up the scooter so we headed off through increasing crowds of soccer ‘fan-imals’.
The Irish were in town dressed in green and white, guzzling beer, singing loud, unintelligible songs and generally starting to get rowdy. The police numbers were increasing down the main street and we were frankly pleased to get out of town. We made it to the station and then had to try to decipher the railway timetable to catch the right train to go to the right destination. With minutes to spare I managed to get to the front of my queue to inquire and was given the same information that Maureen had been able to work out on the big plans set on the platforms. We made it to the right platform only to see trains come and go with conductors shooing people away until finally the right train arrived and we all raced on and settled for a quick ride to Hilversum.
Maureen shot off to get some Velcro for wheelhouse cushions while I tried to address the service problems with the scooter shop. Complaints were a bit pointless as it was near closing time and we had no time to wait for them to fix the tuning. They did adjust the very sloppy brakes (which they had caused during the service) and a rattle in the exhaust but the poor little thing is a bit wheezy and has a bit of a cough. We will have to wait till France to get it sorted out.
It was still very windy so we were glad to get back aboard into the comfort and warmth of the cabins.
Thursday 9 August
The wind has blown itself out but the morning started with rain. Shortly after 10.00am Johan rang to say he was arriving at West End with the parts. A few minutes later, Maureen was off on the scooter to do a major shop, Johan was aboard and the final leg of the engine rewiring saga was taking place. Some hours later he asked if I would like to start the engine as he had finished in the engine room. A small ceremony and turn of the key - nothing ! OOPS.
Some quick checks with a multimeter and a change of wires then another turn of the key and the engine vibrated into noisy life. Beams all round as we watched lights lighting up and waited for temperature and pressure gauges to react, which they all did ! Great effort and a great relief. Only one thing left to do, run a multi-core cable from the block in the engine room to the wheelhouse and screw the wires in place and it will be finished - except - Johan did not have the right cable (of course) but a colleague had one and he would just head off to pick it up. He left and 3.00pm and by 6.00 was still not back.
Meanwhile, I worked on some new taps, a shelf, changed the ends on some electrical cables and adjusted the auto stop on the generator. Maureen investigated the under cupboard floor and went to work in the front cabin on a few rough spots that need finishing.
Tomorrow is the big day - the arrival of our goods. There is great anticipation here and some concern as to where it will all fit - but that is for tomorrow. We had decided that we were going to leave Loosdrecht to begin our trek south on Monday, after this weekend and therefore set about getting everything finished by Sunday. No mean feat.
Friday 10
Of course it had to rain today. We pulled anchor early and navigated into de Drektakker, up the narrow channel and through the impossibly tight turn into the haven, made the 180 degree turn at the entrance and reversed Van Nelle back to tie up against Frank’s Tjalk to unload his remaining gear before again heading off to Jachthaven Wetter Wille to meet up with the moving team and our belongings.
We were on our way at 9.30 as the phone rang. Ellen at Wetter Wille to advise that the team had arrived with their truck and that the mooring was free. We entered cautiously, took the 90 degree turn and nudged up against the dock. Maureen made some gestures at the truck and managed to coax the team out in the rain to take our lines. We were soon secure and I briefed the team about access. We tied open the skylights and got the process under way, Maureen checking off the items and the men lowering them into the hull. How was it all going to fit ?
More and more boxes piled up against the furniture and wrapping. By the middle of the exercise it looked like a mini disaster but slowly, order emerged from the chaos. I sent Maureen off to collect the scooter from West End, a pretty long walk, and helped the team with the deck and other items. Pretty soon we were finished and Maureen had not re-appeared - she had to have gone to the shops after collecting money from the bank. By this time Sven Krook had arrived with a truly beautiful ‘blue board’ to install on the starboard side of the wheelhouse and it was starting to get embarrassing about the moving men hanging around who obviously wanted to get back to Rotterdam. I sent them off to get lunch at the café up the road and tried to slow Sven down.
Eventually Maureen arrived back after the truck had been taken to find her. She had completed a truly remarkable shop, coming back with groceries, a sledge hammer, mops and other assorted items, all piled aboard the scooter. She looked like an Asian family on holiday. On her arrival the guys lifted the scooter onto the deck where I secured it and they departed hurriedly. Sven was paid with the cash Maureen arrived back with and also departed, we plugged in to the shore power and turned on the frig, unwrapped more and more items and tried to find logical places for them. This took until about 4.30 when with some guilt I prepared to do the impossible, take Van Nelle out through a crowded marina backwards, negotiating a 90 degree bend and in so doing, not destroying the other exposed boats.
It was surprisingly easy in the end. Done slowly and deliberately the ship responded well to the thrust of the prop and the press of the rudder and we emerged to make a final 180 degree turn and head back to West End.
We spent some hours unpacking and putting away and collapsed over a scratch dinner of pasta. Shortly after we received a call from Frank who said they couldn’t do dinner with us on Saturday but could come for a drink tonight. Ok, were not tired, please come. They did and we had an enjoyable few hours with some drinks, nibbles and talk of politics and music. They left at 1.30am and we went off to bed, strangely to toss and turn for an hour or so before sleeping fitfully.
Saturday 11
The weather was bright and sunny on this Saturday and washing was the first order of priorities, not only to test the machine but also to get the mounting loads under control. It was also a chance to test the dryer on the generator and put everything under load to see what sort of power consumption we would have. The process began and all seemed to be progressing well, surely it could not be this easy ? The amps consumed were a few more than I had expected for the frig but it was just trying to chill the huge load of goods it had been presented with.
Despite the odd hiccup, everything had been resolving well and I had been lulled into a bit of a false sense of security - especially in regard to the engine problem we had discovered before. We had had several local ‘experts’ look at the engine, inside and out and they all declared it a minor issue. However, coolant leaking into the sump only meant one thing and that could be a show stopper.
I checked the engine and got a case of the chills again. There was evidence of the dreaded cooling fluid in the sump. I determined to get a vacuum pump from Vrijheid and check it out. In the end it was a small amount but never the less it was still there and something will have to be done about it, the question is where and when. I don’t relish the thought of staying here for another day let alone another couple of weeks. My inclination is to arrange a settlement with Frank for his contribution to the cost and head south. Maybe in France we can get a Baudouin specialist with access to all the parts and accessories required to fix the leak and service the engine at the same time. We’ll see. I called Frank also to propose a cash settlement from him of 2000 guilders for the engine problems and he said he would consider it.
Sunday 12
Really lousy weather at the start that just got worse. Another storm with high winds, rain and whitecaps on the lake - and we need water after our washing machine gobbled up about 250 litres in three loads yesterday.
I called Ellen at Wetter Wille to see if we could get in to fill up and was advised to tie up to the outside breakwater. We arrived and against strong winds managed to moor securely. Maureen went off to get money and shopping bits preparatory to leaving tomorrow and I supervised the watering while checking the bank accounts by internet.
We completed the watering and the weather had really deteriorated. I pulled the dinghy up to the side of the boat, it was on a short line on the stern. It looked secure where it was and would not be exposed. What a huge mistake.
I had briefed Maureen that I would put Van Nelle ahead with the wheel hard to starboard as we were tied up on the starboard side. That would push the stern into the wind away from the breakwater we were tied to and from that position we could reverse out, since in reverse Van Nelle pulls to port. That worked well until I put the boat into reverse to pull away from the breakwater. The strong winds were threatening to push us straight back onto the wall and pin us against it so I gave the engine a fair bit of throttle and we moved away. The first 10 - 20 metres were touch and go and I applied more power to keep us heading away from the wall.
Maureen, having done a great job with ropes and fenders on the bow in the driving rain, went aft to check the dinghy. I saw her look over the stern and turn to me with a horrified look. The dinghy had been sucked against the rudder and prop and was pinned there as the prop carved off the outboard motor as though it was cutting paper not aluminium and started on the hull and stern of the dinghy. I couldn’t stop and anyway was not aware of the extent of the damage at that stage as Maureen could not see clearly enough to report what was happening in detail.
We had now moved far enough to put the ship into forward and turn before we again hit the wall. I carried out the manoeuvre as quickly as possible and headed back to the West End. Maureen came into the wheel house and told me to check the dinghy. What a mess. Poor Little Nellie had suffered mortal wounds from the hugely powerful engine and prop. She was in a sinking state, just held up by the tow line that kept the water flowing out of her double hull by the venturi effect while in motion. It was clear that the engine had been carved off, leaving the mounting bracket in place. There was a huge gash in the stern and into the inner hull and Nellie was half full of water with the oars floating just below the gunwales.
There was nothing I could do in the middle of the lake and with a sick feeling I took the wheel again to get us to anchor in West End. We arrived and anchored in the rain and then I knew I had to get into what was left of Nellie to try to get her body back onto Van Nelle. I jumped in and she immediately threatened to capsize and began to rapidly sink. I attached the snap shackle to the ring of the harness and tried to get the fourth clip in place on the starboard side, the other three being attached already.
It was no good, she was going down with me in her while Maureen tried desperately to winch her up. As the water closed over my knees I leaped up the side of Van Nelle and scrambled aboard the mother ship having tied the bow line of the dinghy to the lifting shackle in a last gasp attempt to keep Nellie from the deep.
Slowly we winched and as the bow raised, the water receded out of the huge gash in her stern. She came up to the deck level, as far as the winch could take her since she was not coming up level. We waited until she emptied and then hauled her aboard. I could have cried at that moment. This shattered wreckage was once a pretty little carvel shaped hull with a cheeky tilt to her bow and cute lines. Sure she was heavy, unstable and falling to bits, and I had been naive in thinking I would get her back into sailing shape, but that was now a wrecked dream, lying broken on the cabin roof. The outboard, a game little 4 hp Mariner was at the bottom of the lake at the entrance to the Jachthaven Wetter Wille.
I called Ellen with the sad news. She immediately offered the services of their contract diver for 150 guilders to search and 200 more if he found the engine. I refused, thinking that the engine would probably be a battered wreck and anyway if necessary I could haul out my scuba gear and find in myself, if the weather turned. For now though I just wanted to lick my wounded pride and castigate myself for once again ignoring the smarter voices in my head that had told me at least three times to bring Little Nellie on deck.
I spent the rest of the day in a black funk castigating myself for my stupidity. I retreated into some minor jobs around Van Nelle as the rain beat the outside mercilessly, just as I was doing to my insides. Hopefully this re-telling of the saga will purge my soul a little.
Oh well, it’s all part of the grand adventure. I hope we don’t have to try to row ashore from a mooring in the near future as we don’t have the means to.
Chapter Three - The voyage south
Monday 13 August
I had become so entrenched in the Loosdrecht life that the decision to actually leave was a bit of a whim. I knew we had to get going at some time but there were still so many things to do. After thinking about it, discussing it with Maureen and rationalising the desire to get underway against the conservative philosophy of staying put in an area where I had access to resources, I just decided that we had better get on with it and fix the ‘to do list’ on the way. Besides, after almost cutting ‘Little Nell’ in half, we had no way of commuting to shore.
We woke on the Monday morning and with a great deal of trepidation, prepared to leave. Before getting underway, I had to check that there was no damage to the prop from the Little Nell mishap, so an early morning swim was called for. Bear in mind that you cannot see anything in the waters of the Loosdrechtse and it looks (and was) cold that morning with grey leaden skies and a keen wind. I put some tyres down as ladders and carefully slid into the water, feeling my way to the stern and the prop and rudder. Since I could not see underwater, the inspection was by feel and I rotated the prop carefully feeling the edges and the shape of each of the three blades. To my fingers and hands there were no marks, cracks, nicks or gauges, Van Nelle had cut through an outboard motor and a two hull fibre glass dinghy without feeling a thing.
I clambered back on deck and showered the muddy Dutch water off, put on new socks and warm clothes and started the motor. Just the day before, I had a meeting with Frank to discuss the cost of fixing the engine coolant leak and we had agreed his contribution which he paid, but I was still greatly nervous about this aspect of the boat’s performance on a long and challenging journey. Everything sounded and looked right however and we winched up the anchor and set off for the Nieuwersluis exit from Loosdrechtse to the Vecht. No flags or bunting, no waving crowds or wailing, abandoned lovers here, just a quiet and unseen departure from our anchorage outside the Chinese restaurant at West End.
The trip down the Vecht, the narrow and very pretty waterway out to the Amsterdam Rhinecanal, was uneventful except that Maureen forgot to have a coin ready at the first bridge and was quite startled by the sudden appearance of a clog, supported by a fishing line. This is the method by which the lock and bridge keepers augment their incomes and the normal charge is a guilder in the shoe.
As we slowly made our way towards one of the world’s great waterways I resolved to fix Little Nell. She sits on the deck ahead of the wheelhouse, bearing her broken stern and gashed under body with a certain wounded dignity and reminds me each time I look forward of the stupid oversight I made in not bringing her on deck for the watering procedure.
After a couple of uneventful hours I was starting to relax a little as we turned left into the Rhine Canal. This is a man made, long, wide, busy stretch of water that takes huge commercial boats and passenger vessels from Amsterdam through to the Rhine and Germany. We were a small addition to the bustling population of oil carriers, work ships, tugs, cruisers and official boats plying the route.
To get to our destination required a turn south off the canal onto the Waal River which we did some hours later. This is a different kettle (or canal) of fish altogether. A broad, navigable river with a current running at 5 km/h against us and commercial ships still doing 15kmh against the current bearing down on us from behind and speeding towards us from ahead. This was the first big test for Van Nelle’s propulsion equipment, engine, gearbox, shaft and prop. All performed beautifully and Johan’s work on the gauges allowed me to monitor the engine and gearbox performance constantly, a great comfort when the dials reported good operating conditions without change for hour after hour.
We pushed on until about 7.00pm arriving at the entrance to an overnight harbour for commercial vessels. We entered and over the radio negotiated a berth at the far end behind a small tug. There was nothing nearby to excite the explorer in us so we prepared dinner and went to bed. A long, tiring but very successful day punctuated once by a large gas carrying ship suddenly turning across us in the channel. He and we managed our affairs suitably and passed with room to spare but with a slight quickening of the pulse.
In a day of ten hours travelling we achieved approximately 75 kilometres.
Tuesday 14 August
A lovely day dawned with sunshine and a total lack of clouds. This was to be the prevailing pattern as we headed away from the Low Countries of the Netherlands. I don’t want to be down about their weather but the Dutch have to be used to rain, rain and more rain. In more than two months I had only about 6 days of warm sunny weather in Holland and in the following two weeks, only 2 or 3 days without sunshine.
I started the day by thoroughly checking the engine and running gear, oil levels, fluid reservoirs, pipes, connections and stern gland. Everything passed with flying colours. Confidence boosting !
Engine started at about 0800 and on to Venlo. We travelled on the Waal River again for some time before passing into the Maas River, less current and somewhat less traffic but still busy and bustling. After a day of about 88 kilometres we arrived at Venlo and into the Jachthaven where, by phone, we had arranged a berth. When we arrived we found to our consternation that another couple of boats had arrived unannounced before us and taken our position. We had one choice, the back side of the jetty with the bows firmly on the muddy bottom and a number of fenders required to keep us from sharp protruding edges. We took the option since there were no others.
The Jachthaven was well founded however with a restaurant and boat repair facilities, power and water supplied in the price of an overnight stay. We settled up and set off on bikes to explore the nearby town. After some distance we had found little of interest and as it was getting late, decided to return and go to the marina restaurant for dinner. This was in a building up a hill on the side of the marina with a nice view of the boats below. We found a table on the balcony and ordered steaks and local wine. Everyone there were ‘boaties’ so conversations flowed across tables between ourselves and other couples widely different in ages, backgrounds and outlooks. Sated we headed for bed and the thoughts of another long day at the wheel in only a few hours. So far however, despite the few locks being enormous (100+ metres long and drops or rises of 10-12 metres), there were few of them and were easily handled.
Canals and canalised rivers work by their water levels being maintained by a series of locks. These are enclosed sections of the waterway with huge gates at each end. Boats enter at one end and the gates are closed, water is then allowed in or out depending on which direction you are going and the gates at the opposite end are opened once the water level is the same as that outside. The boats then exit at the new level. By this means boats can ‘climb’ or ‘descend’ to the levels maintained outside the locks on the intervening stretch of river or canal.
On rivers like the Waal and Maas and major canals such as the Amsterdam Rhine canal, the locks can be 100 to 300 metres in length and 20 or more metres wide. Many different sized boats and ships can use the locks at the same time and their placement is arranged between them and the lock keeper by radio. This is difficult for a private boat with limited fluency in the local language but the willingness of all to help overcomes many problems.
To start with, a new owner / skipper and crew can be overwhelmed by the enormity of the locks and the vessels using it which he or she have to navigate close to in front or behind, often fitting their boat into narrow spaces between. You soon get used to it however and begin to enjoy the break from driving and the chance to meet and chat with other boaters.
Maureen finished the re-covering of the wheelhouse cushions today as we travelled. Dark blue velvet - looks magnificent.
Wednesday 15, Thursday 16 and Friday 17 August
Wednesday as we arose was a HOT day. With the sun and light breezes, the temperatures these days are regularly above 30 degrees. We departed Venlo at a leisurely 11.00am and headed for Maastricht, some 65km south, where we arrived at 3.00pm. These large waterways are great if you want to get somewhere in a hurry. There are few locks and they operate all day and some into the night. Being deep and broad allows us to travel at high speed (relatively) whereas smaller canals reduce speeds to 6kmh as suction and bank damage occur if you try to use too much power.
Maastricht is a pretty town and we were quite overjoyed to find three choices of moorings. There is the ‘New Basin’ which is a rebuild of the old original commercial port and very pretty but quite expensive, then there is a wall running between two bridges (which was filled with small plastic boats) plus there was the town wall just behind the Shell bunker ship and boat shop. We chose the latter and after tying up securely began a three day break to explore this lovely little city.
Maastricht is set on the river Maas, overlooked by a fortress, populated with lots of old, picturesque buildings and lovely shady squares filled with tables, chairs, umbrellas, busy waiters and cold glasses of beer, wine and spirits. We felt instantly at ease and at one with the world. It doesn’t get better than this !
The first day we explored the town, the next we rode to the top of the fortress hill on a cooler and sometimes rainy day and were dispatched underground by the guides at the top, into kilometres of tunnels from which limestone had been excavated for buildings throughout the district and for larger towns abroad. It was a day reminiscent of one we had experienced in France while canal cruising with our friends the Reeds and the Prattleys years before on the Nivernais Canal as we explored some caves at Bailley, but this one was without the sparkling wine produced there.
A highlight of the sightseeing for me (but one Maureen swears she didn’t see) was the female who appeared out of a boutique in town and walked ahead of us for a hundred metres or so. This was no young model but a very slim (skinny perhaps) 50 year old woman. As is the fashion in the Netherlands and Belgium (but strangely not France) she was wearing a ‘thong’ otherwise known as a ‘G string’ but that was all - under a completely see through dress. Stilettos and a poodle completed the outfit. Quite an eyeful.
We decided to stay overnight to see two museums the next day - an art gallery and an exposition of life ‘under the bridges’ with quite an emphasis on the river life and times of the old port town. These were thought provoking as they contained much about the life we were now experiencing.
Friday morning was taken up at the museums and then the nearby supermarket where a large store of excellent wines were purchased at ridiculously low prices. Another highlight was a visit to a branch of the ABN AMRO bank where they could not tell me what my account balance was, whether a couple of transactions had been processed, or any other useful information. I guess the Dutch banking system suits the Dutch but I would not recommend it elsewhere.
This night we had a couple from an adjoining boat over for a barbecue on our back deck with the huge umbrella guarding us from the late sunset and the slow moving river traffic a passing parade of sights as the wine and local produce quenched our appetites. This was to become a pattern of life for the next five years as we would arrive in a town or village and be assisted to a mooring by other boaters or bargees. The inevitable discussions comparing notes and boats would be followed by drinks on theirs or ours and often that would drift into a BYO BBQ where each couple or group would bring whatever they had to contribute to the dinner - food of course but mostly wine.
Saturday 18 August
We departed at 10.30am for Liege on a cool and slightly wet morning and travelled the 15 kilometres in three hours. While it was only an hours cruising, we had to wait for entry to a couple of locks and in between, settled for a much slower cruise speed to enjoy the scenery.
The yacht harbour entrance at Liege was narrow and manoeuvring room very restricted so we chose the outside wall and settled in. This led to a contre-temps with the harbour master as I argued we were not in the harbour and had no access to their facilities or protection from passing vessels and therefore should not pay, or at least be offered a discount for the overnight fee. They disagreed and enlisted a resident yachtie to try and convince me. It was a war not worth winning at about $12 so I caved in and paid. They then made an effort to get us power and water.
Our trusty mountain bikes took us through the town to the inevitable cathedral, old town, shopping streets (the shopping in Belgium is very good) and out to the Palace (huge) and the main town square (even more huge). We soaked up the sights and later some pizza and pasta, wine and a beer or two and settled in for the night.
Sunday 19 August
We went to the catholic cathedral for the mass since it was advertised as a sung Eucharist and we had not had a chance to experience any musical performances so far. The choir consisted of two female and about five male singers, enthusiastically led by a thirties something female with a glorious voice and a very insistent baton. We had a quick energy recharge (coffee and cakes) following the service and set off for the town of Huy at 12.00, arriving there at 2.00pm.
We arrived at Huy to find a large carnivale in full swing along the river just across and up from our mooring. Our bikes sped us to the centre of the festivities and we wandered through the slightly frowsy set of ‘side show alley’ attractions before buying a bottle of wine made from flowers. The seller’s daughter had spent a year in central America - which is apropos of nothing really but a reflection on the sort of useless information one gathers in these wanderings.
The first week of travel had seen us travel 278 kilometres of canals and rivers, uncounted towns, villages and several cities. So far, so good. I have to say that I was having a great time. In charge of a great ship on the waterways of Europe, mixing with commercial and pleasure boats, gaining terrific experience and in the main, with no pressures or hassles. This has to be a great life.
Monday 20 August
We had decided to pick up cheap fuel in Belgium where it is something like half the price of diesel in France and had nominated the town of Dave as the target. Unfortunately on our arrival at Dave we found the fuel stop had closed, permanently, so we continued on to Namur and picked up a mooring on the riverside in town right in front of the Casino.
Once again a town overlooked and dominated by a large castle which demanded investigation. The views were stunning from the area at the top which offered both a parfumerie and a couple of free museums. Well worth the effort of the climb.
Later, we explored the town, again picturesque with lovely town squares and a plethora of restaurants, cafes and outdoor eating. We enjoyed a beer at one and returned to Van Nelle for dinner before a wander over to the Casino. We dressed for the occasion as the building appeared quite swish. On arrival and after a slow look at the art exhibition in the foyer we made for the entrance to the gaming room. Stopped at the door for our passes we were surprised to learn that you need a passport and 150 francs ($A40) for entrance. As we contemplated these facts we noticed the lowly calibre of those inside and decided we would skip the experience - back to the boat.
Tuesday 21 August
On to Dinant where we arrived early in the afternoon to an absolutely delightful scene. This is a very pretty riverside town dominated (again) by fortresses on the heights above. The town boasts a lovely church, old buildings, narrow streets and cheerful people. It is also the birthplace of Alfred Sax, the inventor of the saxophone ! We secured a free mooring right in front of the Leffe restaurant and the church and immediately headed off to the bar for a refreshment. As it was nearing dinner time and the meals appearing around us looked fantastic, and since we had chanced a great table on the balcony overlooking Van Nelle on the river, we decided to stay for a meal. We ordered and received the biggest pork hocks and steaks we had yet seen. These were accompanied by frites (chips), roast potatoes, salads, beans and other garnishments. A bottle of the local and a hour or so of dedicated feeding and we were well past caring.
I should point out that ‘French fries’ were actually invented in Belgium but are called ‘frites’
Wednesday 22
We decided to stay for a day or so to explore and enjoy - one can’t be always on the move!
Shopping, riding, walking, communicating in French, this is all very tiring work for the traveller and requires equal amounts of rest and refreshment. We decided on the long lunch and went to the ‘King of Moules’ Restaurant for Moules Frites. This is a signature dish of Belgium although it has been exported to other nearby countries. This is mussels (in your choice of over 20 sauces) together with bread, butter and frites (French fries). Carafes of Rosé (perfect accompaniment) completed the repast that stretched from 12.00 till after 2.00 and prompted a bit of a lie down to follow.
I’m prompted to comment and compare our voyage so far with the diarised experience of the MacLean- Jordan family in their travels through Belgium in their luxemotor Mea Vota. Their path took them through the industrial heartland of Belgium, complete with stinging, sulphur laden air, black water and industrial overnight stops. Ours has been blissfully beautiful and enjoyable via the eastern side of the country rather than the (possibly) more industrial west. If you, the reader, are planning a trip north or south via Belgium - I can absolutely recommend our path.
We stayed through Wednesday, Thursday and reluctantly left on Friday for Givet and France.
Friday 24 August
Beautiful one day, perfect the next. The saying is of Queensland, Australia, but can be used to describe the weather and scenery along the river Meuse through Belgium and the north of France. As we meandered into canal country, the width of the waterways decreased together with the number of commercial vessels also becoming limited, the weather was kind and the boat performed beautifully.
We had taken on water, fuel and power in Dinant and arrived at another beautiful town with no pressing needs. We set out to explore this quiet river stop at Givet, it’s historical interest, the centre of ceramic artisans, the old Charlemont Castle and the restaurants, cafes, street side bars and shopping hideaways.
We arranged a French phone card in the ubiquitous local phone shop and enjoyed the 30+ degree heat from the shade of the umbrella and the waterside trees. This was our first taste of France on this momentous voyage of discovery and we were well pleased with it. Passing the border was uneventful as the customs building still exists but had been abandoned for years. Arriving in France at Givet was simple and welcoming. The mooring was serviced with power, water was available nearby and the riverside was a garden in full bloom.
Each night the locals stroll down and along the waterfront, chatting quietly as the younger contingent buy pizzas and frites from the mobile café that arrives at five and departs at ten. They all smile and acknowledge you as you sit on your boat, or near to it on shore with your picnic. It is calm and idyllic. While we were there it was also warm, even hot and with kids and their dogs splashing in the river shallows the scene was of a time best captured in a French impressionist painting.
However, other ports and meetings awaited us so we decided to caste off the next day for Fumay on our way to Champagne. Who could resist the urge not to hurry toward the sound of the bubbles.
Saturday 25 August
Our first tunnel was experienced this day. It is not a long one but narrow and made somewhat disconcerting (if not difficult) by the light from the entrance reflecting in the wheelhouse windows and the light from the exit stabbing the eyes from the front. Our powerful little floodlight on the mast was overwhelmed at times but we made it through.
We were now in the country of the Freycinet ecluses (locks) a standard 38.5m long and 5m wide. Monsieur Freycinet has a name that rings in the minds of Western Australians as he was on a patrol of French frigates commanded by Boudin that explore the Western Australian coast in the early 1800s. He became France’s Minister of Transport, inheriting the hotch potch of privately built and owned canals with their differing gauges. He therefore decreed they should be standardised and as a result, France was able to develop a nationwide network of intersecting rivers and canals, all able to be cross-navigated by a standard sized barge.
Getting Van Nelle’s 4.5m width into a 5m space is a bit difficult at times despite slow approaches and the judicious use of power over the rudder. Small eddies, currents and wind can push the boat off the centre line when close to the entrance, sometimes resulting in loud (but not damaging) noises from the steel hull and rock walls. We soon learned that judiciously placed fenders was the answer.
These close encounters were another motivator to achieve higher levels of proficiency in the skills of steering and operating the engine to accurately position and manoeuvre the boat. Wind and current complicates the procedures learned from experts and only experience overcomes most challenges. The new operator has to keep in mind that doing it slowly will allow more time to get it right and that it will also lessen damage if you get it wrong. Not that damage is a large concern since Van Nelle is a very solid vessel. Besides, one should not ever come into contact in anything other than a slow glancing blow, at most requiring a small application of the relevant paint.
There is a need for the crew to be able to secure the boat by throwing the mooring lines over the bollards in locks and moorings. There are time tested ways to do this which I learned and practised at the barge handling course run by Tam and Di Murrell in Cambrai, northern France. I had taught Maureen the art and left her to perfect it and she spent considerable time practising rope throwing with increasing frustration as her efforts did not seem to be rewarded by success. She would not give up till she got it right however and her work on the foredeck at times saved much ‘face’..
Fumay, like the towns before it, was pretty and enjoyable. We wandered through town making small purchases of bread and lettuce. A wedding passed us as we wandered the streets before we retired to dinner on board. Weddings, like christenings and funerals, town celebrations and the like are a joy to be caught up in as they tend to be very public in the smaller towns, often leading visitors to become guests or at least close members of the extended audience. A French town that is having a local or national celebration is one to be in at the time. Tables and chairs are arranged in the town square and food, drinks and music are as generous as the country people who just accept etrangers (foreigners) who appear and join their throng. And, they love Australians.
We decided to stay at Fumay to enjoy a long lunch on the river side on Sunday. Chicken, pâté, bread, cheese, wine, sun, fun ! A passer by mentioned that the weather would deteriorate later but it showed no signs of change. We went to bed that night feeling pretty good.
3.00am and we woke to the full fury of a massive thunderstorm. A wall of noise and the sky rent by livid flashes of raw power in lightning bolts that created instant black and white pictures of frenzied activity inside Van Nelle as we raced to close skylights, portholes and windows from the onrush of solid water pouring out of the black sky. What an excitement, then to be warm and dry in bed with the sound of the fury passing over and receding into the distance. A memorable performance for us and one that brought back Johan’s misgivings of being in the wheelhouse of a ship during a storm. He is one who believes you can be fried if you are caught in the wheelhouse and always retreats below during storms. We have never heard of such storms actually causing casualties and often have watched the fury of a good storm from the wheelhouse - especially the hurricane that caused so much damage and death in Bordeaux in the summer of 2003 - but that was two years ahead.
Monday 27 August.
The day started overcast but rapidly cleared as we headed away from Fumay to Charleville Mezieres, two competing towns brought together only 20 or so years ago and now offering a range of facilities. This beginning to the third week has seen us cover 387km and puts us in our third country - La Belle France.
We are now definitely ‘en Francais’ with almost no-one but other boaties speaking English. The wide river waterways have given way to narrow canals that are increasingly shallow and the speed restricted to 6kmh. While this slows our progress it is enjoyable and we have only Maureen’s appointment with Adrienne Keen in Paris (a friend from Clean Up Australia) and our week with Laurie and Marlene O’Meara, who are joining us in Reims for a cruise to Epernay to get to.
The country towns are now about 10 - 15km apart and each has its charm, its facilities and its secrets for us to unlock. French provincial towns and villages grew up on the canal sides to service the boats just as much as for the boats to service them. No town in the country is more than one meal away from the next by foot. This makes exploring a delight since it takes only 2-3 hours barge cruising to pass from one town to the next. Not that you should only travel between towns, the country side is pretty, expansive, very quiet and free. One can stop almost wherever the fancy takes you except for obvious exceptions such as under bridges and if obstructing corners.
Charleville Mezieres boasts the Musee d’Ardennes, the Place Ducale, the centre of puppetry (marionettes) in Europe (with a marionette clock much bigger than London Court), expansive markets and modern facilities. We moored first in their new marina but it was isolated and deserted so early the next day we moved to the riverside, closer into the town centre.
Getting in and out of the new marina was a challenge as they had constructed a low, arched bridge across the entrance and I was not at all sure we would fit. I inched Van Nelle forward under the bridge until the wheelhouse was a few feet away from the span. We could then tell accurately that if we stayed right in the middle we could just get under. Inside were huge new floating pontoons, all wired and plumbed for power and water for a hundred boats of all sizes and shapes and not one but us. As the marina had not been officially opened, none of the facilities were operating, so after staying the night we retreated the next day.
Nearby was Johanna, a Luxemotor I had seen advertised as a hotel boat in the Blue Flag (the magazine of the Dutch Barge Association). We met John Wilson, her owner and shared a couple of nights discussing boats and other associated topics. Meanwhile the great weather prevailed, prompting John to comment it was the best summer in three years. We have seen John several times over the intervening years as he travels slowly around France with groups of passengers on his do-it-yourself Luxemotor barge.
Tuesday 28 August
We were feeling pretty guilty about the lack of work we had undertaken in the past few weeks so began this day with a rush of resolutions and actions. Jay - the bath pump, engine works and some painting, Maureen - painting the study / office and the front cabin. Consciences appeased we relaxed over dinner with John and drinks later with a couple from Belgium.
Wednesday 29
The lost day. Somewhere we got out of whack with the diary and the actual days and this day appears to have been lost somewhere. It happens like that I guess. I am sure we enjoyed it, there were no calamities and it formed part of the important march of time we experienced on our journey. Its just that we lost it somewhere - it was not the last day to be lost - indistinguishable from its neighbours in a drift through time and place.
Thursday 30 August
On to Pont a Bar and Le Chesne, arriving there at 4.30pm to find a small town with a boulangerie operating (great - fresh bread), a small supermarket (no fresh milk) and a locked church. We looked for the restaurant but decided that we would eat rations. Tough choice given the great food we have on board from the lovely small, service oriented French magasins (shops).
We also decided to have a health night and stay away from the customary bottle of wine with dinner. We actually managed two health days in a row with the next day also ‘on the wagon’. These AFDs (alcohol free days) were taken occasionally to prove that we could do it. It makes you feel better in one way but is a waste if you have great food and wine to enjoy. One just has to go with the other - especially in company.
Friday 31 August
The day of the locks. 26 of them in only 8km !!!!! This is a true test of boat and crew as you idle from one lock almost straight into the next. We were caught behind a large, slow commercial barge and therefore had to wait at each ecluse for the water to return to our level in order to take us down the 2-3metres to the next lock. For the last 7 or 8 ecluses we also had the company of a small yacht that just fitted in behind us.
Doing that number of locks in a day is not recommended but once into a system like that you just have to continue. If you entered the system late in the day you would have to stop mid way and start again first light the next day as it is possible in such conditions to block traffic. However it is a tiring way to spend a day as it is all stop start, operating gates and ropes, stop start and repeat. It can also be a dreary pastime in rain or really hot weather. Fortunately there are not many places where such runs of locks exist.
Commercial barges have right of way on the canals and rivers as they are trying to make a living in difficult conditions. There are fewer of these Freycinet barges plying the canals of France these days as the cost of fuel and the fewer available cargoes make life precarious and penniless. We don’t decry them their priority - except if they are truly unreasonable - which can be the case.
We made our way to Attigny after the 26 locks, just a few more to get there and found a nice park beside the river with bollards, water and lighting. Unfortunately it was Friday night and the local teenagers had adopted the park as their drinking place (despite the police patrol - from which they hid their ill gotten gains), so the noise level and threatening presence was felt until about midnight. Made for a good night of reading ‘20,000 Thieves’ a book about Australian Diggers at war in Africa - they also caused headaches for the English officers.
This being Email night we were frustrated by the lack of reception and the inability of the Email program to get mail. We resolved to fix it when reception improved.
Saturday 1 September
A new month, my fourth in Europe. We departed Attigny for Asfeld and was met with a rather disappointing place. The river stop is isolated from the town and despite the town’s best efforts to provide a reasonable mooring, the facilities are a bit glum and distant from shops - of which there are few. We walked a fair way looking but decided it was a night at home.
Sunday 2 September
Cruised from Asfeld to Courcy where we arrived at 6.00pm. We decided we were too tired to explore and besides there was not much on offer so a quiet night at home. Van Nelle performing as beautifully as Maureen, the queen of the crew in the locks. My performance was a bit scattered at times.
I called the email service to find that the subscription to Ipass - the internet service overseas, had lapsed a couple of days before and that was the problem with the mail. Also, the phone credit was almost expended and the new card was not amenable to any of my attempts to load it. Very frustrating business, especially when the instructions both written and from the phone are in French, spoken so fast it is impossible for me to gather more than a fraction of their meaning.
Monday 3 September
Departed at 9.30am for Reims after calling Ozemail and getting Ipass reinstated. Another of the problems of communication here is the time difference and the appalling wait times imposed by service companies such as Ozemail. Most times their wait time for service or technical support exceeded 20 minutes. They will find that they will be deserted when there is a better service available. Perhaps we should emigrate to Hotmail with the rest of the world.
Arrival at Reims was through an industrial area and we contented ourselves with the thought that at least when we get to the Port de Plaisance there is sure to be a pleasant harbour in the centre of town. We arrived to find the only spaces for big boats taken and therefore power and water were not to be provided to us. We moved past the big commercials that dominated the port to the far end and moved in to the wall to moor. Maureen was gesticulating at me with a physical hieroglyphic that appeared to mean shallow water and it was. The boat came to a gentle halt, firmly held at the bow by the underlying mud. A quick prod with a boat hook confirmed about 2-3 feet of water at the wall, insufficient for Van Nelle’s 3-4feet.
We withdrew and heeding the advice of an old gentleman on the river side, moved past the marina to an area of low walls, bollards and a four lane highway. We were the only ship in the area but we tied up and went forth on bike to explore other possibilities. There appeared to be none so we decided to strike out for town and consider the future later. This we did with a visit to the Reims Cathedral - truly an awe inspiring building. Unfortunately, it is succumbing to the ravages of weather and car exhaust acid and can be seen to be disintegrating. Fortunately, large efforts are now being made to restore the crumbling exterior.
It slowly dawned on us that we were in our first important French city. We have travelled from the Netherlands through Belgium to France and in France to Champagne, with all the glamour and excitement that promises. We don’t know much about it yet as we have only seen the canal, the port and the freeway frontage from our mooring. Our brief visit up the road from the port to the Cathedral has just opened a crack on what we were to learn and discover by bicycle, scooter, taxi and multiple visits to this truly great city. And then there is the champagne.
We will be in or around Reims for the next week or two as Maureen goes off to Paris to meet up with friends and explore with them their wedding trip while I wait for our first guests - the O’Meara’s. Naturally one of my priorities was to visit and grade the champagne houses so we would not waste time visiting less than excellent places with friends. It was a tough job but one that I knew had to be done so I just got on with it !
Once again the phone had stopped working. This is a constant irritation that just adds to the frustration of the cost and the poor areas of reception. Fortunately we are in an area that has a French Telecom office with an English speaking assistant so we will be able to sort it out, but it does raise the question of continuing reliability or periods of lost communications. Perhaps that’s not a bad thing sometimes....
Maureen arrived back on Thursday having met up with Adrienne and Kerry, the newlyweds in Paris and having been with them to visit Monet’s Garden, house and a nice restaurant the previous day.
Picked up from the station (Gare) on the trusty Peugeot scooter we were back at the boat to discuss what we would do for some 10 days before the ‘first guests’ arrived. We decided that since we needed water and could do with some shore power to take the pressure off the generator for a while, we would travel up to Sillery where those services were apparently available and then come back to Reims for the welcome and beginning of the champagne tours.
We spent another four days expanding our knowledge of Reims (pronounced Razz strangely), making bits for the boat (Maureen made a sun cover for the skylight and I installed some light and pump switches) and doing some more exploring. We also had the phone problem fixed.
It seems that people try mixing up the fourteen numbers on the pre pay phone cards in order to try to get free time. I tried to enter a card that was suspect and so had used a number of attempts (you only have a certain number of unsuccessful tries). I bought another card and tried it a couple of times without seeming to have success and took it back to the Tabac (a small shop where such useful items as well as papers and tabacco can be bought) and the shopkeeper tried as well. This had seriously put me in doubt with France Telecom which had then suspended my number.
The assistant at the shop was sweet and helpful and finally got through to their service department and had the service re-instated. I was not too sure about the longevity of the fix and indeed it cropped up again a couple of days later. (As I wrote this from a distance of some weeks, we had no further problems and so were keeping our fingers crossed).
It may seem that what this trip exposes are all the problems of living and travelling in a different country and culture. These are however just the things that stick in the mind and should be balanced by the great feeling of joy that one has every day discovering new sights, sounds and tastes.
A couple of other activities brightened the otherwise cloudy environment. Our visits to try out the various champagne houses had us choose Mumm as our favourite and Piper Heidsieck as the most extensive tour. Pipers was just up the hill from us and for some 60 francs ($10) offered a tour with an English speaking guide who explained the process of champagne production in detail as you wandered their extensive tunnels under the streets of the City for an hour. It was then up to the tasting room for several small glasses of their product. Good value and very educational. Mumm (pronounced Moom) on the other hand was some distance away and the tour was conducted in electric chariots with a CD recounting the story as you passed mannequins in staged setups to illustrate the process. Then the trip to the tasting room and afterwards the exit through their shop.
We liked the brevity and range of product at Mumm, especially their ‘Extra Dry’ which is actually made slightly sweeter exclusively for the American market but is on taste and sale here at their head quarters. All in all we liked the product, the environment and the opportunity to explore at leisure.
While we were moored in Reims a commercial barge arrived and tied up right in front of us. I introduced myself to the owner who appeared to be on his own. I was itching to see the inside of these big commercial boats and offered him a look at ours if I could have a look at his. He somewhat reluctantly agreed to let me see his the next day and appeared to go into a flurry of activity to prepare his boat for my inspection.
The inside of the cargo area appears large from the outside but you really get to feel the enormity of it when you get inside. The equivalent volume of nine of the largest trucks is available for heavy, bulky material which the EU is keen to get off the roads. Into the engine room, confined but well organised and with a powerful and well tended power plant. Then into the living space which is really a small apartment with a bathroom, kitchen / dining / lounge and a couple of bedrooms, all very tidy. The surprise was that he had a wife and six year old daughter who we had not seen in several days. The owner does all the shopping and errands, outside work and running of the boat, his family appears to be almost hermits. I later discovered that her blackened and rotten teeth all had to be extracted which was a primary reason for them to be in Reims, not out working.
They came on a visit to Van Nelle and were spell bound by the comparative space and luxury of our facilities by comparison. I was saddened that these hard working people had so little opportunity to improve their lot. Bargees cannot earn enough for retirement in many cases and the French government allows them to live out their lives on their slowly deteriorating boats.
I learned a lot from that encounter such as, he had bought the barge for a great deal of money some years before as his father and grand father had both been barge operators. He admitted now that he could not sell the boat for a fraction of its original cost and had to keep operating it to just stay on top. The niceties of life such as medical and dental care, schooling for the boy and any kind of social life had long since vanished, not only because of cost but also since they were always on the move. When we left he was still at Reims without further work to go on to.
Tuesday 11 September !
We headed off to Sillery after seven days in Reims and having said goodbye to the family on the commercial barge, but just before we left the wife returned from a visit to a state dentist looking greatly relieved. It brings into focus the personal cost of these people keeping barge commerce alive.
A short cruise to Sillery and we were met with what was to become very familiar. Here was a new marina with water and power facilities standing empty with lots of berths for boats from 5 to 15 metres and none for boats of 20 to 30 metres. We improvised. First we had to turn around since the only place we could access the water and power was against the land on the inside of the marina - was it too shallow ? We edged towards the pontoon, Maureen on the bow with the short (5 metre) boat hook. When Van Nelle was abeam of the outer jetty Maureen took to the air with a water defying leap onto the pontoon and raced off to test the depth.
Thumbs up and I was manoeuvring the ship in reverse into the land side area which was fortunately free of small boats and (with the removal of a fisherman) just big enough for us to squeeze into. With some to-ing and fro-ing we squeezed Van Nelle’s bulk into a spot that should have been taken by a boat half our length and tied the bow to a hedge since there were no bollards that far from the mooring. We were however able to extend our electrical lead to the power outlet but since our water tanks are near the bow, our hose could not reach. I noticed the boat on the other side of the jetty had a hose, maybe we could borrow it, join them and get the water we now needed.
I approached the woman on the boat who nervously refused saying that her husband was not here and she could not give permission. Nothing for it I thought but to crane the scooter off the deck and ride back to Reims for a bricollage/quincaillerie (hardware shop) and buy an extension plus some different sized tap fittings. We had identified no possible suppliers locally so the trip was on. About an hour to get the scooter off, get to Reims, acquire the hose (which has now been use a couple of times - justifying its purchase) and back to Sillery. On the into the city however I was confronted with a sign that would lead me onto the motorway - a place a scooter, only capable of 60-65kmh was not supposed to go. I kept going round the round-a-bout and found another road leading traffic to the exposition site. I hopefully took that turn-off and was rewarded with the road that ran right beside the canal and past our previous mooring.
Sillery is a small town with a couple of champagne makers so we went to the most promising for a degustation (tasting) and a poke around. The patronne (a woman) was most accommodating and having tried their brut, we had to buy. For the rest of our stay of four days, we reverted to a round of odd jobs, a bit of exploration and a couple of conversations with the young and very friendly harbour master, who also had the job of community activities development for the town.
Maureen also gave me a hair cut ! A very attractive job it was too. That set the pattern and while away I never needed a hairdresser.
We went to the pub ( a local bar / café) on our first night and was surprised to see the men all glued to the television screen which had very bad reception. It appeared to be a horror movie or a special effects documentary with the same scenes being repeated over and over we thought until we tuned our ears into the spasmodic French phrases of the three or four patrons.
New York, 11 September, 2001.
With mounting horror we realised the planes destroying the twin towers was not an act of fiction and learned some of the facts from the bar flies but needed something more static to learn the details. The next morning we bought the two French newspapers and read the details as best we, and our dictionaries, could. We joined the rest of the world mourning the senseless loss of innocent lives in this divisive conflict and wondered what the eventual outcome would be.
During our time in Sillery we also visited a WWI war cemetery. About 1,000 neat graves are laid out with headstones for both French and Algerian troops. Behind the cenotaph however there are two concrete monoliths under which, proclaims the inscription, lie the remains of some 12,000 unidentified soldiers. These two elements of our time in Sillery seemed to underline part of the motivation of our journey of adventure. Life is short - make the most of it !
Saturday 15 September
Laurie and Marlene O’Meara are confirmed to arrive tomorrow and so we are off to Reims, and back to within metres of where we had left - having been urged along by the VNF (the French department responsible for canal navigation and maintenance) who wanted to repair the intervening section of canal. Our friend, the commercial bargee was still there and he happily leapt off his still empty behemoth to assist with our arrival and mooring. He was still waiting for news of work from the local agency which coordinates such matters.
That night we received a call from Helen and Ian Palmer, remonstrating us for forgetting Ian’s 60th birthday - Bonne Anniversaire Ian (again) and I was able to report that a special bottle of Palmer Champagne was on its way to him. I had found Palmer’s on the way to the main post office and on inquiry found they made a very high quality Millesime Brut which I bought, took to the Office de Poste and suitably packaged, sent to Perth. It was about a year later we discovered it had arrived but the bottle was smashed. Surprisingly the bottle top was not in the box and the accompanying brochure was undamaged by liquid. Much later we learned of the wholesale plundering of mail items by Australian postal workers.
Sunday 16 September
GAD - or guest arrival day - and after a phone call to confirm that they were safely on the train from Paris to Reims we planned for the meeting at the Gare de Reims at 2.00pm. We would go on the scooter and I would bring them back in a taxi while Maureen took the scooter to get baguettes for a late lunch. All was in readiness (as we had had several weeks to prepare).
The arrival was joyous but with a strange twist - they had arrived in Paris the day before from Spain and it being morning had thought to just transfer trains and come straight on to Reims - a day early. Their repeated calls to our phone (which was on) had no effect and they decided to take a hotel and come on the next day as planned. We still had not received the voice message left on the French Telecom service !
After a quick lunch - pâté, cheese, baguettes, salad and of course a Champagne, we headed out to the St Remi Basilica and on to Piper Heidsieck for a tour and tasting. St Remi’s remains are still in the sarcophagus in the Basilica which is in itself a beautiful church on a lovely park located up the hill from the canal. It was in this church that the early kings of France were crowned.
The champagne houses of Maxim’s, Taittinger and Piper are just a stones throw away so the journey by foot was easy and the rewards great as we signed up for the three taste special - the Brut, the Rose and the Millesime (vintage). The tour is conducted in remote control carts which take you through some of the 10 or so kilometres of underground caves (tunnels) that are filled with champagne slowly ageing and undergoing the second fermentation, the time the bubbles grow.
We learned that after degorgement (the time the dead yeast is removed from the bottle and the replacement ‘liquor’ - a mixture of old champagne and sugar - is added, the champagne actual begins to deteriorate since air is inevitably added. Drink champagne as soon as you buy it since a non vintage is good for a maximum of about 5 years and a Millesime about 10. The Millesime or top vintages are only pronounced in outstanding years and are still hand turned for a month or so to move the sediment to the neck before degorgement. The standard wines are rotated and raised to vertical by machines, but machines are not involved in picking, which is still done by hand.
We saw later the itinerant grape pickers at Epernay and a couple of the other small towns along the way. Gypsies mostly, dark, swarthy men, small, timid children and brazen, flashy women, all emerging from cramped caravans, van sized vehicles and squatter camps along the rivers and canals. Pickers are becoming harder and harder to recruit and we wonder what will happen when they are no longer sufficient in number to pick the crops. Perhaps machines will be tactile enough by then to take over but many of the vines are growing on what appears to be very steep hills on which it would be impossible for machines to operate. We will wait and see.
The vendage or picking season began on the 25th so we were still in the region to see the grapes start to move to the village crushers and then by truck, the juices transferred to the champagne houses in the cities or the hundreds of small producer’s ateliers in the villages. But that was later.
After sight seeing through the main areas of Reims for two days, we treated ourselves to dinner at Au Congres (a restaurant Maureen and I had enjoyed on our first night) and looked forward to our departure the next morning to Conde Sur Marne, our first stop in a champagne village with guests.
Tuesday 18 September
This was a BIG DAY. Some 28 kilometres to navigate with eighteen locks and a two and a half kilometre tunnel ! The O’Meara’s were up bright and early, looking forward to the day’s cruise. The weather was overcast and pretty cool but the rain held off - mostly. We left the mooring and went straight into the first of the three locks that take you out of Reims. With that experience Laurie and Marlene were keen to assist and soon learned much of the requirements of locking a big boat. Pretty soon Laurie was at the wheel displaying a remarkably good touch in keeping Van Nelle in the middle of the channel.
The canals look straight and well ordered to the novice but under the brown, murky waters lie shoals, rocks, discarded rubbish and banks of silt from collapsed banks. It is a foolish helms-person that strays too far from the centre - except when having to pass other boats coming in the opposite direction, and then it is done with much trepidation.
We arrived at Conde Sur Marne with the expectation of staying at the indicated pleasure boat stop. On arrival it was taken up with randomly moored boats of much smaller proportions that were all deserted. The opposite side of the channel looked promising as it was a VNF depot that now, at 5.00pm was deserted - we thought. It was a difficult approach and some to-ing and fro-ing was required to line Van Nelle up. Once we were almost ready to moor a VNF ‘Bonaparte’ emerged from a hut and in no uncertain terms warned us off. We left, thinking that he could have saved us a great deal of activity by coming out in the first place. Just around the corner however there was a fine wall at a silo with adequate bollards that suited us very well for the night
We had been without an Australian flag until now - except for a huge 3 metre version too big for a flag pole - but Laurie and Marlene came to the rescue with a beautiful small Aussie flag that fitted exactly on our mast. We decided to have a formal flag raising ceremony, and with the strains of the National Anthem playing the flag was raised. Surprisingly the CD player / home theatre system hiccupped a few times while blaring out the tune.
We settled down to a champagne and a quick walk through the village before dinner and bed.
The next day the stereo equipment decided to totally quit as did the Discman and the Walkman - no music. I assume they just did not like the power output from the inverter which apparently issues a rather square sine curve that some electronics can’t cope with !
Wednesday 19 September
A quiet and easy cruise this day took us to Tours Sur Marne and after rounding the corner into the town we saw the barge of Tam and Di Murrell, my barge teachers, here to conduct barge handling courses and rest in between students. I had taken my operator’s course and been guided through my Certificate de Capacite (French barge driver’s qualification) by the Murrells and was keen to introduce them to Maureen, Laurie and Marlene and to get up to date with the Dutch Barge Association of which they are stalwart supporters.
We locked through and tied up to the canal wall just in front of the town’s biggest employer, the cardboard box factory, leaving enough room for approaching and departing barges to pass, and quickly renewed our acquaintance. Tam and Di were expecting students the next day and had a dinner to go to that night so we agreed to meet for a drink later and have some more chat time at a later date. We also took their advice to visit the champagne house L’Amiable and possibly join them and their students the next day for a tour of the establishment.
We took the Murrell’s advice with a quick visit to L’Amiable and bought some of their product for later consumption. We checked out the nearby hotel’s restaurant and Laurie and Marlene booked us in for dinner. After drinks on board we had a very pleasant dinner and prepared for another day of exploration and tasting.
Thursday 20 September
After breakfast the gang took off to explore the village and look for the grave of Dom Perignon, who started this whole champagne industry back in the mid 1800s. The search for Dom was unsuccessful but we were rewarded by the views and a taste of the grapes growing abundantly near the village. We later discovered that the Dom’s grave is at a small village up the hill from our next stop in Cumieres.
At 4.00pm we met Tam and Di’s group of students and walked up to the champagne house of Dr L’Amiable with them. The youngish and very plump receptionist took us through the caves and production areas with her commentary in French being processed by Di and the students. Finally to the tasting room which warmed up considerably with the arrival of the winemaker and Patron himself. Not only the champagnes but also the Marc (a powerful digestif spirit) and Ratafia (an aperitif) were tried and much bought for later consumption. We retired to Van Nelle for dinner and preparation for out travel onwards to Cumieres the next day.
Friday 21 September
A sunny day but quite cold as we headed up the canal and onto the Marne river, now swollen by rain and carrying large amounts of debris, including whole trees. As we were travelling with the flow of the river, avoiding the logs, branches and other piles of flotsam was relatively easy and we made good time with the current running at about 8 km/h and Van Nelle’s engine adding another 8 to it.
A short distance through the champagne countryside, Cumieres swept into view around a corner. First we passed a doubtful paddle steamer, apparently used for tourist river trips but with the paddle a visual but not useful addition and then a rather abandoned looking small boat tied to the town pontoon. At the pontoon reserved for plaisancier’s (pleasure boats). we found positioned a large hotel boat. We had hoped to have the pontoon to ourselves but so long as the crew of commercial boats are helpful, being tied on the outside of them is not too much of an inconvenience.
We made a 180 degree turn as the current swept us past the pontoon and made out way back to ‘Lilubele’ the hotel boat. The crew appeared and helpfully took lines as we secured Van Nelle to her side. We were soon secure and the side door of the hotel boat was made available for us to move on and off our boat. Simon, the matelot, scurried up onto their roof to take our hose and electric cable which were soon in use topping up the water tank and the battery bank. Our crew then set off to explore as I stood watch over the water operation.
The crew re-appeared after an hour with fresh provisions for lunch and tales of great numbers of champagne houses throughout the town and even vines right down to the edge of the centre ville. The grapes, they reported, were plentiful and ripe and later we discovered they were the Pinot variety, used to add character and body to champagne.
Their search for Dom Perignon’s grave was unsuccessful but while they were out, Simon invited me to meet the crew and have a Pernod with them. A pre lunch aperitif. The boat was managed by an English girl, Charlie, and piloted by Daniel, a dark Frenchman. They were all remarkably young and very keen on the boat and their jobs. They planned a shopping expedition for the afternoon and soon headed off by taxi to shop and further fortify themselves for the arrival of twelve guests the next day. The company they work for, Continental Waterways, had twelve similar boats operating from Holland, Germany and France. The effect of 9/11 was to almost destroy the business as American tourism switched off overnight.
We planned another expedition for the afternoon and a roast that night as the local restaurant appeared expensive and plain.
Saturday 22
This morning we were met on waking by the sight of an impenetrable fog ! It looked like we would be in Cumieres longer than the day we had planned. Another issue for us was the fact that a tree had lodged itself across the bows of both boats during the evening and with branches locked on both sides of Van Nelle’s bow was not looking an easy task to remove. The combined strength of the crew of both boats was insufficient to budge it with ropes and boat hooks working hard to roll and push or pull it away against the still fierce current. We stopped to consider the options and my decision was to ease the lines so VN would slowly retreat away from the log which could be held by rope to Lilubele. As we were agreeing the precise detail of the operation, Laurie took one of our massive boat hooks and prodded on of the tree’s branches. As it appeared to move a little he gave it a more substantial push and managed to hit the pivot or key spot, as it dislodged itself fully and sailed off down stream. Relieved, we set about clearing up and getting our hoses and cables aboard as the sun was now burning the fog to mist and it appeared that we would be able to depart after all.
At noon the way was clear and we set off, now heading upstream through the turn-off to Epernay. We made good time with Van Nelle able to exert most of her 150 horsepower to push us along at 11 km/h against the now 5kmh current. Soon we had passed into the Epernay environs and we carried on upstream into the heart of the city and to the Society Nautique harbour. It appeared to be a fine place with tennis courts, a club house, boat house and facilities. We tied up and looked forward to a pleasant stay.
The obligatory exploration took us past the station (Gare) where we soon arranged the O’Meara’s train tickets for Paris for the next morning and then past the fine gothic church to discover the restaurant which had been recommended both by the Gault Millau Guide and previous customers. We booked for dinner and headed off to the centre of town, its markets and shops.
Epernay appeared to be a pleasant small city, very much the centre of champagne production, overlooked by the imposing tower and factory of de Castellane. Further back from the river bank we discovered Moet and Chandon. Where de Castellane appears to be the major force in town, boasting production of 3,000,000 bottles per year, it is dwarfed by the Moet & Chandon organisation which is at least 3-4 times the size producing 10 million per year. De Castellane has about 10 km of underground tunnels (caves) whereas M&C has some 24 in Epernay and large numbers of additional facilities outside the town.
We also called in to a Phillips showroom to see if there was a reasonably priced amplifier available to replace the broken sound system. They showed their wares and suggested that we might get a less expensive model at Carrefour the supermarket across the river. A quick trip there had a replacement Sony system bought and installed - we have music again !
That evening we headed out to the restaurant La Table Kobus for a very pleasant gourmet meal, accompanied by excellent wines and very graciously provided by Laurie and Marlene. We were starting to miss them already as their departure hour of nine the next morning grew near. The next morning came too quickly and soon we were walking to the station, trailing their suitcases and bags to meet the 9.00am train. As we arrived early we actually had them on an express train about 15 minutes earlier than their booking and they were soon installed in a compartment with luggage and all and we waved as they drew out of Epernay for their trip to Ireland.
We headed back to the boat and spent most of the day tidying up, doing washing and then taking a trip to de Castellane for a tour and tasting. It was the only drink we were to have for the next two days as we decided that a couple of health days were in order after the full on week we had just enjoyed. It is fair to say that we enjoyed the week as much or more than our guests who were a delight to have aboard. They left happy having been part of a working boat for a week gaining new experiences as they took up a generous share of the tasks - on the helm, the ropes and the operation of locks and mooring.
That evening an Email arrived from the lawyers who were handling a spurious claim by a disgruntled Kwinana woman who claimed - against the evidence of security and staff - that she broke an ankle at a concert managed by us some years before. That required a number of answers to add to the body of evidence mounting rapidly as the wolf pack of legals got into their stride for and against the claim.
Monday 24 September
We had decided to depart and so settled the account with the captainiere of the small port, an expensive place to stay as we discovered, as they charge 10 francs per metre per day. For Van Nelle that would have amounted to 540 francs - about $120 for two days mooring, some water and power. Fortunately the captain, a young woman, questioned our length suggesting 14 metres was more likely, so the eventual cost was almost halved.
We departed Epernay at about 8.30am with the plan to cruise south unless we met Tam and Di Murrell en route and had the opportunity for a meal with them. That was exactly the case since, as we arrived in Tours sur Marne, they were tied up at their previous mooring and had room for us ahead of their boat Friesland. They were resting between classes, were free of students but free for dinner. We issued our invitation and I set of to Epernay to buy supplies since Tours was shut. The scooter had me to Ay, on the way to Epernay, where the excellent supermarket and boulangerie were open. I was there and back within an hour with fresh supplies of food and wine and we prepared for a delicious dinner aboard.
Tuesday 25
An early morning fog the next morning delayed our start to noon but we set off into a lovely day en route to Chalons which, in the chart books, boasted fine facilities for pleasure boats. On arrival we passed through the town lock and turned into the lake like harbour somewhat cautiously as the other large boat moored outside looked as though it was on the bottom. Maureen prodded the bottom with the boat hook to discover a water depth of less than a metre. We had no option but to back out, turn around and head back through the lock to the disused commercial harbour we had passed on the way in.
We entered the channel and passed the point where we would tie up, disturbing some fishermen as we prepared to turn 180 degrees to enable us to depart easily. Unfortunately we discovered that the overhanging trees into which Maureen on the bow disappeared, really were on the side of the bank not overhanging it and the channel was not wide enough to allow Van Nelle to swing around. We very nearly became stuck fore and aft as our counter stern overhung the concrete dock but a determined shove by myself and a student from the nearby University had us back in the channel, now sporting a few broken branches.
We reversed back to the mooring and tied up with the prospect of having to reverse the boat through the channel, under a bridge to the stone entrance and without damaging the prop and rudder then to turn near the lock in order to carry on. We shelved our concerns until the next morning and set off to explore Chalons.
This is a thriving town at the extreme end of one of the three principle champagne growing areas and it sports a couple of wonderful churches, a busy covered marketplace and lots of old wooden framed houses. Very medieval and very pretty with a beautiful park, complete with statues of a pretty girl in various stages of dress (or undress) for the seasons she was portraying. Nearby this ‘Petite Jardin’ was a beautiful floral clock and one of two small rivers, the Mau, complete with swans. We stayed overnight and planned a visit to the market the next day.
Wednesday 26
Market day in Chalons brought out all the stall holders with a huge range of fresh food in the market hall and racks of clothes and bric-a-brac outside. We wandered through and waited until almost closing time to grab some bargains including a plump roasted chook and a coffee grinder with a ‘special discount’ and a bag of chocolate covered beans thrown in.
After lunch on the boat we returned to town to explore the small but interesting town museum with it’s statues by Rodin, lots of cathedral exhibits, a huge room full of stuffed birds and a gallery with a range of indifferent paintings. We were tailed by one of the three attendants who were having a pretty slow day as we appeared to be the only visitors.
On our way back to Van Nelle we decided to try a French movie and booked for The Officer’s Room which we saw at 6.00pm. A poignant story of young officers terribly disfigured by action in WWI and their recovery in a hospital at the patient hands of a skilled surgeon and dedicated nurses who helped them through the terrible mental and physical struggle to recovery.
Thursday 27
This day of departure had the challenge of the big reverse ahead of us. As it happened, with careful planning and gentle manoeuvring, the task was achieved a lot easier than expected and we faced up to the lock which had opened for us. A commercial barge was approaching us from the rear but was well back and another occupied the lock but was emerging. The two commercials obviously colluded over the radio however as the departing boat slid out of the lock it was positioned, very slowly, to cut us off and allow the other to pass us and go first into the lock.
Maritime rules require pleasure boats to make way for commercials if they are both waiting at the same time. In this case I was prepared to wait and had moved to the canal wall to secure VN but when the tactics of the two became apparent I became somewhat irritated and when the blocking barge made the mistake of opening up a small gap I took Van Nelle through it and into the lock.
As I slid past the blocking boat there was a lot of waving and shouting and the helmsman attempted to steer his stern in our way. Van Nelle and I however are made of solid stuff and I allowed out stern to give his boat a good whack as we passed. The other approaching boat now had to apply full reverse in order not to get caught up at the lock entrance. Meanwhile the eclusier - the lock keeper - who witnessed the whole event, shrugged, smiled and helpfully took our lines to assist us in.
Soon after the lock was closed and the filling process started a crew member of the other barge came rushing up to the eclusier to try to get him to put in a report against us - not that we had preceded them into the lock, since they knew that argument would not wash - but because we were using tyres as fenders. The rules state that you should not use tyres as they sink in locks and can cause damage to boats, but if you DO use them, then they have to be secured by two opposing lines - which ours were. So that didn’t wash with the lock keeper either. After a bit of mutual abuse the crewman left and soon after, we left the commercial well behind.
We arrived outside the Halte Fluviale (small boat harbour) in Vitry-le-Francois at about 6.00pm and found it was a small enclosure with facilities for about 4 small boats, occupied by two, one of them a Dutch couple we had met in Epernay and seen a couple of times on our travels. The only place available for us was on the outside of the harbour, opposite a factory and commercial boatyard and across a boat launching ramp. We moored up, putting additional fenders at the points likely to be in contact with the steel wall that protruded out from the canal side.
Once secured we departed on foot to explore the town and decided to have a drink at the Irish Pub and dinner at the grillade which offered pizza and pasta that was delicious and very cheap.
Friday 28
The next morning we chatted with Markus and Else, a Dutch couple we had met earlier and who were on their delightful boat in the little marina and made plans for a drink at 5.00 on board Van Nelle. As we planned lunch however another boat approached - a Beneteau First 30 with Australian and Japanese flags displayed. It became clear that the Aussie male skipper and Japanese girl crew were not going to have an easy time of mooring as they went aground on their approach. We came to their assistance by hauling them across the mud to tie up alongside Van Nelle and invited them to lunch.
Some hours and three bottles of wine later, we had learned that they had met in Kosovo where they worked for aid agencies and were taking a well deserved break. Steve, an ex property developer who had gone bust, taken up photography and finally reverted to his engineering background, had ended up in Kosovo. He bought his yacht in Holland and was heading with Akeyo to the Mediterranean for some warmth.
They, like us, had thought there were facilities like showers at this mooring and were disappointed. We offered the use of the shower and Akeyo took full advantage, staying under the hot water for some 18 minutes and 300 litres - about 6 times the amount we use for a shower. Steve was a great deal more economical and soon it was time for drinks - which inevitably turned into a takeaway pizza dinner with more wine - lots more wine.
Saturday 29
Rain - lots of it, made a hangover partly bearable and I stayed in bed till about 11.00am without any guilty conscience. We had apparently partied until after 1.00am and I had then fallen asleep in one of the chairs listening to music, a bad habit of mine after parties ! Once up I considered joining everyone’s hoses together to try to get water from the distant tap to our two boats but Markus and Else quietly departed before I got the plan into action and I’m sure our two hoses and Steve’s one would not reach. We both had sufficient water for the next couple of days so would wait until the next port to refill.
Some time later, I was disturbed from writing this journal by noises outside and popped up in time to see the barge Wilanka slowly head past. She is a big Dutch barge that had been in our sights at one stage as a possible purchase. Unfortunately they passed by without stopping.
We ventured out to the market later - just to allay our guilty consciences about not having had any exercise - but it was a desultory affair and we returned to the boat empty handed.
Sunday 30 September
Time to leave our somewhat haphazard mooring here on the outside of the little harbour, with the added challenge of getting Steve’s yacht out of the mud beside us and into the channel. It actually was a lot easier than we had anticipated and some shoving with a boat hook or two and a few extra revs of his little Yanmar engine and they were off towards the first of the locks.
We took our time to get organised to allow them to pass through the lock and have it ready for us to follow as we cannot fit in together. So about 30 minutes later, as we turned the corner of the canal on our approach to the lock, we were surprised to see their boat tied to the railing underneath the very wide railway bridge that guards the lock entry. We pulled alongside the towpath to the railing and went on foot to find out what the delay was. Their report was that the lock was not only shut and unmanned - but secured with a padlock !
We made phone calls to the local and Paris office of the VNF (Voies Navigable de France) only to be told that it was Dimanche (Sunday) and so the lock was closed. This is not what is indicated in any of the navigation books and is a new one to all of us as it certainly does not occur anywhere else. So, we made our way back to the outside of the marina and Steve’s yacht was again pulled alongside through the mud and we hunkered down for another day in Vitry.
Maureen and I went for a long walk with cameras and a bag to collect leaves for her new artistic arrangements. We explored the nearby dry dock for barges, where two behemoths were sitting high and dry being painted (actually low and dry) and took some pics of picturesque nautical wrecks on the side of the canal. We had Steve and Akeyo over for dinner and planned an early start for the morning.
It is very unusual to see Japanese on the water but Akeyo and Steve became an item in Kosovo and so she followed him as he went on his nautical adventure. Steve was a fit and energetic 50+ and Akeyo about 30, tall with extremely long, lustrous black hair, much of which found its way into our plumbing from her two very long showers aboard Van Nelle. Their little yacht did not have such a convenience. God knows how she kept her coiffure in condition in the wilds of Kosovo at that time of war.
Steve had never owned a boat let alone sailed one but bought a yacht since it seemed a practical choice for the Mediterranean. Much later we heard that while in one of the Med ports he befriended some American naval types and took them out sailing. Actually it was the other way around - they took him sailing and he observed, learned from them and soon after - sailed off into the sunset.
Monday 1 October
The day started out rainy and windy as we set off for the first of about 15 locks for the day. Getting Steve’s yacht off and running again proved easy and we followed soon after. Unfortunately, despite our early start a couple of other boats had started earlier and there was now a delay before every lock. We wanted to make St Dizier that evening but as the day wore on it became a race against the clock as we were last in the line with a painfully slow commercial in the lead, not giving anything away. Most of the day we spent leaving one lock and then just drifting towards the next one at no more than steerage speed and still having to wait up to 30 minutes before our turn. This sort of travelling is painful and not really all that good for engine and gearbox as you have to engage and disengage the gears frequently. VERY frustrating but the Baudouin motor and gearbox responded without complaint.
About half way through the afternoon we allowed a yacht with a German crew past us to team up with another yacht ahead to eliminate one extra locking and that ended up slowing us down by just enough so that when we approached the last lock of the day - the barrier to St Dizier - it was 10 past 6.00pm and the lock was shut. We were therefore the ONLY boat stranded in a section of canal alongside a French air force base. The sides of the canal were shallow with a gravel base at about 1 metre or less and the only suitable place to moor for the night appeared to be a turning area back about 300 metres.
I reversed Van Nelle the 300 metres and attempted to turn into the turning bay. The wind, which had been strong all day and had caused a lot of manoeuvring already was now at full blast and not shielded by trees. It took a great deal of backing and filling to get lined up and then as we approached the wall inside the area we ran onto mud that had been allowed to build up over time. Fortunately we were not stuck hard as I had approached the area cautiously and we were able to back out and head across to the other side of the canal to the shallow wall. I managed to get the bow into the wall and Maureen secured us to it while I went in search of a log to prop the stern out from the shallow gravel. I found a suitable branch, secured it at the stern and tied us up for the night using our two 3 inch diameter water pipe mooring stakes driven into the clay banks with our new heavy sledge hammer. That worked a treat and nothing would have moved us - if anything had still been moving on the canal - which of course was not the case.
Tuesday 2 October
I was up at 6.00 and after a 10km ride into town to discover where we would moor, we were through the lock at 7.30. I had discovered a large concrete pier with suitable bollards just through the third lock just past the place where Steve and the German yacht had stopped for the night. This was a good find as it enabled us to call up a fuel truck which arrived at 2.00pm to fill our tank. But first....
Having arrived and secured the boat we set off into the rather pretty town to get cash to pay the fuel company which we had contacted by phone. They did not use credit cards and at this stage we did not have a French cheque account. I found a bank with a cash machine and put in my card. The transaction was nearly complete with the machine having accepted the card and the pin number. It sounded like it was counting the money when a notice appeared saying "your card has been retained for security reasons" and the machine shut down. At this stage I had not checked to see if Maureen was nearby and when I looked I realised that I must have turned the corner to the bank unseen by her as she was not about. I couldn’t leave to find her as I had to enter the bank to retrieve the card.
“Sorry”, said the teller, “the card has to be returned to your bank for security reasons”. “But I am Australian, on a boat and this is the only means of getting cash - besides the fact that my bank is half a world away”. ‘Je suis desole’ was the reply ! I was getting ready to scream (or cry since I had observed that seems to work for girls) when the younger teller referred me to the manager who reluctantly took his keys into the security room which held the machine. After some time he re-appeared, red faced and without the card and then hurried outside. Some time passed and I sighted Maureen on the other side of the square, disappearing in search of me. I still couldn’t leave.
The manager re-appeared and conscripted another colleague and they split up, one inside observing while the other went outside. Time went by but no card. I went outside to watch and the other chap told me to stay at the machine (now ‘Out of Service’) and to grab the card if it re-appeared. Some time passed with the machine offering only a symphony of clicks, whirrs and whistles. Eventually the edge of the card popped into sight and I grabbed it and fought the machine for possession. I won fortunately, and took the card into the bank to do the transaction over the counter. Nope - no way - see ya later !
I left empty handed and searched for another bank to try again as I had to have the cash for the fuel.
Just down the road a CIC bank was open and I made my way to the counter to ask for assistance. Fortunately I found a sympathetic assistant manager who took me into her office to transact a cash advance. A phone call to the credit company and four thousand francs was mine. Did I want more ? She inquired - I decided to take what I had and try to find Maureen. No luck there - so back to Van Nelle to leave a note. While writing the note a somewhat confused - not to say distressed Maureen turned up and, having explained and settled down we set off back to the supermarket to purchase lunch and other necessities. It was now 10 to 12.00 - almost time for the shop to shut so we were given a stern look and reminded as we entered that we had no time to lose.
Back on the boat I had another challenge to overcome as I had discovered that the fuel filter was now leaking and I needed a new washer to stem the dripping. First to find a workshop, then to explain what I wanted. A few minutes with the dictionary and I had the words I needed. I had seen a shop that appeared to have what I needed on the road to town but my inquiry revealed he had no suitable washers. He did however point the way to another atelier (small factory) which I found and explained what I needed. They kindly rifled through their stocks and found a couple of small but likely matches. I tried to pay but they would have none of it.
This was to become a repeated experience belying the denigrating comments often made of the French. Through our five years we had many similar experiences where locals would assist without expecting anything in return. I headed back to the boat to change washers.
Unfortunately the hole in the middle was too small. I tried drilling one out and only succeeded in wrecking it. The other one acceded to my insistent drill and I managed to fit it. Unfortunately it still did not seal sufficiently and I was presented with a continuing drip. This would have to be rectified later.
The fuel truck arrived at 2.00 and delivered the 500 litres I had ordered. There was room enough for another 50-70 litres and I suggested taking more but the driver refused saying that the office only gave him enough to fill the order and no more - Oh well. I paid and he left. Now all we needed was water and we would be completely replenished. No taps at the back of any of the factory buildings that abutted the canal so we would have to wait for another opportunity.
We visited the local hotel for lunch and were served the biggest rolls filled with ham and chicken with chips on the side. Later we visited a canal side bar with the name ‘Navigator’s Bar’ for a couple of beers until another customer arrived with a dog big enough to eat both of us and our sandwiches and still have room for the puppy that had been frolicking on the bar floor. We left before pooch became interested in us rather than the barman.
Wednesday 3 October
We departed at 0800 as arranged since on this and subsequent stretches of canal we were to be accompanied by a travelling lock keeper. It was not much fun for the two young guys who took it in turns to open the lock gates allowing us in and then operating the sluices to fill and empty the locks as we made our way through a dismal day of rain. We paid each a small tip and gave one a banana and the other an orange at lunch time. They made the day very easy and very quick for us so that we arrived at Joinville - our chosen destination - at 3.00pm. On arrival we were met by Steve and Akeyo who had arrived not long before us.
Joinville boasts a port which has a wall with bollards (not enough) and water (from an ancient pump). Getting the water required stuffing a hose into the enormous delivery pipe and filling the area around it with cotton waste, well packed into the void. Then, after connecting a number of hoses together and watching over it all for about 4 hours the water was slowly delivered. There was no power here nor showers so Steve’s girlfriend Akeyo was not a happy girl. We had a curry dinner and a chat with them and discussed future moorings and meeting places as they planned to leave the next morning.
On a walk into the nearby industrial area the next morning I discovered another factory that had copper washers and again they handed over two, refusing to take payment for them. One did the trick pretty well and the slow tide of dripping fuel was stemmed.
Thursday 4 October
Steve and Akeyo left but later in the day Richard and Linda Neville arrived on their very pretty barge. Richard had been on Tam and Di Murrell’s PP course with me at Cambrai the previous October. They have a lovely Tjalk which had seen them through a winter in Bruges and a cruise through the south of France. They were now en-route to their second winter in Bruges. We looked over each other’s boats and arranged for a scratch dinner on board theirs.
The next day at the Tourist Office I tried to book a conducted tour of the town’s historic buildings, as their brochure advertised three different walking tours. Sorry they said, we only do them in French and not in October and besides the monuments are all closed for winter. Fortunately that was not the case with the Chateau de Grande Jardin so we headed there to wander happily through the magnificent gardens and beautiful old building. Built as a pleasure house for one of the Dukes of Joinville, it had been converted to apartments and finally abandoned before being bought and converted into a performance facility by the prefecture. The interior of the building has been turned into a large room with smaller galleries at it’s ends and underneath, a sort of bar for intervals. We were able to just wander about unheeded and afterwards found a marvellous wine map of France in their gift shop. We left and went on to wander the town shopping squares and discover the pretty church with it’s monuments to Jean d ‘Arc and the Dukes of Joinville, who unfortunately died out with the death of the final (five year old) descendant.
Above the town are the ruins of another fortified chateau so we bravely rode up the steep path, having to leave our mountain bikes half way in order to ramble over the ruins. Unfortunately there is almost nothing left of the chateau and I suspect the locals have carried away the stones to build or extend their own houses as they did from many estates during the revolution. We discovered some low walls but not much of a view as trees have overgrown the site.
Roger and Linda, another English couple arrived on their pretty wooden, clinker built boat Hoivande. Roger we discovered operates deep sea submersibles (remote submarines) from oil rigs in the North Sea and, as he works a few weeks on and a lot of weeks off, he and his Canadian wife have plenty of time to cruise the canals.
We also tried my Visa card in another bank cash ‘distributeur’ but under the watchful eyes of the bank manager who was amazed to see it be swallowed up and then to send the machine ‘Out of Service’. He managed to open the machine and retrieve the card which he then tried on his desk top card reader. It was given a very bad report and he suggested we have it replaced. Fortunately I had kept my previous duplicate card which now stands between us and starvation.
We spent the rest of the day taking pictures and buying a few odd bits and pieces for forthcoming meals.
Friday 5 October
His was a lovely day to do a long cruise as we had 50km and 20 locks to navigate to our next planned stop at Chaumont. In this part of France the eclusier (lockkeeper) accompanies the boat by scooter or car and we were accompanied on this sunny day by first an older, very quiet woman and next by a younger, quite chatty femme. Despite the lovely day, scenery and easy time through the ecluses, navigating 10 hours from 8.00am until 6.00pm without a break is a tough day and by the end of it we were just able to get a meal and hit bed. It was on occasions like this that we praised the quality of the Dutch mattresses we had furnished Van Nelle with. Many of our guests commented on how good the beds were. Semi sprung foam mattresses on a slat base in every case.
As we arrived at the next port it appeared that due to earlier arrivals, there would be little room for Van Nelle and we actually tied the boat at an angle behind a VNF tug on the outside of a projecting part of the steel wall. This area was just outside the rather pretty (but pricy) marina quai which had power and water supplied. There were no facilities near us so Maureen tactfully negotiated for a couple of the other boats to move to make room for us. That was quickly done and Van Nelle moved to a far more suitable place, next to all facilities. An annoying habit of many part time boaters is their insistence on leaving half a boat length between their boat and the one fore and aft, effectively reducing the number of boats that can fit. This seems to be especially prevalent among those from large populations in very small countries.
Steve and Akeyo were here as well as our new Dutch friends Markus and Else and Roger and Linda. This looked decidedly dangerous from a health perspective as we had previously discovered how keen this lot were on tasting ‘just another bottle’ late into the night.
Saturday 6 October
Refreshed by a good night’s sleep we emerged to explore. M set off on the scooter as Chaumont is some 3 km distance, up a somewhat forbidding hill. While she was away I fiddled with grease guns as I had noticed a small amount of water coming into the bilge from the stern gland.
My first mate (read captain) arrived back with descriptions of a town with pretty, old buildings, small squares, a pretty church and a market. We mounted the scooter and set off up the hill in search of new discoveries. Parking the scooter outside the Jesuit College we wandered through the main part of town and admired 16th century houses and shops and ornate, other buildings. We heard sounds of an organ from the church and entered to find an organist rehearsing for a 3.00pm concert on Sunday. We decide the concert sounded like a thing to attend and wandered through the church, inspecting the reliquaries of their St Jean and others.
Reliquaries are something I had not encountered before. Many churches and especially cathedrals have vaults which hold jewel boxes or crosses with glass inserts displaying within a small fragment of hair, bone, dried skin or other grisly body parts. These are said to be parts of the dead saint, dissected and distributed to provide heavenly blessings on those who observe and pray to them. A bit primaeval I would have thought , if not irreligious, worshipping body bits.
We went back to the boat after buying supplies at a supermarket and lovely cheeses and sausages at the market to arrange drinks with the gang at 5.30. This inevitably turned into dinner at the nearby restaurant, a merry affair which left me with a hangover and an admonishment from my captain about the amount of ‘fun’ (wine) I was consuming. I will have to curb my thirst in future - although to be fair it was the two glasses at lunch, added to the three aperitifs and four at dinner that had me undone - or was it just that last glass ?.
Chapter Four - Burgundy
The pattern of life is now starting to emerge. While we are still in far too much of a hurry, the key ingredients of this life are; travelling, discovering new places to stop, exploring, meeting people and developing stronger friendships, food, wine and fun. Interspersed in all this hedonistic pleasure are the occasional problems with boats, le systeme Francais and the resources we depend on such as internet, phones, banks and mail. But the key and best ingredients of this life are definitely the people and the times spent with them.
During this part of our journey we had by chance come upon a group of fellow travellers who were to play a part in our lives for the best part of the month as we leapfrogged each other down the canals and river to St Jean de Losne. Occasionally there would be additions to the group and sometimes a couple would be missing as they went ahead or stayed behind, but by the time we had meandered into St Jean de Losne the group had reformed and added a couple of extras. Several of these characters were to intertwine through our lives for the next four years and longer.
But I digress from the day to day occurrences aboard Van Nelle.
Sunday October 7.
I woke on this Sunday to a somewhat painful hangover and almost no recollection of the last half of the preceding night. I found later (to my advantage) that most of the others were in a similar state and (to my disadvantage) that Maureen was not one of them. Eminently sensible, M had slowed her intake during dinner so that she could adequately be my conscience in the morning, a job she excels at. I had been admonished for my waywardness earlier, even before I ventured off to the scene of the previous evening’s fall from grace, the restaurant where I was to pick up the croissants that we had ordered for breakfast. This ability to order bread and other pastries, milk and some other stores from isolated restaurants is a useful arrangement found in a number of waterside stopping places. The local restaurant lures you in one way or the other for mutual benefit.
We had a slow day attending to the accumulated emails and then headed off to town for the organ concert. It turns out that this was the annual concert of the children taking lessons from the village organist and the talent included 6-8 year olds, hardly able to reach the keys let alone the pedals and an older child (sex unidentified) with quite a well developed technique. On balance however the ‘concert’ was akin to an end of school performance, but fun nevertheless.
Before heading back to the boat we wandered the streets and came by chance on the municipal museum which, like many French town museums, had an archaeological section and a special area representing local industries. This town’s industry had been glove making, at which hundreds of local people were employed. Unfortunately, with the demise of gloves as a fashion necessity, the factories had closed and the town diminished. After taking in the history and technique of glove making in detail we headed back to the boat to try a cure for the previous evenings revelries.
As we were all planning to leave the next day the group gathered on the canal side garden to just spend some time in the sun chatting before retiring for an early night.
Monday 8 October
We departed at 0800 for Rolamport where we arrived after a long day at 1600 (4.00pm for those not up on the 24 hour clock so loved by the French - except there it was ‘seize heures’). We had time to explore a little after arrival at the town jetty which was furnished with power and water outlets. We had come to understand that many of the French towns encouraged boating tourism by the provision of water points and electricity outlets at their petite ports. This is not so in many other countries and is a welcome feature of cruising in France as it takes the pressure off your boats systems and reduces noise and pollution.
Rolampont is a small ville set in typical farming countryside, quite pretty and useful as a stop en-route to some of the more inviting towns in the region. Steve and Akeyo were already at the halte fluviale so we had a pasta dinner and a few local wines on board Van Nelle.
Tuesday 9 October
We departed Rolampont for Langres at 0900 and arrived at 1200, lunchtime for the French, just in time to see the shops all shut (why is it that this happens over and over again?), The boulangeries however take pity on all and sundry and stay open most of lunch time (dejeuner) - obviously some French let business get in the way of lifestyle.
Langres was a key target as the guide books all gave it high points. The downside is actually an upside here since there is a 2 kilometre climb up hill to the town which is mostly inside the old fortifications which are in extremely good condition. This is fortunate for the inhabitants as you discover on reaching them that they provide the outer walls of many homes which circle the town. Ranged along the walls at intervals are medieval gates and towers where armies of the past fought off attackers with boiling oil and bundles of arrows. On the far side of the town is a large building, proudly proclaiming itself a foremost museum of 14th century histoire - closed of course !
We rode our bikes up the hill to the town, quite a feat and only made possible by the 21 gears provided by Mr Shimano the great god of bicycle gears. Actually we would have rather taken the scooter but we moored with the starboard (right) side of the boat against the quai so were unable to use the winch to get the scooter off and it was too far to reverse to a turning point, this part of the canal being too narrow to turn Van Nelle.
Later we developed a technique to address this shortcoming, using our passarelle (gangplank) from the cabin top to wheel the scooter off.
Having bikes enabled us to see a great deal in a short time and at close quarters but access becomes a problem when streets become pedestrian malls, tiny narrow streets chock full of boutiques, boulangeries, pharmacies, tabacs and other specialists - plus the people of course. We chained the bikes in the centre ville and set off on foot to visit the eglise (a wonderful and big church with another grand organ, being tuned). Outside, a renaissance house and the shopping precinct dominated the scene.
We ran into Steve and Akeyo in town and suggested having a lamb roast that evening so set off to the boucherie to get a led of lamb. We discovered that lamb was not so easy to get at the butchers and is very expensive when found. On this occasion we found a small leg in a boucherie and asked for it. The ‘serveur’ rattled off some French and disappeared out the back door to reappear after a few minutes with the lamb meat parcelled up with string but sans (without) bone ! They had boned the leg making it almost useless as a leg of lamb. We paid with rather wooden smiles and immediately set off to search for another leg. Fortunately we found a supermarket and in looking for vegetables and other necessities I discovered a freezer chest full of New Zealand legs of lamb ! Et Voila !
Having completed the exploration and shopping we set off - now rapidly - down the 2 km hill, back to the boat. Terminal velocity is reached at about 35-40kmh after about 100mtres so the downhill trip was both a lot shorter and a great deal more exciting !
That evening the lamb (both parts) were welcome by us and Steve, as he had not had a roast for ages. Akeyo was very polite. I’m not sure whether she enjoyed it or just hankered for sushi. The wine however was enjoyed by all.
We made a point of laying in some very good wines from the major vineyards of France for special dinners. Burgundian Pinot, Bordeaux Merlot / Cabernet Sauvignon and the big shiraz wines of Chateauneuf du Pape for the reds and the Montrachets, Sancerres, Chablis, Mersault and other Chardonnays of the Bourgogne region among others. These are brought out, the reds decanted a couple of hours early and all enjoyed from big tasting glasses with some of the rich foods of France. Succulent lamb, rabbit, beef and chicken.
Wednesday 10 October
Steve and Akeyo left at 0800 as they were still racing against the schedule of chomages (closure of locks for repairs and maintenance that are carried out from November through to March) in order to get to the Mediterranean. This strategy was not all that successful however as after a couple of days, Akeyo would get a strong need for a shower and since they did not have one on the boat, Steve would have to stop for a couple of days at a civilised halte fluviale to honour her wishes. By that time we would catch up and another couple of days would be spent having a good time.
We (foolishly ?) took the bikes back up the hill to Langres, since the phone had thrown another wobbly and we needed a France Telecom office to sort it out. I left film in the one hour shop and took the phone off to be fixed while Maureen took one of the bikes to the bike shop for new brakes - guess whose ? The idea off speeding out of control down the hill had provided the motivation.
On return to the quai, the power was not working and investigation identified our power cable had been cut through by the action of a passing barge squeezing it between the quai and the ship. There must have been a bit of a pop when it cut but as we were not there we didn’t notice it. No other damage being a result, the cable was spliced and put back to work.
Langres is the home town of Diderot, the French philosopher, but there is little on show to give the visitor an understanding of his work. The regional museum was however open on this day so we spent a couple of hours among Roman ruins, the town collection of art and explanations of the development of the town and region architecture and industry. We also spent some time photographing the surrounding district from this imposing hill, from which - they say - you can see Mont Blanc on a clear day. I find that a bit hard to believe as Mont Blanc must be hundreds of kilometres away.
Another exciting ride down the hill - now somewhat safer for M with her new brake pads.
Marcus and Else had now arrived and as Roger and Linda also showed up is was time for another dinner aboard VN. While everyone brought stocks there were still significant holes in the house wine stocks on the morrow. This dinner went on till 1.30 - but what the hell, there’s no pressing business to be done on a Thursday.
The Morrow was Thursday, 11 October - a foggy day.
This week has been mostly brilliant weather with cool clear days and only a few drizzly patches to cloud otherwise fine conditions. The morning fogs however are becoming a regular occurrence and can delay departures for some hours on days scheduled for travel. We had decided to slow down a bit so had to ride to the next lock to advise the eclusiers. Explanation. In this region, for some reason, each boat is accompanied by an eclusier on a moped (scooter). They scoot ahead and prepare the lock and operate it as you enter and leave, then repeat the performance. This happens all day if you are travelling some distance but at certain points a new eclusier from the distant town will take over from the one who has started the trip with you. This way they do not get too far from home.
We started off paying a tip at the end of each sector as the weather to start with was pretty vile and while we could duck into our wheelhouse, they had to stay outdoors during the whole trip. This practice however looked like getting quite expensive so we quit paying when the weather improved. Since the service did not reduce we figured we were in the clear and continued not paying.
So I was on my bike to advise the VNF that we would not be starting early when on arrival at the next lock I found 3 eclusiers and 2 frogmen, a couple of VNF officers and other odds and sods all standing around a half open lock door. Seems there was something blocking the door from opening or closing, so we would not have been going too far anyway. Turns out it was a tyre being used as a fender by a commercial boat ! I explained that we would not be coming through at the time we had previously arranged and, all being happy with that, we agreed to meet the next day. Actually, they are pretty flexible about schedules but it is best to keep on their right side or long delays can result.
We spent the day doing beaut things like washing and shopping (only half the way up the hill) at a closer supermarket.
Friday 12 October
I was woken at 4.00am by the sound of a loud pop and gurgling running liquid noises. God I thought, what’s leaking ? Are we sinking ? Has the hull been breached ? That is not a sound you want to hear on a boat !
I leapt out of bed and searched the boat for a leak or broken water pipe and came up dry. This mystery had to be solved as those sorts of sounds can often lead to a case of very wet feet ! I redoubled my search until I slipped on a patch of floor boards in the gloom. Snapping on all the lights I quickly traced the problem. The bottle of ‘flower wine’ we had been conned into buying at a local fete some days and villages earlier had obviously undergone secondary fermentation in the bottle while on board. The standard wine cork was unequal to the task of containing the now pressurised liquid, which ejected across the floor. Some time was spent mopping up and washing the area to eliminate the somewhat strong floral and alcohol smell before returning to bed at 5.00am.
Up at 7.00 for an early start only to be met by impenetrable fog. We would have to wait till there was enough visibility, which occurred just before 1000 and we caste off for Dommarian where we arrived after a long day, at 1700. While commercials operate through fogs, they rely on radar which we don’t have. It would be more than a surprise to be met by an oncoming boat at a distance of a few metres on a foggy day. Better to stay in port till you can see 50 or more metres ahead.
This section of the canal included a tunnel of 4.8km, a flight of 8 locks with a total of 17 in the day over a distance of 25km. As we approached the tunnel I asked M to switch on the floodlight that is installed on the mast. Nothing. 500 metres. Check the power outlet with a lamp. OK it works. 300 metres. Try the floodlight again. Nothing. 200 metres. Take off the cover off and check the filament. Broken 50 metres. Well, I hope the tunnel lights are working.
At a previous tunnel the lights were significantly absent during our passing and turned on full as we exited. I switched on all the navigation lights and issued a powerful torch. We entered the tunnel and as we did, fluorescent lights extending the whole distance flicked into life. M was much relieved and we sailed through the cold ‘sous terrain’ experience with only one or two light contacts with the side walls. These contacts are not a danger as the walls are liberally coated with grunge but can be an issue if the arched roof of the tunnel comes in contact with the overhand of the boat’s wheelhouse roof.
It is extremely difficult to keep concentrating 100% through a long tunnel and the conditions are more taxing than a normal canal. The passage is only 5 and a bit metres wide and the hemispherical shape threatens the coach roof. Suction, caused by the propeller sucking water from under the boat, affects the stern, pulling it to one side or the other as soon as you stray off dead centre and applying power makes it worse. Once glued by suction to the wall and rubbing down it’s side, it takes what seems like ages to get the boat unstuck by reducing or cutting power to angle the boat away.
Finally we were through but almost immediately came face to face with a ‘flight’ of locks. This is an area where a great height has to be scaled in a short distance. Normally the standard Freycinet locks are spaced at least a couple of kilometres apart and rarely exceed 3 metres height each. In flights, a number of locks (in this case 8) are placed one immediately connected to the next and their wall height can be 5 or 6 metres, making them difficult to secure the boat to as you have to throw your ropes onto bollards high above your head and sometimes out of sight.
Once, while idly walking along a lock wall to observe a boat come through, I was almost hit by the end of a rope thrown from below. The thrower could not have had any idea of where the bollard was. It was nowhere near me and when their rope had been thrown he was not aware of my existence, he was just trusting to luck. On another occasion I was greatly amused by a rope, tenuously held aloft by a boat hook being poked over the edge from below. Again, the owner was trying blind luck since he had no idea of the placement of the bollards. I would love to put a fish in the loop at the end of the rope and throw it back onto the boat below.
Arriving at Dommarian we took our usual walk through town but everything was shut, including the church. We retreated to the boat and planned the next day’s trip while eating stored rations.
Saturday 13
A sunny day with a trip planned of 24km and 24 locks. This is a busy kind of day. At 6kmh, 24 km without locks would take 4 hours. Each lock takes a minimum 15 minutes without delays, therefore 24 locks are going to take about 6 hours for a total trip time of 12 hours. Locks shut at 1800 so that requires a start at 0600 to achieve your aim, or, you have to beat the averages. We cheat by slipping along at about 8kmh, cutting the time by an hour and scorch through the locks at better than average time as we are prepared to assist the eclusiers. This doesn’t work however if held up by boats in front or coming towards us.
On this day we left at 0800 and reached Blagny on a beautiful day without delays. On arrival we found absolutely nowhere to moor with the time after 5.00pm. We had less than a hour to find something further along. After 2 more locks and some 7km we came to a silo with a solid concrete wall inhabited by two fishermen. Looks lonely but safe - we’ll take it. As we approached the fishermen raised their feet, pulled in their holding nets and recovered their lines but did not move - rather like someone being vacuumed around. We manoeuvred the boat past them and secured for the night. The area and the time precluded an exploration so we settled in to make a barbecue dinner and rest.
After retiring we were woken by the sound of torrential water gushing somewhere. Was it the water tanks ? A hole in the hull ? Fortunately neither. It seems the town has a pump of some kind that lets loose about a thousand gallons every 40 minutes from an outfall situated right at the side of our boat. I decided to live with it and settled down to a somewhat noise interrupted night’s sleep.
Sunday 14 October
On to Pontailler - a distance of only 14km with only 5 locks (ecluses), a nice day’s travel and if timed right, the perfect way to enter a good mooring as those who have decided to move on are now gone from the quai, leaving it vacant for your arrival. We arrived at 1130 to find a small opening to the Port de Plaisance with a sign boasting a head height of 3.0metres and inside a single long quai on which we could have moored. Since the entrance was on the river and the river level was low, the head height looked OK, so long as the river did not rise, trapping us inside with our 3.4 metre head height.
We considered it for a few minutes before deciding the whole thing looked dubious as the only way out for us would be to reverse through the small entrance. So what was the answer ? The alternative was a terraced concrete quai fronting onto the river with what appeared to be adequate rings, stanchions and bollards. Obviously a halte for barges in the past so we chose the quai and headed in cautiously, checking the depth. It was just OK for us at one end of the structure so we came alongside and secured Van Nelle before closing her down and heading off to explore.
It was lunch time and while the town obviously had some features to discover, the cute hotel right at the riverside had a restaurant which looked inviting pretty inviting for a long Sunday lunch. We considered that option for about a millisecond and soon were settled into a lovely 5 course set menu.
The menu (cost 120 francs excluding wine - about $A 30) had some options. I chose the pate de maison followed by a meat dish, cheese and desserts. First arrived an appetiser followed by a big basket of bread and a whole pot of pate. It was an invitation to eat as much as you wanted and was only reluctantly returned to the kitchen when the main course arrived. The wines were pleasant and the service friendly and country slow. I committed the same faux pas I had done in Cambrai a year earlier substituting the word pres for pressé in the sentence "Vous et tres pres Monsieur" to the wait person meaning ‘you are very busy’ but actually saying ‘you are very close’. Maureen swore he didn’t hear me but I believe he stood well back from then on and seemed reluctant to serve more wine. Ah well the vagaries of a different language and its indifferent user.
We had to take a very long walk after lunch and turned up many delightful views in this bustling little village. As we rounded a corner we came upon a group of men and boys playing boules (AKA petanque). We watched for some time and were asked to join in but never having hefted a boule, decided against it. There was a young boy they brought in from time to time to smash the opponents boules away from the jack. He could not have been older than 14 but was devastatingly accurate.
This is a simple game where players toss up to three heavy steel balls at a smaller ball that is thrown out on stony, level ground by the winner of the previous round. He decides the order to start or follow and each player can decide to throw one or all of his boules in his turn or wait for the next turn in rotation. It looked like a great deal of fun and not too complicated or requiring high skill levels so we decided we had to get into this game at a later date. Later in the day Roger and Linda arrived in Hoivande and wandered over for a chat before retiring.
Monday 15 October
Shortly after rousing ourselves the next morning, Roger and Linda departed. We had planned to stay a day or two but having seemingly exhausted all the town had to offer, we decided to follow them to the local capital of Auxonne.
This part of the trip marks the end of a canal section where you go onto the river Saone, so conditions would be different with the boat able to do up to 15kmh, unfettered from the 6- 8km limits on the canal. A chance to blow out some carbon from the low revving engine and get some heat into the engine head.
It didn’t take us long to catch up to our friends despite having left a hour after Hoivande but as there was only one lock to negotiate they were not about to slow us down. We both enjoyed the relative freedom of the river and Van Nelle seemed to enjoy the speed as well. We arrived at Auxonne at 1600 having left at 1230, a short, fun trip. On arrival under the guns of the fortress near the bridge we found three long pontoons with water supplied nearby but no power. There was a small hut with signs indicating it was a tourist payment station but it was firmly shut with no instructions as to alternative payment places. Like many towns, Auxonne provides facilities at a cost during the peak period of May or June to August and before and after allows anyone silly enough to be travelling free access.
This was the town that Napoleon received his artillery training and it boasted a Napoleon Bonaparte museum - which we found had of course shut for winter a couple of days before our arrival. The fort is still there but time, fire, accident and vandals have caused a great deal of damage and the use of parts of the buildings for local clubs (petanque etc) has not been equal to the task of up-keeping the fabric of the crumbling structure. The town itself has some interesting features but none of the bustling outdoor life that many of the others had which made them so hospitable. We were later to re-discover Auxonne as a place of some repute for its festivals as it was within an easy drive from our winter port of St Jean de Losne.
Tuesday 16 October
These days were marked by beautiful sunny and warm weather - perfect boules weather for the itinerant boatie so we went in search of the hardware, eventually finding the steel balls and other accessories by asking one of the local players. Turns out the balls are sold only at the electrical store since the proprietor is a member of the boules club. We bought a set and went out during the afternoon to practise.
Prior to gaining world class expertise at heaving steel balls around the countryside I decided that since A) we were moored port side in allowing the use of the crane to get the scooter off the boat and B) we were now close to St Jean de Losne, I would scooter over there to suss out the moorings, as that was our next main destination. It took only half an hour to get to St Jean and find (very easily) the boat harbour and town jetty - the Quai National. It seemed pretty obvious that the marina, while large, had positions only for small visiting boats and, since I discovered rings attached to the quai suitable for us to tie to we would moor there. There were no boats at the quai and no signs prohibiting its use.
St Jean and its neighbouring town of Losne across the river are the centre of pleasure boating in France as they sit on the Saone River at the start of the Canal de Bourgogne and near the Canal Lateral Saone a Marne. It is sort of the meeting point of many major directions and is near the legendary Burgundy wine district governed by the city of Dijon. Not a bad place to spend the winter period from November to April.
I made inquiries about a winter mooring as Maureen was not convinced that to run down the more than 600km to the Mediterranean was a good idea and everyone was getting nervous about the imminent closure of some of the key canals for the chomage (annual maintenance period). There are two organisations owning moorings at St Jean de Losne. H2O and Bosquart. I inquired first at Bosquart and was advised that it MAY be possible on the outside of another, Swiss owned, barge but that the owner would have to be asked and would have to agree. On that wharf, which runs inside the canal de Bourgogne off the river Saone, work on major refits and repairs are carried out, causing a great deal of noise and mess. Additionally the water is cut off during winter as pipes freeze. I was not encouraged.
At H2O there was a quite different story. If I wanted to look at an area slightly out of town I could have a mooring there for 860 francs per month ($A 245) but I would have to cut the grass. A map was provided and I left for the road and gravel track that leads to the area. On arrival I quickly found the spot, in a disused canal inhabited by other stately barges, most of whose inhabitants live aboard permanently. The vessel directly in front was the property of Matthew Morton, an airline 747 captain and his partner Caroline Price. The Directeur of H2O also had his barge moored there as his home. I was won over by their interest and kindness and agreed to bring M to look and agree when we arrived at St Jean in Van Nelle.
Wednesday 17
At Auxonne we assisted a Scottish couple moor their boat and soon had boules partners for the next day. Further exploration was carried out in the morning and we warmed to the town to some degree.
The afternoon boule game was humorous and lots of fun so we agreed to do much more of it so long as the weather held. Brenda and Hugh Fraser had given up life looking after holiday makers in Nairn, Scotland, and since Hugh had built their steel ketch they had decided to sail to Australia to see friends, going via Europe and then the Americas.
We barbecued on board Van Nelle and had a few laughs before planning further world boules championships for the morrow, Brenda being especially keen as a past curling champion.
Thursday 18
This morning we decided to head for St Jean de Losne but before leaving offered to assist Hugh and Brenda free their boat ‘Scotia’ which had become high and dry on its keel as the river level had lowered. They had moved pontoons in order to take on water and having done so had become stuck. Hugh did not want to pull the boat off the rock they were on so we departed at 1000, arriving at 1400 at the Quai National, where we moored next to some rental paddle boats, in front of ‘Beatrice’, a river cruiser / restaurant and just behind a hotel boat which was moored centrally.
Hotel boats use the quai as a place to deliver and pick up their washing as there is a laundry operating right on the waterfront, together with three bar / cafes. The English crew are friendly but busy on the Continental Waterways hotel boats as this is a turn-around destination where they change passengers and embark on weekly cruises. We were to come across a few of their boats and crews in the next few years with mixed results.
Just behind the river front boulevarde is a maze of small streets with all the shops generally needed for a long and pleasant stay. The Presse (newsagent) has English newspapers, fresh milk is in all three supermarkets, there are several boat shops for parts and advice and many other facilities such as a dry dock and extensive boatyards. The Tourist office is located near the marina and is equipped with showers, a laundry and a PC for 10 francs per half hour of internet time. Twice a week a room attached opens as a book exchange - at no cost. Boaters bring in the books they have read and exchange them for ones they choose from the three thousand donated tomes in stock in various languages.
Later in the day Marcus and Else arrived with their Dutch friends and guests, Lane and Bayer. Marcus planned to stay for some time as he wants H2O to service his engine. As it began to rain further local, immediate exploration was curtailed but we now had a desire to stay in one place for some time and this appeared to be the place. From St Jean we could explore the Burgundy wine region (Beaune and Nuits St George are only 40km distant) and we are apparently only an hour from ski able snow. The main regional capital of Dijon is a half hour away by train, Lyon an hour and Paris 2. We can take the boat to Dijon which boasts very good facilities and ride the scooter to many other small villages in between.
We were however not keen to tie up permanently just yet as it seems that we may be here until March or April. That being some 4-5 months distant we would prefer to keep exploring until it becomes too cold, wet, windy or freezing to continue - perhaps November, just before the final locks are shut, closing off the canals.
Friday 19
A beautiful sunny, warm day. We cannot get over how one day can be cold and wet with winds that seem like they are off the arctic and the next requires you to wear shorts and tee shirts.
We took the opportunity to get a couple of 10 hour power and water tokens, connect to the services and do some washing and cleaning. While the drying was in progress we took off on the scooter to inspect the two possible moorings and Maureen was sufficiently impressed with the distant one that we agreed to confirm it as our winter mooring which I did by letter to Charles Gerard, proprietor and Directeur of H2O.
Steve and Akeyo had also arrived at the marina before us and we had seen them a couple of times for dinners aboard. These are fun occasions with each couple bringing something - pasta, salads, bread, wine, cheese, etc and us all sitting round the big dining table and just cracking on for hours about rivers, canals and stuff. However, they had their somewhat inflatable timetable to keep to so they bade us all farewell and headed off south, down the mighty Rhone River through Lyon to the Mediterranean.
Drinks on board started at 5.00pm with Lindy and Roger, Marcus and Else and Lane and Bayer, which inevitably turned into dinner at the Asian (?) restaurant followed by dancing on Van Nelle till 1.30 or so. We actually tried a couple of the small restaurants first but unless you arrive early or have a booking - it is ‘je suis desole mais nous n’avons pas le diner’. No food or space or wine or service or whatever.... Anyway there are plenty of choices and we had a passable meal but not very Asian. Marcus and Else’s friends enjoyed the raucous fun we all seem to have and came up looking pretty second hand the next morning - which was unfortunate timing since they had to drive the 7 hours back to the Netherlands for work Monday. Poor people !
Saturday 20
Cloudy with some rain - one of those cold days. Still, since it was a hangover day for some it was probably the best weather combination. Time to hunker down with a good book - or someone who has read one ! We actually went out looking for a much advertised mushroom exposition but didn’t find it !
Sunday 21
We found the mushroom exposition in the Maison de Mariniers and looked in wonder at the 360 types of mushrooms, ranging from edible to dangerous. We actually found behind the mushies an exhibition about barges, which they had unsuccessfully tried to cover up, more interesting and probably worth another trip. The expo was held in the Mariners Building, a small street front shop on the Rue Principale which is dedicated to the many water people of the region.
A beautiful luxemotor barge arrived with its owners Robert and Wendy. I invited myself aboard to look over the boat which is gorgeously fitted out and maintained. I guess I have a yardstick to ensure that Van Nelle continues to be upgraded and not allowed to go backwards. Unfortunately they left early the next day for their winter mooring in Dijon - but that’s not too far away and they left an invitation for us to visit when we are in Dijon.
In the brief conversation I had with them I discovered they had taken four years to get this far south from the Netherlands - a distance we had travelled in some four months. I was beginning to feel the need to slow down.
Monday October 22 - Monday October 29
Being in one place for over a week makes for very thin content on a day to day basis.
The week has been marked by good weather, mostly sunny and warm but with early morning fog and some days that feel like they could snap freeze you. Just when you think that winter has arrived however, the sun comes out and smiles at you as you clamber out of ‘grown up pants’ and into shorts. It has made for great opportunities to have games of boules, generally in the afternoons since no-one seems to get going till lunch time, followed by a few drinks - which almost inevitably leads into dinner and crack (the Irish for talking).
Sunny days also leads one to the occasional Sunday lunch, outside on the boulevarde - well street really - even if it’s not Sunday. One of the nice things about this life is that you can a declare a day to be any day of the week you want and if the day feels like Sunday and is sunny - well then, its time for a long Sunday lunch in the sun.
Time gives one the opportunity also to get into the lists of jobs requiring attention - and this week I have actually tried to catch up on writing (like this journal), email as well and some more important boat jobs, I actually got around to painting out the scrapes and scratches we have inflicted on the rubbing strake and port side of the hull yesterday. Couldn’t do the starboard side as I don’t walk on water but it can wait till we turn around some time. Seems I bump the port side more often that starboard - I wonder why that is ? I also however had the time (and access to Lane’s van) in order to get 4 glissoires (a kind of long, hard rubber fender that allows the boat to slide past objects) and took the time to splice ropes onto them (two each) to hang them on the hull.
I did some washing also the other day and found that the water had spilled out of an overflow pipe I didn’t know existed. That took some time and a portable bilge pump to clean up from the engine room and to put into the river. I guess I will have to figure out how to avoid that ever happening again but in the meantime I just need to ensure that the dirty water tank is empty before washing, as the outlet pump gets beaten by the washing machine emptying.
The toilet has given us a few moments recently. It seems that just occasionally the non return valve on the outlet side does not fully close and allows some water back into the bowl. If the bowl is already quite full, this can mean an overflow, but generally only means an instantly cold wet bum and a very surprised reaction at 4.00am when a nocturnal visit in the dark discovers the fact by feel.
We are constantly on the lookout for bargain wine. Wine has to be good - life just isn’t long enough to drink poor wine - and there are bargains to be had but finding them is a constant challenge. Recently I discovered a trove of Cotes de Rhone - an easy drinking light red - packaged three bottles per plastique. The sign (I’m sure) said buy two and get one free - gratuite - prix 33. I had reached the end of the weekly wine budget but raided the bread jar for 33 francs - mostly in very, very small change - and charged off to the supermarket before one of our barbecue nights. This was going to be a way to cut the rising expense of big dinners. I was very surprised to have half my money given back to me by the check out lady (no chicks here) which meant I had 3 bottles for 16 francs. At 3.6 francs per dollar that equals about $1.50 per bottle. We tried it and it was very good. Eat your heart out (or is that drink you heart out) in Australia where the WET (wine equalisation tax) is ruining the industry.
We went to Dijon and decided to take our bikes along as Dijon is a big city and we could see more of it on bikes. Wrong ! Dijon is a maze of very narrow, mostly pedestrian streets where bikes are a real nuisance. We also had a really hard time fitting them in the train and got some nasty looks from the porters at Dijon on our return. It was only my ‘Ne parlez pas Francais’ that enabled me to stay on the train. It also meant we could not carry back a bargain TV / VCR combination we need for making video programs with our digital camera and editing suite, so all in all - don’t take your bike to town boy, leave your bike at home boy, don’t take your bike to town.
Dijon is fabulous. Very old and well preserved. We had been there very briefly from 2.00pm till 10.00pm on one day two years ago and had not seen anything of the extent of the vast number of medieval streets and beautiful old, historic buildings. We went to the Musee and glanced next door at the fabulous Palais de Ducs, roamed a few cathedrals (more organ music being played) and quickly looked into a hi-fi shop and decided we could spend at least a week exploring. That’s OK though since they boast a big marina for visiting boats and we can go back next week.
We visited another marina near St Jean de Losne - St Symphorien - where people we know have a boat wintered and could not believe what we saw. No water. All the boats were sitting, not quite high and dry but actually stuck in the mud. I cannot understand how one could live on their boat like that over winter. No water means no toilets and while showers and sinks empty into space, no cooling water for generators means no power ???? It looked quite desolate and we were very glad we were not there for our first winter. I’m not sure if the lack of water is a result of design or accident, perhaps it is the chomage ? There was no-one to ask so we were none the wiser. One of the nearby canals - the Canal de Centre - is without water since the reservoir sprang a leak and lost its storage.
The way canals work is that a reservoir higher than the highest part of the canal feeds the top section (bief de partage) and that water flows down through the locks on either side of the summit sector to be replaced by water from the reservoir. No water in the reservoir - no water in any of the locks or biefs in between and therefore no movement in that area. People planning a trip through such affected areas to their winter mooring have a problem - they can go around - sometimes a journey of hundreds or thousands of kilometres and if no alternative routes to their destination are available - they have to make other arrangements.
The town of St Jean de Losne has most things - there are three supermarkets, two electrical stores, a couple of tabacs, boucheries, boulangeries, pharmacies, marinas, restaurants, plenty of bars, a couple of clothes shops, a shoe shop, a couple of fuel places - but it doesn’t have a place to get computer bits. Ink cartridges, read / write CDs, cables, these things are not available here. One has to go to a nearby town, no bigger than St Jean de Losne, to find such items. The town of Blazey is only 15 minutes by scooter, but 40 minutes by bicycle and not on the bus or train line. Terrible to ride all the way there and find you left your wallet at home. No I haven’t done that - yet !
Similarly, the train runs from St Jean to Dijon, but it only runs twice a day. It makes for planning a day out and being mindful of the time to come home. We found ourselves in a hi-fi store 15 minutes from the time of departure of the return train with no idea where the station was or how long it would take to get there. Once out of the shop and pointed in the right direction, I made the mistake of following the signs to the Gare SNCF. Right station but the signs were for cars on a one way street layout. It took me twice as long to get there as it should and I arrived with a bike in hand - to get up and down steps and through the station with thousands of commuters all going in the opposite direction. I made it but it could have been a long ride home.
Monday 29 October
We have now been in one place for 12 days. This is a record of course but it is also very pleasant. It brings home the brilliance of this opportunity. Where else can you move your home into the very heart of Europe’s most inviting and beautiful cities, be right on the doorstep of their best attractions and pay almost nothing for the privilege.
There is also a difference in the openness of people, or is it just me ? For most of my adult life I have found it hard to connect with people and take them to heart. Maybe it was because I was in a work environment where one tends to judge and be reserved or in a social environment laced with competitive aspirations or was it because we just didn’t have - or take - the time to connect ? Whatever the reason, I had no contact with people living next door despite having been there for more than a dozen years. In four months in this environment I have met and become very friendly with more people than I had in the past 10 years. Will the friendships last or are they just ship board acquaintances. I have heard from those who have been at this lifestyle for ten years that they do last, that people travel the length of Europe regularly to catch up with their friends in all corners of the waterways system. These friendships cross nationality, creed, colour, language and religious barriers and give no heed to distance or time. Perhaps its because in this life we have the time and are looking to share it. How, why or where did that aspect disappear from the other life ?
This place France is beautiful. It has beauty in itself and also the beauty of difference - and we have the time to take it in. Words cannot convey the sight of perfect mirror images of tall trees being reflected in the absolutely still water lying ahead of a slowly cruising boat. Look back and see the quicksilver fluidity of the wake of the boat shattering the mirror but causing new dimensions to it. Imaging a wide, still river at crimson sunset, rent by the wake of a slowly moving barge that sends shimmering waves across in fan shapes that are so perfect their lines could not be replicated by hand.
Tall slow grey birds wait at the side of the canals and as your boat approaches they crouch and gracefully leap into flight with long slow pulls of their wings, swooping almost at water level, slowly gaining height with each beat of their long supple wings. They cruise ahead and with a slight upward movement of the leading edge of those long wings, stall their flight as their feet touch the banks. No extra movement, no jump forward or hesitant movement back - just one moment in flight and the next still, watching and waiting for a fish to rise at the passing of a barge.
Streets here appear to have been left almost exactly as they were when Napoleon rode through on his way to Waterloo or returned from Egypt or Russia. Stone and wooden beam houses, half timber and lathe and plaster buildings, homes and shops and offices now inhabiting buildings put in place hundreds of years ago. In the art galleries you see pictures and photographs of the streets then and now and the only difference are power lines and garish neon displays in the now glass front facades.
Public buildings are in use now as they were then. Huge or small, well kept or unkempt they are all here in joyous profusion. Not just one or two like Cadman’s cottage in Circular Quay or the facade of the Barracks in St George’s Terrace, but row after row, street after street, district after district, town after town and city after city. Its not just the cathedrals and the art galleries that overwhelm the senses after a week of leg aching visits (all those stairs) but it’s the fabric around them, the environment that they live in.
You need to spend time in street-side cafes, sitting, reading papers, glancing at passers by, sipping espressos, Pernod or Leffe Blonde beers. This time is as essential as the time spent frantically rushing to beat crowds lined up at the Louvre or the D’Orsay because it is this time that allows all of the other things to settle into perspective. It is the time to reflect on where you have been and what you have experienced.
Since we left Loosdrecht in the Netherlands (don’t say Holland), we have travelled 988 kilometres by my reckoning. It has taken 77 days of which 37 have been travelling days and we have clocked up 111 engine hours. We have passed though three countries and have visited just over 40 towns having passed by or through more than 100. Mention the name of a town, even the ones we have spent 2-4 days in and I find it almost impossible to remember what it looked like without resorting to references, where we moored, the main street, the major attractions the site or layout of the fort - or even if it had one seem to blur together except for occasional highlights.
We have slowed our life to a walking pace but it is still too fast. We have come off a jumbo jet onto Van Nelle, trading 640 knots airspeed for 6 kilometres per hour boat speed and we are still flashing by this experience. I reflect on the unhurried character of Robert and Wendy on their beautiful ship Maria, who have taken four years to get to St Jean de Losne from Holland (didn’t I say not to say Holland, it’s the Netherlands !) and I begin to realise that time is now on our side but that it may take even more time to slow down sufficiently to realise the benefits.
We went to a supermarket today and found in the delicatessen section (no, the French don’t call it that but I’m not sure what it is exactly) all the parts of a meal we had on Sunday at the Café de Navigation across the road. The entre, main course and cheeses were all there looking exactly the same as they presented them - albeit not overcooked as they had made them by forgetting them under the convection microwave. Attitudes are changing, McDonalds are now in prestigious places in most capital cities and if not, the French version ‘Quick’ is. There are ‘sandwicheries’ and the boulangeries and patisseries now serve fast foods of some kind - all be it ‘pate en croute’ rather than ‘meat pie’. However, the meal experience was not created by the elements bought the day before from Casino supermarket and served without style on the road front, it was the position, the sunshine, the local beer and wines, the jaunty attitude of the lopsided waitress, the conversations of the other visitors to the café and the arrival and departure of the bikers and their molls who dropped in on their huge shiny machines, stripping off their leathers to reveal tighter leathers underneath and having a couple of beers before terrorising the freeways again with their roar and hurtling speed.
For us however it was experience and discussion and sunshine and rough local red mixed with the hoppy aftertaste of Kanterbrau beer and the heady aromas of powerful cheeses. Just in front the river sparkled and reflected sunlight onto our faces and the background sounds of talk and whispers in French and English and Dutch caused a buzz that was better than the tinny music coming from inside. It was a Sunday lunch - an experience, another day and another opportunity to just let it invade your senses rather than having to buy a ticket to stand in line to have it thrust at you.
30 October - 16 December
I was writing this on the morning of Sunday, 4 November, which, it surprises both of us, was our 18th day in St Jean de Losne. Not that we were unhappy about this turn of events from flat out travelling to flat out relaxing. There was nothing holding us here except that we have made the decision to stay near where we are for the winter and we have been in the company of some very lovely people whose time and company we wanted to share while we could.
Marcus and Else left yesterday afternoon for all ports south on the Rhone and eventually the Mediterranean for a coast hopping adventure back to the Netherlands. We first met them in the Society Nautique port at Epernay, where we also met Linda and her daughter. We arrived and went exploring and when we returned, Linda’s daughter was standing on the walkway at the waterside, holding a large bag of shopping and looking aghast at the gap between the shore and their boat. While they had been out shopping the level of the river had risen, covering the jetty that ran alongside their yacht and placing a very wet moat between them and their waterborne home. We suggested moving the boat to the section of the port we were moored since there was ample room and the walkway was well clear of the river but since Lindy’s husband Roger was away on business they were concerned about moving the boat on their own and resisted our suggestion.
Marcus and Else were ahead of us and I offered them the use of our hose to refill their water tanks as I had discovered a source of water well away from the jetty but in reach of my two connected hoses, the waterside facilities having been turned off. On approaching their boat I had been met by a fusillade of barking from their diminutive dog, a sort of demented Jack Russell. Over the next 6 weeks, despite me feeding the dog scraps under the table and generally being a nice guy, the greeting was always the same, a sort of semi ‘mechant’ (angry) concerto of great volume. We decided they were OK but their dog ‘Hout’ was not.
Marcus and Else are Dutch and have recently sold their successful company which placed temporary technicians into companies with manpower (sorry labour) shortages. Worn down by the 7 / 24 nature of the business keeping demanding clients happy, they were quick to take the opportunity to leave the new owners behind as they sailed south in their Dutch Cutter, a 36' steel ketch, especially designed for inland waterways. Marcus is a tall, blond 40ish guy with a ready smile and quick sense of humour. Warm and intelligent, he makes a great partner for the tall, brunette Else, 30 something and languid. She also is quick with a smile and endlessly charming and these two had worked their way quickly into our friendship.
On the way south from Epernay we had stopped at the obvious ports to take time to explore the towns, fortifications, chateaux and shopping as they had. In this we were also joined by Steve and Akeyo, Roger and Lindy and occasionally others, leading to some long lunches, pleasant afternoon drinks and riotous dinners. In St Jean de Losne, since Roger and Lindy and we had arranged to winter and Marcus wanted the boat company here to do some minor servicing, we seemed to just stay on together to enjoy each other’s company and the delights of this small town. Boules, lunches, walks, wine, cheese and discussions, dinners and dancing, all came into the gamut of our rapidly developing routine.
I ventured out this morning in the fog to inspect Little Nelle on which we spent considerable time yesterday placing fibreglass matting and gel coat and found that the job had gone much better than I expected. All the external wounds including one large hole, some 30cm in diameter, have been successfully patched. The large hole will need another 5mm packed over the top to strengthen it but all the others have cured rock hard and smooth. One more day of fibre glassing, the replacement of some internal seats and the rubber strip around the gunwale and a coat of paint and it will be difficult to see where the damage has been.
Its been a week for traumas.
On Wednesday we travelled to Dijon by train to investigate the cost of replacing our seche linge (clothes dryer) which threw a tantrum and expired in a small puff of white smoke. We took it apart and found a switch burned out leading to heat damage of the motor. Being an Australian made Hoover, none of the French repair shops wanted to know anything about it, especially since it was on a boat. We decided that since I had already repaired it once, it would make more sense to replace it with another, more at ease with the power system in Europe than the higher voltages of Australia. We also wanted to buy a combination televiseur / magnetoscope (TV / VCR) to both watch videos on and to record edited copies of our video recordings for replay in Australia. We have a digital video camera and an video editing program on our PC so we are keen to get into the business of creating some mini documentaries for folks back home but also as training and orientation aids for visitors.
We took the 1.00pm train from St Usage (a short distance from St Jean) for the 30 minute trip to Dijon and set off on a walk to locate and inspect the harbour for subsequent visits by boat. Having walked for some considerable time we stopped by a major intersection fronting a park to check our rudimentary tourist guide. I had some trouble making out where we were and where we should be going. It seemed to indicate taking one of three roads that circled the park in order to get to the Port. While explaining this to Maureen (of the well developed ‘sense of direction’ school) she pointed to some barges clearly visible through the trees of the park and suggested we simply cross the road. We did.
The Port in Dijon is large and well developed and our friends Hugh and Brenda were there on their yacht ‘Scotia’ on which they plan to sail to Australia via the USA. We had tea with them and discussed the various aspects of the trip to Dijon. The fact that the canal was to be closed in a week decided us, we would not come to Dijon in Van Nelle. The clock was running however so we took our leave and went in search of the video store where we had seen a combi for sale at a discounted price, maybe they had seche linge’s as well or could point out where we could find them.
After a couple of missed turns we eventually found the store and found they also had dryers. They started at 2400 francs and went astronomically upwards from there. I had seen a model in the electrical store in St Jean for only 1790 so we were not about to buy one at 50% or double the price. The manager kindly took out his catalogue and showed us all the models available in France, none of which excited my miserly spirit so we settled on the TV, an indoor aerial and another connector for the PC to the VCR, wrapped the device in my overcoat inside a carton and headed off in a near run for the station, the departure time of the train fast approaching.
Hefting the box with the newly purchased equipment, I followed ‘her of the invincible sense of direction’ to a point about as far as you can get from the station, and then, recognising where we were and where we had to get to, took the box at a near run for the next couple of kilometres. We arrived at the train about 1 ½ minutes before it’s scheduled departure and then sat aboard for some 12 minutes at the station as its departure was delayed !
On arrival back at St Jean, Maureen took off on her bike in the rain to get cords for me to tie the box to my bike for the walk back to the boat. As she departed however I discovered the box was just small enough to be wedged into the carrier basket on the back and so I also took off for the boat - and beat her back. Since she had the key I accepted Marcus’s invitation to board his boat for a beer, much to the surprise and consternation of M who arrived some minutes later.
Hurrying aboard and down the steps I was gripped with fear as the hand-made handles on the box broke away, spilling the box and its precious cargo down the steps and crashing it onto the floor below. I was distraught and rushed to open the box. The plastic case of the device was cracked from its impact, right through the base and up the side, past the loading door for videos and up to the screen. It looked horrible and with trembling heart I inserted the power cord into the socket and hit the button on the front of the device. Nothing. I hit the remote control stand by switch - nothing. I was crushed.
Having been so far to buy this machine, the trauma of the rush to get it to the station and finally getting it to the boat, to have it broken before it delivered one minute of program was devastating.
I croaked a reply to M as she inquired gently about its condition and set off to take it apart to see if there was any first aid I could apply. In doing so I came across a well hidden master power switch on the device’s side, well camouflaged under a speaker grille. I pressed it - nothing - I put the power cord back into the outlet (electricity helps sometimes) and the screen burst into life. I inserted a video - pictures - no sound. ‘Oh’, said M - ‘that’s a silent movie Dad took of us kids.’ I started to breathe.
After some time operating the menus (translated from French until we found the menu option for English) the device was tuned to the available stations and provided us with live coverage of a French TV quiz show, a French Church service (transmitted by an Italian TV network) and a German soap opera, slim pickings. We decided to borrow a couple of videos from Lindy that night and have a TV night - our first in over 4 months ! It worked a treat and we really enjoyed the movie ‘Matrix’ but thought ‘A feeling for snow’ was a bit pathetic.
The final trauma occurred yesterday - Saturday. It was time to check the e-mails and I also needed to transfer money between accounts on the internet - always a trauma as the bank’s E-business network takes from 40 minutes to an hour to do simple things like check balances and transfer cash across accounts. The email seemed quite simple at first. We have to check our incoming email first on an internet program since we get lots of junk mail - some of it huge picture libraries of naked women being subjected to every possible sexual act - and repeated copies of offers for everything from private business investigations to weight loss programs. Once these are deleted I can then use our email connection to download the notes from and to friends and family. While our own server had responded to the internet program it was damned if it was going to connect to others to download - so I received only mail from my personal email address. I then tried the bank connection. After 40 agonising minutes it timed out and so did I.. I resolved to try again later.
At 8.00pm I again tried the bank connection and bit my lip as the minutes ticked by. The reason it was so slow on this occasion was their 5 megabytes of terms and conditions that was downloaded (at 9600kbitsps) TWICE ! Infuriating. I finally got the banking done after an hour (at 160 francs per hour) running me out of phone credit. Bring on the day we have access to a land line.
This turgid repetition of errors made and traumas encountered will probably have most of you wondering why we are doing this. None of the above (which in reality are very small problems) match the wholesale, daily grind of the working week in the ‘land of diminishing returns’ we call the business world of Australia. Besides, we also have all the glorious positive aspects - the brilliant days filled with time to explore our new French surrounds, the markets, the language, the culture. Just to be able to wake up and know that the things you will do today are the things you want to do today balances these little trials. And then there are the unexpected acts of kindness and friendliness that cheer you.
I went to the Hotel de Ville (town hall) to inquire about a long stay visa (Carte de Longe Sejour) which I am about to apply for in order to gain residency for 5 years or so. The lady at the Mairie was very kind and very helpful and so subsequently was one of the directors of H2O, the place we will be wintering - as she had to provide me with a certificate of address. It would seem that this process may be easier than I have been led to believe.
Besides - we now have a new clothes dryer, TV / VCR, money in the bank and a long list of emails from friends and family - and - it appears that French Telecom have refunded 40 minutes of telephone time.
I bought the seche linge (clothes dryer) at one of the two St Jean electrical shops and inquired as to when they would deliver it and take away the old one. The response was to put the price up 210 francs. Since the boat is only some 500 metres from the shop I elected to borrow their trolley and do the delivery / return myself and enlisted Marcus’s assistance to take the old machine down the stairs into the saloon in order to hoist it out the coach roof skylight and replace it the same way with the new one. That was done very quickly and efficiently and led to Else doing her laundry in our machines after M had done ours.
There is a very good feeling to be able to offer friends the occasional shower, meal or washing facility since we have a ‘mother ship’ as one of them remarked. It costs us nothing while making life a little better for those with limited facilities.
We have played boules quite a few times recently - not with great skill - but certainly with a great deal of dedication and enjoyment. Its interesting how many of the locals who, on their daily stroll past the boules ground we discovered, stop and chat or just watch with an experienced eye. It’s also strange that very few actually play here. Almost everywhere you go in France, the older men are at the boules ground with their friends, exchanging and repeating the same exclamations and endlessly changing ends and turns as they try for the perfect pitch before wandering off to the café or bar for a Pastis to recount the glories of the game.
It’s a simple game - well especially as we play it. The man who sold us the six hard and heavy steel balls in a natty plastic holder complete with two jacks or marker balls of plastic, explained that there are no rules. You can play with two or three balls each, you can play over a distance of say 3 metres for women and 6 for men, you can pitch your boules all at once - one after the other - or one at a time in turn. The one who gets closest to the jack wins and throws it out for the next game. He or she can then also determine who leads the play in order for them to be able to throw the last boule and therefore decide the outcome. There is of course the option to aim at the opposition if they are close to the jack and hit them out of the way.
There are no set number of games or players and one can play as an individual or in a team. You change ends at the beginning of each new game and just chatter away during it. You really have only two choices - to get your boules as close as possible or to bowl at the opponent’s boules to knock them away. Simple but fun and a great way to get gentle exercise while enjoying the thin sunshine of the autumn under the plane trees. Actually the most exercise involved seems to be sweeping away the mounds of leaves that accumulate from the over arching canopy of trees, which in Autumn are changing colour from deep green through yellows and oranges and even a red crimson before falling into drifts on the ground and being whisked away by the motorised street sweepers on their daily rounds.
This is not a hard place to be in. We were situated on a wide bend in the river Saone, in the centre of the two towns of Losne and St Jean which are on opposite sides of the river, our side being St Jean. Fronting this part of the river is a 200 metre wide set of terraces leading up from the river to the road and extending from the bridge to the grassy banks at the end of the terrace. The terraces are made of stone set in concrete and have a soft brown colour, very attractive to the eye. Set into the stone are rings to which we and the other boats moored here tie up. Above the terraces is a one way street fronted by shops, café / bars and houses. It is shaded by trees and well lit at night and every 50 metres along the road side are plinths which provide electricity and water to visiting boats, whose owners insert a token of 10 Euros for 10 hours use. We used them about once a week to give the generator a rest and to top up the water tanks. For the past week we have shared the facility with Marcus, our Dutch friend, who has taken power from our bow power outlet and attached his water hose to ours to get water when we are connected to the tap.
The road above us runs perpendicular to the main street of the town of St Jean which runs through both villages in a straight line across the bridge. On the St Jean side it is fronted by the boulangeries, magasins, boutiques and agents de presse. It is also the location of the Eglise and the Hotel de Ville, a small musee concerned with barging and the river life (once the site of an exposition about champignons where some 300+ varieties of mushrooms were displayed), This main road also leads from Centre Ville to the Port de Plaisance, the Casino supermarket (always a bit of a gamble) and the Office de Tourism (or Syndicate de Initiative as it’s called here for some reason).
Along both sides of the river front are a number of barges. It is said that when professional bargees decide to retire, they can pick where they wish to tie up their barge and live aboard it for the rest of their life. This has apparently been made law as the boats are now almost impossible to sell, such is the marginal income available from working them, and this is the only way a bargee and his wife can provide housing for themselves in retirement.
Near the Port de Plaisance are the ateliers (workshops) of the two or three boat building, repair and maintenance yards here in St Jean. The yards are busy rebuilding old working boats into hotel boats or luxury floating homes for new owners. They also repair current owner’s boats and do regular maintenance work aboard. The port itself harbours over 200 boats of all sizes and shapes including a large fleet of Crown Blue line hire boats.
We did not stay in the port itself as all the places were taken, especially for large vessels like ours and the resources were stretched thin. About 3 or 4 km up river there is a small, disused river lock and branch canal which is now an outport of the company H20 and the home of more than twenty big boats. It is here we were booked to spend winter, first having to tend the 40 metres of ‘garden’ provided. We hoped that, like the other boats, we will have power, water and even a land line telephone service, enabling us to rest our onboard systems until spring brings our departure for ports south, north or both.
Sunday, 4 November and I have been at the desk writing this part of the journal for some hours. Maureen has made potato and onion soup and, it now being 1.15pm, has served it. The fog has not lifted, indeed it has not moved and the other side of the river is still invisible as are most features more than 50 - 100 metres away. We were up at about 9.00am having read till 11.00pm last night. We planned to do some more work on the dinghy but cannot while it remains damp as the gel coat that fixes the fibre glass will not set properly in these conditions. The generator is running, recharging the batteries and powering the computer, lights and pumps that are part of everyday life. The heating system, which is very efficient (but never turned up high enough for Maureen due to my miserly nature), is not programmed to run during the day and as yet we have not laid in a store of wood for the pot belly stove, so the cool damp air of the fog is trickling in through small gaps in the doors and windows of the wheel house above.
Maureen made curtains for the staircase to stop the cold night air getting down into the saloon and with it in place, the door to the bedrooms closed and the heating turned to 21 degrees, it is very warm below when it is freezing cold outdoors. The heating is provided by a series of radiators, warmed by hot water from the diesel boiler that also provides our hot showers and washing water. This is an extremely efficient system and thankfully one that 80% Frank (the previous owner) did not economise on.
We may go out later, possibly to visit our Canadian friend Lindy to borrow one of her videos, or to play boules, or just to take a walk in order to justify still being here and not doing anything much at all. In truth, we need the rest after 6 weeks of non stop socialising.
Monday 5 to Wednesday 21 November
It was with a sense of loss that we stood on the Quai Nationale yesterday and untied Marcus and Else’s mooring ropes, letting their lines and friendship slip through our fingers. We exchanged hurried promises to meet again and to write e-mails, even for them to hire a car and come back to visit and for us to take the train to the Med to meet up with them and then they were gone.
We returned to the job of repairing Little Nellie, the disfigured dinghy and to letting time heal the rending of the companionship and the deep seated hangovers it had caused. Seemingly to seal the trauma of loss in some natural way, the fog has rolled back during the early hours of the morning to totally obliterate everything formerly in sight. We are no more than 100 metres from the bridge and less that distance to the opposite shore of the river but we can see nothing. Even the commercial tug, which arrived yesterday and tied up 20 metres in front of us is obscured.
While the weather holds and conditions at the Quai Nationale are suitable, work continues on Little Nelle our damaged dinghy. Indeed, I believed I had placed the final coats of fibre glass on the little sailing boat and was ready to test her when it all dried. That was not to occur until Monday the 19th when we rowed the boat up and down the ancien ecluse (the old lock canal port up river) without getting wet feet - all seemed well until we tried to get her out of the water.
I put the stainless harness that connects the dinghy to the winch and began to wind her out of the water. For some reason the bow dipped down rather than the stern and nothing Maureen could do would pull it level. We put her back in the water thinking I had put the harness on the wrong way - it having a short and a long end. We tried again. This time the bow came up almost vertically and as Nelle rose the water trapped between the two hulls came spouting out of every small and large hole - gallons of it. None had affected us as we rowed since the inner hull is apparently watertight, but obviously the outer hull has some way to go before it stops water flooding in between the two hulls.
This was the week I finally put my papers together to apply for the Carte de Longue Sejour, but am advised by the staff at the Hotel de Ville that it is rare to get 5 years and that I should probably count on one year initially. The papers went in on Tuesday, four copies of ID pictures, marriage certificate, birth certificate, income statement, address particulars, insurance information etc. I am advised it will be sent to Dijon for processing and will be returned on or around the 20th of December. They stipulate that the processing period is six weeks.
I also applied for a bank account at La Poste and was swiftly granted an interview - in two days time, at which the account was opened with 1500 francs and a credit card and cheque book arranged. They arrived a week later at our mail box at the office of H2O. Meanwhile a member of the town council staff arrived at our doorstep politely advising us that our stay at the Quai Nationale had been too long. Please note; that there is no information anywhere that advises the time allowed is limited, but the man was insistent the Quai was only for occasional visits of short duration. How can you argue - especially since the language barrier was at the time, impenetrable, so we decided to go to Chalons sur Saone, some 70km down river. Marcus had called with intelligence that the port at Chalons was very pleasant and the town excellent for both sight seeing and eating. The shopping, he added, was spectacular with a huge shopping centre right on the doorstep of the Port Fluviale.
We left after my banking interview at La Poste and spent 5 hours cruising down river, through pleasant countryside, two locks (very large for commercial vessels) and thence into Chalons, a large riverside town with major facilities. The Port is on the inside of an island which is right in the middle of the town. The entry is approached by passing the island and coming into the port from downstream. On arrival one is met by large floating pontoons, supported by tall steel piles some 20 feet high (7 metres). The floating pontoons are attached to the shore by long flexible walkways. The need for this elaborate setup was revealed by Marcus who met us on entry and guided us to a suitable mooring, adjacent to power and water. He pointed out that the pontoons had risen some 3.5 metres last winter, a distance that would have put more usual fixed jetties about 2 metres underwater.
We were entertained on ST53 - Marcus and Els’ boat - to a rabbit dinner with trimmings and far too much wine as usual, after which we slept till wakened in the early morning by wind and drizzle noises. And our first ICE. Actually it was a heavy frost with ice patches that had built on the deck and walkways. The wind was cutting and the moisture in the air turned body extremities to icicles within minutes. Too bad, we had arrived and had to explore the town.
We dressed in our heaviest clothing and set out like two Michelin men to check out the Centre Ville. Across a pedestrian bridge to the island and through narrow streets, crowded with old, leaning buildings, mostly part of the town’s major hospital which takes up most of the island. Across the main vehicular bridge from the island to the far shore of the Saone and the main part of Challon sur Saone. Most of this area has been closed to traffic, allowing pedestrians free rein to roam and enjoy the spectacular array of shops, restaurants, churches, cafes, markets, museums and town squares (places). Most of the town is hundreds of years old with some half timbered buildings still in use from medieval times. A large and bustling market offered up warm hats (one with ears for me), gloves and other warm accessories while at the nearby park a circus was installing itself for a short season.
We visited the main museum and the two biggest churches, one a cathedral, the other a church actually bigger but strangely designed to compete with its senior associate, both dominating their respective ‘places’ and provide imposing settings for the cafes that were definitely not operating outside on this day. We visited the huge shopping centre - a supermarket with some 30 checkout aisles that stretch 100 or more metres, plus hardware, electrical, sports, and other stores nearby, right next to the marina.
We also discovered that there is a sting to the facilities here - the cost. Being a 27meter boat always imposes extra burdens on us, not just in operating and manoeuvring but also in the cost based on length, IF the place has facilities big enough. On this occasion the cost was 130 francs each night (about 20 Euros), a total of $A 100 for 3 nights. While this may sound inexpensive compared to hotel rooms or apartments in the middle of these towns, it is serious money when extended over a year and is far more than the 860 francs ($A 250) PER MONTH we pay in St Jean. Having paid for three nights we were dismayed to find that Marcus and Else had to leave suddenly as their French language lessons began the next Monday in Lyon, some 200km down river. As a farewell celebration we booked one of the many restaurants that stand, side by side, on both sides of one of the narrow streets of the island. How many farewells do they get ?
Saturday arrived and we left, to return against the current to St Jean. The five hour trip down river turned into a six hour trip up river but time passes easily when you are cruising and the scarcity of locks means you can stay warm inside the wheel house. We returned non-stop since the two reasonably large towns on the way were both lacking in facilities for a large boat. Both had excellent little harbours for small craft, 10 - 15 metres maximum, but nothing for us.
We had to obtain fuel and confirm arrangements with H2O before we could take up residence at the ancien ecluse but we arrived after both had closed for the weekend and so settled back into life at the Quai Nationale since the bureaucrats don’t work on the weekend and there would therefore be little chance of being evicted.
Since buying the VCR / TV combi we have been fortunate to have Roger and Lindy as friends, as they have an extensive video library which they have been kind enough to share with us. On the cold nights when you don’t want to read or write, a few hours with Pride and Prejudice or Far from the Madding Crowd can be a very pleasant diversion. We indulged on the Saturday as we prepared a really excellent curry for the Sunday Lunch - a feature we plan to make a habit of, inviting different and interesting people to join us for some fine food and pleasant wine as we swap intelligence about the area and the lifestyle.
Sunday, November 11 was the French Remembrance Day and on my way to the supermarket to pick up a couple of last minute ingredients for lunch I saw the beginnings of a parade. I dashed back to the boat for a camera but unfortunately when I returned it was all over - I thought - certainly at the place I had seen them they were dispersing. As I later welcomed Lindy, our lunch guest, we saw the parade march on to the main street, not 150 metres from us. Again a rush to get the camera and to get to a vantage point - alas - on arriving in the centre of town all I saw were the bank employees and the pompiers (firemen) wandering off to their cars and their own Sunday lunches.
Monday 12 November - The Ancien Ecluse - first week
This was the day to move to our semi permanent mooring for winter at the ancien ecluse (old lock). First I needed to advise H2O and to get fuel. H2O was easy and the arrangements made quickly. I headed back to Van Nelle to start up and cruise to the fuel barge at the entrance to the Canal de Bourgogne and as we did, observed another barge taking the refuelling mooring. Drat - Oh well, just a short wait and then it was our turn to take in 750 litres of diesel fuel at 5.7 francs per litre ! I will really have to get the red diesel tank operational as the price of red fuel for winter is about 60% of the cost of white !
In Europe there are two colours of diesel fuel - white and red. The white is taxed and therefore 40 % more expensive than the red, which can only be used for commercial vessels or by plaisanciers for heating and electricity generation. Use of red for the main engine is subject to heavy fines. We actually have a spare fuel tank of about 200 - 300 litre capacity but it has not been plumbed in to the generator and furnace and I have no idea of the condition of its interior. - Another winter job for the growing list.
After fuelling I cruised slowly down river past the ancien ecluse entrance to a wide area of the river in order to turn Van Nelle so I could approach the branch canal slowly and in the correct direction. This also allowed time for Maureen to ride the scooter from town to the mooring. As I arrived so did she and as I slipped Van Nelle through the old, disused lock near the entrance she leaped aboard to assist in the mooring procedure. We moved slowly through the narrow passage between the two lines of moored boats making sure we did not create suction or wake to disturb the people and valuables on board the permanent boats. Turning at the end of the Ancien Ecluse in the wide turning bassin, we retraced our route back to our pre determined mooring and slowly manoeuvred in. A few minutes of manoeuvring and we were at our new home.
Pretty soon we had the power connected with the help of our neighbours, Matthew and Caroline. Struggling through the undergrowth brought to mind my undertaking to do the ‘gardening’. Charles Gerard the Directeur of H2O with whom I had negotiated our stay, had suggested I call at his barge at 12.00 noon to pick up the tools necessary - specifically a lawn mower or whipper snipper. It was soon obvious that a lawn mower would not be able to handle the overgrown tangle that we now began to call ‘The Park". Fortunately the mower was not in working order and a couple of days later he arrived with a whipper snipper which, after two days and a complete new length of cutting cord, had beaten the grass and weeds into some sort of submission.
Apart from the need to clear ‘The Park’, we also had to get to know the neighbours and this was undertaken at once with drinks at Matthew and Caroline’s barge ‘Vixit’ on the Tuesday, and on Van Nelle with Charles and Patricia on Wednesday. There are more neighbours but as yet we have not been able to catch up with them.
Other pre winter tasks include getting firewood, setting up the chimney extension, changing a gas bottle and arranging for the phone. The firewood (at 200 francs) was pretty easy with Caroline’s help as she contacted the firewood supplier who turned up on Friday with a van-full for us and a couple for them. The Dutch gas bottle was rejected around town and required a new bottle to be taken from the supplier at huge cost - 300 francs for a gas bottle (exchangeable from now on) complete with gas fill. We will need to change the second Dutch one as well, leaving us with three useless bottles and two new ones at extra cost. The phone arrangements were conducted with the help of the young tourism official who made the call, explained the details and arranged for France Telecom to attend and install a phone land line in a week’s time, on a monthly account.
A chimney extension is necessary as normally we travel with the pot belly stove chimney reduced in height to clear bridges and lock entrances. When in use in winter however, you need to ensure the smoke does not blow into the wheelhouse, the outlet height is sufficient to ensure good draft and also that the whole part outside is fully insulated to stop foul smelling condensation dripping into the boat. This occurs as the exhaust condenses in the super cold air outside if the pipe is not wrapped. We arranged the extension but baulked at the cost of the insulated version, a decision we were to regret.
Checks made of the use of wood, vs. electricity vs. diesel heating has the economy of wood use running number one with electricity next and diesel a distant third and very expensive. After a week we have been able to balance the use of wood and diesel so that we are running reasonably economically. We will need more wood and could do with some electrical heating devices - but these are heavy on power consumption and we pay for the power here. More investigation is required. One of the down sides to wood burning however is the attendant thick, brown, smelly sap-like condensate which oozes out of the chimney (it’s joins were installed upside down by 80% Frank) into the boat and also onto the deck. We have tried a few ‘fixes’ but have not yet overcome that little issue except by keeping the fire roaring rather than smouldering - very expensive.
The other feature of life here is the temperature and the attendant conditions of frost and ice. The temperature overnight has been -2 to -4 C each night for the week with ice forming on the land and the boat. Each morning we are covered with a thin (getting thicker) layer of ice on everything and on the days the sun cannot get through the mist, it stays all day. The Park looks quite beautiful in the early mornings with the golden sunrise glowing through the white tendrils of ice that decorate each bough and leaf but the downside is that the decks become very slippery.
The easy part of our ‘moving in’ here was the connection to electricity and water. Having been through a number of different countries and diverse places that were supplied with water and power, we have built up quite a ‘library’ of different connectors for both the electric cables and the hoses. While we did not have a perfect electric cable to start with, our originals having had Dutch ends, we soon had the necessary bits to join together to make a working connection. The other great thing here is that we have a choice of 16 or 22 amp outlets, this means the power will not cut out by over use - something that happens too frequently elsewhere. We have taken the 16amp feed as we don’t use more than that even when everything is on. The only problem with the water connection so far, has been that it freezes occasionally and needs a liberal dose of hot water poured on the end that comes out of the ground to free it up !
There is quite a pronounced drop from the road to the park at the boat level which requires steps of a weather proof kind to be constructed. Now that we have cleared the worst of the undergrowth and the debris left by Bernard, the previous inhabitant, we have been able to make a start on civilising the facilities and have laid a few of the steps in with rubber mats covering the mud. We plan to lay gravel on the steps but will need a vehicle to cart the necessary materials from the local ‘bricolage’. We also thought to plant a tree or two, so people would have something to remember us by. Eucalyptus sounds like a good idea if we can get one or two at a reasonable stage of early maturity in order to withstand the winter cold. It’s killed our long suffering flowers that came with us from Holland I fear.
Week of 19 November
Now that we are here, I have had to face up to the jobs that were not completed in Holland before we left. These include scraping and painting the engine room, completing the refurbishment of Little Nelle and finishing the interior trim of the boat. Pretty soon (like the beginning of the new year’s good weather) I will also have to repaint parts of the deck and hull and there are a few patches of varnish to be done as well. There will definitely be little time for getting fat and lazy. Fat yes - lazy no.
This second week started cold and became colder until about Thursday when the clouds came over and the ice melted, to be replaced by light rain on Friday night and Saturday. We were hoping it would be fine on Sunday as the town has planned a major celebration of the 100th year of the installation of some canons and a Legion d’Honneur, granted by Napoleon, but delayed until delivery was made in 1901. Several Generals and Emperors were involved (as best I can make out) but the canons could not be spared until their technology was well and truly outdated. They were won by the town for its gallant defence against a siege laid by thousands, held off by hundreds.
On Sunday there will be a parade and an unveiling, a ‘Grand Vin’ and a banquet (price 150 francs) all attended by Le Ministre who arrives and departs by train. Given the precarious nature of labour relations on France’s railway network and the state of the weather, it’s a toss up as to what might spoil the plans. Anyway, we have a Sunday lunch planned so we resisted the urge to join the banquet but we will attend the ceremonies, to return to Van Nelle afterward for celebratory toasts accompanied by the pop of Champagne corks rather than canons.
Frustrations have been to the fore at the latter part of the week.
The land line phone was to be installed on Thursday and when the technician failed to arrive by 3.00pm Maureen set off for the tourism office to have them call and inquire. They asserted the man had been, could not find the boat and left and would not be available for another week. Then, the next morning the Motorola mobile phone rang but would not allow Maureen to hear the other party, identified as Lindy or Roger by their number which was programmed in the phone. I bought the flip phone in Hong Kong some years before and as it has been hard worked, the connections between top and bottom have become worn or broken.
Neither the headset or the flip would respond to any of the old ‘fixes’ like banging it on the table or turning up the volume to flat out, so with a great deal of swearing I risked taking it apart. It has been professionally fixed twice previously, replacing the connection from the speaker in the top of the flip to the microphone in the body. I was not sure what I could do but after quite a few frustrating minutes I managed to get it apart and after breaking a delicate locking device for the strap to the flip, also managed to get it back together - and it now works again. For how long I am not sure or confident. I fear we will have to purchase a new mobile.
As the time had gone by with ice and sleet a daily occurrence, it occurred to us that just sitting around in St Jean had its limitations and perhaps we ought to think about exploring further a field - but how. A car was the logical choice of transport but what to do with it when summer came ? We decided to canvass other’s ideas and see if there was a syndicate that might be interested. No-one seemed too enthusiastic and meanwhile we had discovered that one of the H20 staff wanted to sell her Renault 21 for 6,000 francs - about $A 1,000. It seemed a good deal.
Having made arrangements to buy the car I need to amass the cash to pay for it. Since there is a limit the amount one can take out of the ‘wall’ each day, I have to spread the withdrawals from the Visa card over several days. We have had quite a few frustrations with Visa and the ANZ bank and this was another. Despite the card being loaded with a large credit balance, it also has lots of credit available, none of which was able to be turned into cash on Saturday, despite having been OK on Friday. On trying I received messages like ‘We have been requested by your bank to return your card’, or, ‘Transaction not available’. I even tried calling the 24 hour service to get the block fixed - ‘We apologise, the phone banking service is not available at this time’.
This banking frustration follows our constantly enraging task of trying to transfer funds via the internet with ANZ internet banking. Since we have to use the mobile, and the bank programmers insist on loading the system with cute graphics, the process takes over 40 minutes and exhausts our pre-paid cards. The fact that the phone only transmits and receives a total of 9600 bits per second is a big hurdle. What made it even worse this week as I was transferring funds in preparation to buy the car, was that they also insisted on sending down the line their standard terms and conditions, all made up with cute (and large) graphics - twice. This timed out the system and turned the 40 minute odyssey into a 1 hour 20 minute nightmare.
The positive highlights of the week however outweighed the frustrations and included our first group French conversation session at the Tourism Office with the really helpful and pleasant young girl who runs the place, followed by coffee at the Bar Navigation on Quai Nationale with ‘the Gang’ These ‘lessons’ will hopefully correct our pronunciation, clear up the questions we have about when and where to use certain phrases and give us a great deal more confidence in general. We theme the sessions around shopping, boat maintenance, restaurants, train travel and other regular activities. It is fun and very inexpensive as we just decide on an amount to donate to the Tourism Office, which delights them.
We had dinner on the 38 metre peniche, Vixit, during the week as guests of Caroline Price and Matthew Morton, the jovial English 747 captain who also invited Bill and Laurel Cooper, who have achieved fame writing books about barging, and Mike and Carrie whose surnames are unknown to us. Bill is pretty hard to take as he constantly dominates the conversation, really not allowing anyone else a share of the time. I, inevitably, took the aggressive contentious approach and challenged him on just about everything while Maureen worked the evening with charm and tact. The others seemed amused at some of the interchanges and we left the best of friends with Mike and Carrie while Bill seemed not to have noticed and Laurel quietly followed in his path. Bill is ex Royal Navy. A big man with a big ego and one who, according to his own account, single handed-ly won most of the actions and operations the Brits were ever involved with on the water during WWII. He fed and supported the Jewish migration to Palestine, mapped Cocos Island, saved the Indians from whatever and still had time to be an intelligence officer, mixing action and endeavour with 007 like derring do - according to Bill. Whew.
I was still concerned about the leak of coolant into the sump that I had discovered on buying Van Nelle. I knew it could lead to serious problems and wanted it fixed. So, during the week we also had a visit from Phillipe Gerard, nephew of the Directeur and head of maintenance and a technician from H2O to inspect the main motor, decide what had to be ordered and arrange the maintenance work I had requested. They were quiet and efficient and left after a short time with the books (that are in French) and a parts list to order.
A couple of days later Phillipe informed me that the parts would arrive within days and the work could go ahead next week. This is good news as I am sure the engine has not been serviced since Frank bought the boat more than 4 years ago. I have to say that I am impressed by H2O. I think it is the influence of Charles Gerrard and Catherine Rault who both are pretty laid back but very helpful. Much later I was to reverse that opinion.
It was our 29th wedding anniversary and a few of the Gang were coming to lunch. We will pop the roast on, shoot off to the Canon Parade and come back for the big booze up here. I bought Maureen a big bunch of roses to celebrate and they are now nicely arranged in strategic places about the saloon. The French love flowers and use them extensively to decorate and celebrate.
Lindy and Roger arrived on Saturday morning with the shopping for the lunch, just as I was fibre glassing Little Nelle - and just as it started to sprinkle. Why does it always rain when I have started either painting or fibre glassing ?
Sunday arrived - the grand parade and ceremony of the Canons day. We arranged a lift into town with Caroline and took both the video and stills cameras to record the event. We arrived just as the parade snaked up from near the fuel barge to the bridge and took the sharp left turn (tourner a gauche) into the premier rue de la Ville de St Jean de Losne (main street of the town of St Jean). Here the dignitaries met the ancien voitures (old cars) carrying the Ministre (government minister) and other celebrities as the rain began to drizzle on everyone.
The town band, a rather raffish mixture of young and old, discordant but enthusiastic, looked marvellous in their medieval costumes of crimson and gold, instruments polished but now dripping with the increasing rain. The soldiers from the Armee de Terre (Ground Army as opposed to l’Armee de l’air or la marine) stood stolidly at ease under the dripping plane trees that line the edge of the Place de la Liberation where the monument and the canons are presented. The crowd was quite large given the temperature (near zero) and the rain, but they were quiet and interested. The French love ceremony. Our friend Giles, owner of the Brasserie L’Amiral which is situated right on the square, looked on impassively from his doorway, calculating just how much the celebration would bring to his cash register.
The president of the Syndicate de Initiative (Tourist Office), immaculately dressed in black tails and top hat and resplendent in his flowing white hair and beard, began the ceremony with a speech welcoming the dignitaries, the important town folk and the public, outlining the history of the canons granted to the town to mark the heroic successful holding off of the siege troops in the 1600s and again in the 1700s. It seems this town, at the confluence of two rivers and several important canals, was much sought after during the time rival ‘kings’ sought to increase their lands and income.
We watched as the huge French flag was drawn off the canons and another General, this time from the Air Army, followed the mayor and was followed by the Ministre in making their speeches after which the band struck up and the parade again moved off in search of the ‘Grand Vin’, to be followed by the Grande Banquet (at ff 150 per personne sans boissons). We moved off to the boulangerie to get fresh baguettes, then to Caroline’s car to beat our own retreat to the ancien ecluse for lunch. After suffering the extreme cold at the dedication of the canons it was a great relief to turn up the heat in the boat and relax over an extensive curry lunch - with an even more extensive wine list.
The next week was busy. It was to be the week of the telephone installation (again) the car purchase and drinks with Bill and Laurel. The rain continued during the week, completely screwing up the fibre glassing I had done on Little Nelle.
We decided we had been so busy, Monday (known to us as ‘ferme lundi’ as everything is closed on Mondays) was to be a holiday and I spent an extra hour (or so) finishing a book in bed in the morning. Maureen was good enough to bring the odd bit of toast and a cup of coffee to stave off the hunger pangs as I read. The balance of the day and the next seemed to disappear in the minutiae of daily arrangements. Collecting wood, cleaning the inevitable mud off everything and putting new mud on, checking and maintaining important pieces of boat equipment and shopping. These small jobs seem to take whole days but I did manage to get a couple of hours working in the engine room, scraping off old paint, rust and dust in order to prepare it for a new coat of grey paint.
Tuesday night included drinks on board Bill and Laurel Cooper’s barge, Hosanna. It turned out to be a very pleasant night with no stinting on the Beaujolais neauveau. Bill tends to be a bit overbearing on conversational rights but he was pretty good this night, giving each of us a few opportunities to put in the odd anecdote. He has actually taken his barge though the Mediterranean to Greece - several times. I don’t know if that is brave or foolhardy. Interestingly, when his main engine died some years before he found it less expensive to replace it with three identical, smaller motors, each with its own shaft and propeller. He uses all three at sea and just the central one in canals. Unique.
Wednesday’s highlight was again the French conversation classes we had organised at the Syndicat d’Initiative with a few coffees afterwards, while the big event of the week was Thursday’s arrival of the telephone technician to install a land line to the boat.
I was up early and rugged up, took the scooter to the H2O bureau (office) at 7.00am to meet the man and guide him to the boat. I stamped up and down for two hours - no technician. By this time the office was open and Catherine (one of the directors of H2O) assisted by calling France Telecom to find out what had happened this time, the second time they had not shown up. They were most apologetic as they admitted they had not given the contractor the correct instructions, leaving him waiting at the nearby Bourgogne canal while I waited at the office. They arranged another appointment that afternoon at 3.00 and at that time he arrived. By 4.00 we had a phone and about an hour or so afterwards also had the PC and modem connected - no easy feat as the wiring in Australia and France are different and the correct connectors impossible to get in St Jean (I later bought the correct ones in Dole for 1/3d the price in a local shop). However, with my multi meter, small screwdrivers and some super glue I connected the modem and the internet leapt into life on our PC screen. E-mails, which previous had taken half an hour to collect now took seconds and the opportunity to update our web site was possible. Now all I had to do was find the correct codes to connect to our domain.
Friday was the DAY OF THE CAR which Catherine reported on Thursday night had been fixed and was ready to test. We picked it up before lunch and by mid afternoon had it paid for, paperwork completed at our end and insurance arranged. We now need to get the paperwork, plus an inspection report, to the prefecture at Dijon within 2 weeks to make it all legal. Here’s hoping the technical inspection will be OK as the car is a little old and has a few minor faults - but nothing to do with safety and hopefully less to do with reliability.
We picked up a couple of mates and went out for a drink to celebrate. As we did so we arranged to go to nearby Dole the next day. Dole is a pretty medieval town with a ‘centre ville’ preserved and closed to cars. It was the home of Louis Pasteur and was a tanning centre hundreds of years ago. As a result many tanneries, small riverside ateliers (workshops), one of which was owned and operated by Louis’ father, make up the buildings along the waterfront. They are now apartments and shops and all have water entrances as the river provided a ready source of one of the more important elements in the production cycle. Pity for the people downstream.
We set off to pick up out friends only to hear the most awful noise from under the car. Calamity ? I stopped and looked. A mud flap provided at the front to keep debris off the engine had obviously come loose and been bent by the undergrowth we have to park on. I could not fix it where we were and so went on to collect the couple and set off for the local garage. All the way there the citizens of St Jean looked nervously at this car that made such an awful scraping noise. ‘Tres cher’ (very expensive) they muttered. Arriving at the garage we found even more interested bystanders who had picked up the approaching noise and who gathered around to check the origin as we arrived. Much advice but no help was forthcoming as the patrone was out. Roger suggested we fix the thing back at the marina so we back tracked and jacked the car up at H2O. A couple of quick drill holes, some plastic ties and presto - good as new. I hope it passes the inspection come Monday at 3.00pm.
Car fixed we set off and arrived about 30 minutes later after a pleasant drive through the surrounding countryside. Saturday markets in Dole provided us with the makings for our Sunday lunch.
There is a place called Bresse in France which is the centre of production of the finest eating poultry in the country. The Poulet de Bresse carries its own ‘controlee’ certification and is renowned as THE eating chook of the French Empire ! We just had to try one and so ordered one at the markets in Dole. After selecting one with a suitable pedigree for Australian etrangers (foreigners) the butcher indicated the head and legs and his chopper and we readily agreed for him to prepare the bird for cooking. This included cutting off the head and legs, removing the entrails and delivering the bird cauterised where cut, and ready for the oven. You can take away the parts that are taken off if you like. They are retained up to the point of sale to prove the bird is what it claims to be. We picked up and paid for the bird, some veal and a pork roast and headed off for lunch.
Its amazing that whenever you look for a restaurant in a town full of them you cannot find one. We went round in circles until a friendly passer by directed us to a nearby café where paella and rabbit were the order of the day. A quick visit to the art gallery and some more shopping and we left Dole for St Jean, pleased with our first motorised outing.
Week of 3 December
Two major projects occupied my mind and my time during the next week - the continuing effort to repair Little Nelle and the preparation and painting of the engine room. However there was also the matter of the car registration to complete.
Buying a car in France requires one to have it inspected by a specialist company, very thorough, and, having overcome any discrepancies (in our case emission adjustment and new tyres), to submit the report, together with an insurance certificate to the Dijon Prefecture which then takes your money and issues a transfer and ownership certificate - a Carte Gris (Grey Card because it is printed on grey card). This was done with very little pain, except financial, as the kindly Catherine Rault at H2O assisted by making the appointments and arrangements for the technical inspection by phone. Having come from H2O, a major client, made all the difference and the technicians were ‘tres sympathetique’.
Little Nelle was a more difficult project as the fibre glass seems to have cured porous. I checked the hull integrity by filling the void between the hulls with water and it leaked through several areas. The dinghy can wait therefore until I feel like cutting back the last layer and finding and applying a good waterproof paint. I had better results however with the engine room.
80% Frank had not caused but also had not cured the mess in the engine room. A spacious area below deck, it contains the huge Baudouin main engine (the size of an upright piano), a large generator, a huge fuel tank, a workbench, other tanks, pumps and spare fluid receptacles - all with room left over to walk upright around the centrally placed engine. The mess was caused by the extensive welding that was necessary to remove the old engine and install the Baudouin in about 1993. The deck was cut open and the Brons two cylinder taken out as it had a broken piston and head, to be replaced by the then 20 year old engine from a ‘Spits’ type barge that was being broken up. No-one took the trouble to clean up after new deck plates were welded on and all the overhead paint was split, burnt and peeling off. The rest, on side decks and bulkheads was discoloured. It all had to be scraped off and despite the great working space afforded in the room, getting to much of it took some amount of stretching and contortions - for hours.
Having scraped the burned paint off all the areas I could reach (I thought) I prepared my painting equipment and over two days, painted the ceiling and upper walls. The grey paint went easily over the prepared surfaces, including those I had painted with Owetrol, a rust inhibitor. It also went easily over me as I was painting above my head, and, as I had omitted to wear a hat, I acquired even more grey hair. I tried combing it out unsuccessfully (very painful and very ineffective except to remove large clumps of my remaining tresses) and therefore resorted to washing it out with turpentine (even more painful).
The engine room changed dramatically. Once dark and menacing it was now brighter since the lights have something to reflect off rather than be absorbed by, and it appears a lot cleaner and more efficient. Maureen’s new vacuum cleaner was put to the task of sucking up a couple of kilos of paint chips, dust, rust and old hardware doing it much more efficiently than a pan and brush. In completing the task I also had to clear away the remaining vestiges of Frank’s reign. Kilos more scrap onto the junk pile. I found stuff everywhere - old bits of steel, pipes, bolts, nuts, tins, wood, rubber, paper, concrete and other unidentified debris.
During this cleanup and painting binge I rediscovered the tiller - a grand iron affair, weighing about 100lbs (40kg) about 9' long with a beautiful curve to it, ending in a keyed slot that fits over the top of the rudder post. I look forward to trying it but hopefully not as a result of the failure of the wheel steering gear. This tiller was obviously used when low bridges required maximum reduction in height. Dropping the wheelhouse reduces the air height from 3m 20 to 2m 80 but taking the wheel off reduces it further to 2m 40 - obviously enough to get to places the Van Nelle coffee, tea and tobacco company, wanted to distribute its products.
During the week, Charles Gerard, the Directeur of H2O brought his front end loader down our way to pick up a speedboat owned by the former resident of our mooring. He had left in a hurry and had left his boat in the water. Matthew Morton, our neighbour, had tried to beach it without success but had managed to get most of the water out of it and had secured a tarp over it. This made the job a little easier for the front end loader. Unfortunately the period in question followed some considerable rain and the ground was muddy underfoot. This did not deter the tractor on the way down the bank but caused it to leave some pretty deep furrows from its massive tyres. We secured the boat to the front scoop which then raised it from its watery home.
Charles then attempted to reverse his tracks back up the bank to the road. Given the sloppy state of the earth this task proved more than equal to the tractor’s power, repulsing it not once but some three times in different places. This meant mass destruction to the gardens, including our bank, the neighbour’s steps and Caroline’s bamboo patch.
Charles finally acceded to the suggestion to drop the boat on the road and take the tractor up without it, a feat that was achieved fairly smartly. The speed boat was again hoisted by the scoop and deposited ‘tout suite’ onto it’s trailer.
Chagrined, Charles and the tractor reappeared an hour or so later with a big scoop of gravel for our pathway which then turned my attention to the creation of a reasonably mud and water free entrance through the park to the boat. Over a couple of days I managed to cut steps into the bog, reinforce them with tree timbers and cover them with gravel - both Charles’ present and 8 bags of commercial river stones. The effect was dramatic and a path of some attractiveness and efficacy was created.
During the week we did not ignore our social obligations, having Charles, Patricia, Bill, Laurel, Matthew and Caroline for drinks on Thursday night - until we poured them out after 10.00pm. We had a delightful rabbit stew on Friday, courtesy of Lindy and Roger. Sunday morning saw us at breakfast on ‘Amacita’, Charles and Patricia’s 38m peniche home after which we headed off to St Jean to check out the St Nicholas Day markets, parades and entertainments and finished the week with a wonderful dinner on Vixit, guests of Caroline and Matthew. Whew.
Each of these weeks provides adequate occasions to test a wide range of French wines, of which we are becoming at last, familiar. The hunt is on for the best wine at the lowest price. I found a beauty - a Beaujolais Nouveau at 5 francs a bottle (about $A1.00) but when I went back to buy up the whole supply it was gone - the whole pallet load. The locals also know a good deal when they taste it. However we are still finding many good wines at the 20 - 30 franc level and some ‘quaffers’ at 10 - 20 francs.
We don’t have to wrestle with the French Franc for much longer as the change to the Euro is on January 1 and is all over the TV, radio and newspapers. The petrol stations are converted and while the pumps give the price in Euros, for now we have to pay in francs. Come New Year’s Day we will be on an equal footing with the French in understanding their monetary system.
Our Wednesday French lessons continue but my progress in them is not great. I take heart however that I have years to go and the words, phrases and verb conjugations are becoming clearer. We can now hear the words spoken by newsreaders - now all we have to do is understand them !
We finished the week with a visit to Nuits St George ! This is the centre of one of the world’s great wine growing and production areas with famous names such as Nuits St George, Vosne Romanee, Mercurey, Pouilly-Fuisse and many more in the great Bourgogne Region. The town itself is quite large with a burgeoning industrial area on the outskirts feeding the production houses that scatter over the landscape and the town. The centre of the town is quite picturesque with a central pedestrian region connecting the Hotel de Ville, many caves (wine cellars), the marketplace, restaurants a small hotel and lots of shops selling - wine ! We attended a Xmas market in the marketplace, a two storey building used for exhibitions and markets. The two floors were furnished with booths offering local products and produce. A four piece band played American country and western tunes with a few regional folk tunes thrown in for punctuation.
We tested this year’s Nuits St George at the degustation booth and pronounced it drinkable but a bit young and thin. I have been surprised by the lack of solid body in the wines we have been predominantly presented with in this region and further north. All of the red wines are made from Pinot Noir around here but we have also had a lot of Beaujolais and Cotes du Rhone (Gamay). I made comment about it at a dinner with Matthew and Caroline, just as Matthew poured a Cabernet Sauvignon from Bordeaux - what a difference ! Here was the body and the strength. The exploration continues.
During the next 4 years we developed out knowledge and appreciation of the wines of France, realising the way grapes are proscribed in each area by the committee of the Appellation Origine Controllee as a result of centuries of experimentation linking grape to soil to wine making methods. Interestingly, the cold fermentation methods from the new world, notably Australia which pioneered the chilling of tanks, are making inroads, improving marginal wines and even improving the grand marques. During our time in France we came to love the lighter bodied Burgundian reds, Vosne Romany and the like and the beautifully lush Chardonnays of the same region, especially as demonstrated at Montrachet.
We drove out of town to the north west looking for a break in the buildings and an entry into the rolling hills that were covered with vines. We soon found a side road that led up the hills and through a small village (6-8 houses and a restaurant !) Through which we drove slowly marvelling at the houses that look as though they have not been changed for hundreds of years. Its only the presence of tractors and farm machinery that gives a clue that we are actually in the third millennium. As it was very cold we decided that the reconnoitre was completed and that we would return to stay overnight at the small one star hotel in the centre of town with some friends and take the chance of a couple of days without having to drive to really do justice to the local food and wine.
Week of 10 December
If the new week starts on Sunday we started the week with breakfast on Charles and Patricia’s 38m peniche Amacita just 5 or 6 boats down the canal from our mooring. This was the day of St Nicholas’ arrival, his parade and the Christmas markets in St Jean but since we were at a brunch first up we missed his waterborne arrival parade. We went to town at 12.00 and wandered through the street stalls, lots of French bric-a-brac with some very cold looking stall holders. Enticed by the chocolatier we stopped long enough to buy a bag of truffles which we later presented to Caroline as we had dinner with her that night.
5.00pm saw the second parade, made up of St Nicholas, the children, the town band and hosts of parents, grand parents and well wishers. It was absolutely freezing as there was a lively breeze adding a wind chill factor of about -12 degrees to the ambient temp of 0C. We saw and left quickly to warm up. St Nicholas is the patron saint of barge people and schools so it is a big occasion in this pre-eminent waterways town. St Nic was played by the President of the Tourism Office (Syndicat d’Initiative) and was most appropriate with his flowing white beard and hair - all his own !
On the advice of long time resident and fellow barge person, Caroline Price, we decided to trek off on Monday to Louhan which boasts a mega street market. We were advised to arrive early and thought 10.30 was pretty good for us as we are tending to get up later and later as the days get shorter and darker. We saw why the advice was given as when we arrived all the car parks were full with cars abandoned in the most unlikely and inconvenient places. I adopted the stop and wait approach which paid off quite quickly with a couple arriving to extricate their van after about 5 minutes. We took their place and strode off towards the noise and the crowds. Streets full of stalls greeted us. Food, wines, animals, produce, products, leather goods, clothes, shoes and boots, CDs and tapes, mattresses and millinery, cheeses and meats - a huge array of fresh, good quality product at reasonable prices - including some room to bargain if you have a mind to, in French !I stopped off at the France Telecom shop to buy a replacement phone and was able to advise the clerk that I wanted to retain my number but interchange the sim card from the other (now mortally wounded) Motorola mobile as we can still use the Motorola for connection to the internet when we have to leave our land line behind. 430 francs later I set off with a smart new silver mobile in search of Maureen who had gone off to find Christmas presents.
We needed to find appropriate but small gifts for just the closest family, preferably things obviously French and ones that would fit into a smallish postal pack from ‘La Poste’ to go to Australia quickly. We had previously tried to send a bottle of Palmer Amazone Champagne to our dear friends Ian and Helen Palmer with the result being a box carrying a smashed bottle. Not wishing to emulate either the cost or disappointment of that foray we chose small solid items of good value and attractive appearance and later put them into a postal pack for mailing. That done we hunted out a few choice food items and drove our trusty Renault back to St Jean.
Caroline had gone to the UK to see her parents and friends before Xmas for a week so it fell to me to look after the daily requirements of Puss, her orange cat. Puss is not a great socialiser as I found out. I tried all my charms, even going prone on the floor to try to offer some TLC (as requested) to no avail. After three days of trying to give a very reluctant cat a bit of a stroke I decided to treat it as it was treating me and replied to its somewhat rude miaows with off hand remarks. It seems that is the best approach with Puss as it now stays quite close as I arrive to freshen its food, water and kitty litter.
Wednesday saw us attend our weekly French ‘lesson’ at the tourism office but I despair at my lack of progress, I guess I really need to work on it 7 days a week as repetition will be the only way I will progress. I seem to forget everything as quickly as I learn it. I hope however that now that I seem to be able to identify individual words among the torrents of French directed at me by shopkeepers and the TV, at sometime in the future I will understand what the words mean. In my defence I have to say though that I have been able to achieve all the tasks I have been set, buying goods, getting service for the engine and other such projects.
It has been far too cold to work on Little Nelle but I did finish the steps to the boat with another three bags of gravel which dries quite white. I now plan to put some lights in strategic places so visitors and ourselves will not fall off the boat into the icy water - or as it was this morning, onto a sheet of ice surrounding the boat.
Thursday night saw all the boat people we could muster gather at Petit Louis’ Café Nationale on the Quai Nationale for drinks. 5 couples from a range of boats squeezed into the diminutive, smoke filled bar for three hours of house red and white wines and ‘pression’ beer (on tap). Represented were a British narrow boat ‘Back of the Moon’ owned and operated by Alan and Denise, a new canal cruiser ‘Blackbird’ from the UK owned by Jan and John, Lindy and Roger (timber yacht ‘Hoivande’), David and Diane of Glorinda and a yachtie named John who had driven his campervan up from the Med to look for a barge to replace his 50' motor sailer. Unhappily he refused the offer of power for the night and froze his van, bursting the water pipes and destroying his heating system on his overnight stay.
The meeting was an uproarious one with no let up to the flow of pichez de vin and verres du pression. At the end of it the bill was only 80 francs per couple - a remarkably cheap night. At the affair we discussed the planned beer and skittles night which had started as an idea of Bill Cooper’s to get all the boating fraternity together for a cheap meal and lots of talk. The idea of a dinner at L’Amiral was rejected unfortunately in favour of a journey out of town to a bowling alley. Since we have hired out our car to friends for a week I am not sure at this point as to how we will get there as the nights are far too cold to take the scooter.
The week ended with a few nasty surprises. The Kabola water heater and central heating system refused to work on Saturday morning resulting in the temp inside the boat dropping to about 8C instead of the relatively warm 16C that it is set to. That discovered it was made worse by Maureen’s discovery that the water surrounding the boat was solid ice. Had we frozen the system ? Had a component broken ? How would we repair it and stay warm ?
I started the process by testing the obvious symptoms, working from the operating instruction book - if the green LED light is blinking do the following. After a call to the office of H2O, the marina management company, I managed to get the machine operating. Called off the mechanics and set about topping up the closed water system of the central heating which had dropped to .4bar, less than the minimum .5 or maximum 3.5 bar. I managed that reasonably easily but was unable to bleed the system. I will wait for Phillipe to reappear with the torsion wrench for the engine and apply his skills to the problem. Meanwhile Maureen thought the 'frig had stopped working. After removing it, setting spacers on the floor to stop it rolling back on the wall it started quite happily and purred away.
Had I been in a better frame of mind and had the heater and all been working perfectly this morning it would have been a great adventure to discover the ice and play with it as Maureen did by skidding nuts across its surface. As it is I’m sure I will have plenty of opportunity to play on every other morning this week - or month - or season. Perhaps this is an unseasonable run of cold weather and the balance of winter will be warm. And, was that a pig that just flew by the window ?
December 16 to February 16
Sunday, December 16 dawned bright and clear and we, as usual on these dark nights that don’t dawn until around 9.00am, rose late - or latish, at about 9.30. A busy day with preparations for a curry lunch with Bill and Laurel Cooper. Sunday lunches have become a bit of a feature of our weekly life and a way to get to know some of the locals and other blow-ins like us. On this occasion it was the turn of the Coopers. Bill, an ex British Navy officer has been retired for some years as he is now over 70.
The lunch was a great success with a very good range of chicken and meat dishes accompanied by a wide selection of condiments. Laurel also brought some pappadums which added to the authenticity and flavour of the meal after which we waved them back to their boat as we drifted off to an early night and woke early to a toilet that had decided to fill itself up and spill a quantity of water into the bilge. We have made a study of the ins and outs of the toilet now to the extent that we think we have it sussed and can overcome these small inconveniences.
Boat toilets are a constant topic of conversation among boaties - and with good reason. Our model is a Lavac with a one way pump which works brilliantly - most of the time. When it decides to become tetchy it is a real pain causing repeated trips to the engine room to adjust the size of a small hole made in the filler hose that carries flushing water from the canal to the bowl. It is fitted with a large loop that rises above the water level so the hole allows air to break the siphon effect which on the previous occasion, flooded the bathroom bilge area. That problem was to recur at all the wrong times - especially when we had guests aboard. Operation of the vacuum system required closing the lid (to effect a seal) and pumping, first eight times and then six after a five second wait. This effectively emptied and refreshed the system - most times. Sometimes the hole would block causing water to continue running into the bowl and overflowing and other times it would cause the lid to stick in the closed position.
Having had a fairly indolent Sunday we decided that the long walk to town was in order rather than making use of our other conveyances - the bikes or the scooter - since the car was still on money earning duties having been rented to friends. These walks are the only real exercise we get during the winter months and we really need to do a lot more of them, as inconvenient as they may be when there is a quantity of shopping to be brought back to the boat. The trip allowed me to get the bits I needed in order to fix the outside light that guides us and our guests on and off the boat after 5.30pm when it gets dark to the extent of pitch black.
Getting on and off these boats on an exposed mooring that collects ice, rain and snow can be hazardous and the exercise needs to be taken slowly and carefully with lots of light and preferably, something solid to hang on to. We have a narrow, slatted walkway, perched about a metre and a half above a sheet of ice under which is freezing water, guarded by a steep bank. A dousing in the canal after a fall off a boat or walkway would not be conducive to good health.
During this period we had also contracted a virus - in our PC - which had not been fixed properly by our Norton anti virus software leading to a string of worsening problems. In order to exorcise the little devil I had to erase some system files which could only be done from a DOS boot as once the PC booted into Windows these files were used by the system and therefore protected by it - ergo - they could not be erased. Having overcome that problem and once the system had automatically replaced the files (as it was supposed to) we still had the virus and worse - had sent it on to others. This called for more drastic action, so more files were deleted and copied from Bill Cooper’s clean copy on his PC as these are not files that can be copied from the Windows 98 CD. I’m not sure how other less experienced people would cope with all these problems - or is it that I create them as a result of a little bit of knowledge being a dangerous thing ? Finally the PC was back up and running and so far, touche bois (wood), we have had no other problems. We celebrated by having drinks with Matthew, recently returned from a week or so piloting 747s around the world, or at least to Fiji and back, and Caroline who had returned from the UK.
The next morning, Maureen decided to ride the scooter to Dole to find some jars in which to put her special Xmas chutney and lime pickle as presents to the locals. She departed well rugged up and with lots of advice as to safety and mechanical issues. Out of the mist some 5 hours later emerged the scooter and Maureen without the jars - none to be found in the big town of Dole ! (They would later turn up on the shelves of the local supermarket). I’m sure I did something useful that day but for the life of me I can’t remember what it might have been.
Wednesday is the day we have our French lesson and this we did at the Tourist Office in St Jean under the expert tutelage of the girl that runs the office - Corrine. This is always a fun time as we have a group of roughly the same capabilities and it’s fun to try to half understand and half guess what it is that Corrine wants us to do. We get through with humour and some knowledge being passed on at the same time. This was also a BIG DAY since Bill had some time before suggested that we should get all the boaties together for a fun night before Xmas and this suggestion translated itself into a night of bowling and saussices et frites (sausages and French fries) at a nearby bowling alley.
We had taken over the place with its very narrow 4 lanes and a very different type of bowls than any of us had ever seen. Similar to the American setup but with only 8 pins, smaller bowls with no finger holes and a VERY undulating set of wooden lanes. This added to the challenge and the 21 of us were divided into teams to fight it out for the championship, after drinks and dinner. Dinner was simple, a barbecue type sausage and a portion of a much larger ‘worst’ type sausage with a large pile of frites and some crusty bread, all washed down with some very inferior Cotes de Rhone or a bitter white that tasted more like retsina than wine. All of this was taken in fine humour however and the night was a great hoot and an outstanding success. Caroline and Matthew provided our transportation in their ‘old charabanc’ a somewhat disreputable Renault 25, a larger size than ours.
The next morning Matthew and I set about getting our two boats re-supplied with water from the supply line across the canal, since our side was completely frozen. I had the job of heaving the line, weighted with a small wrench in a sock. Some found this somewhat amusing but it would not have been very funny if the wrench, unprotected, had gone through the window of the boat that Matthew was standing on across the canal from Van Nelle. After a couple of tries I managed to get the weight and its line close enough to Matthew for him to reach it and drag the attached hoses across. A few hours later and we were both filled. Unfortunately by this time it was late and Matthew disengaged the hoses but left them stretched across the canal, mostly underwater. The next morning, predictably, they were frozen. I extracted them and laid them on the ‘park’ on a downward slope for a few days with the vague hope that they would thaw and empty themselves of the frozen water inside them so they could be stowed for later use. Some days later they were completely rigid, so with a great deal of effort they were coiled and relegated to the engine room where they eventually thawed out.
Friday called for a quick trip into town on the scooter for the mail, fresh bread, some Xmas shopping and a trip to the bricolage for some research into hardware to do some jobs on Van Nelle. I had travelled slowly to start with, feeling my way on the frozen track when from a completely hidden position behind Charles’ wood pile came the flock of geese his wife Patricia keeps. I had a split second to react in order not to seriously damage one of these wretched birds and automatically hit the rear brake. Wrong ! A scooter had very small wheels that give it very limited stability. Attached to the wheels are tyres with a very smooth pattern. When the rear brake is locked up on icy roads the inevitable conclusion is scooter and rider in a prone position following loud crashing and sliding noises.
This occasion was no different and I lay dazed for a minute of two as I counted the bruises and sprains and hoped to hell I had not damaged the Peugeot scooter mortally as it had stopped and smelt strongly of fuel. To Patricia’s worried inquiries from one of the windows of her barge and to the screeching accompaniment of the rapidly retreating gees, I arose, with dignity, picked up the bike, straightened my somewhat muddied clothing, re-mounted and tried the starter. The scooter responded after about 3 or 4 tries, and reassuring Patricia I was alive and not in need of immediate hospitalisation, I continued my trip to St Jean, shaken not stirred. As I rode I started feeling the onset of the minor injuries I had sustained, an obviously well sprained thumb, a bruised hip and a wrenched ankle. Oh well, it could have been much worse. I inspected the bike on arrival in town and found a fair number of scratches on the plastic side panels but nothing more serious. More experience I don’t really need.
Bad things come in threes they say - I had crashed the bike, now I received a notice that I had only three days to use or lose the current phone credit of 174 French francs. The way the system works in this country is that you buy a card with a denomination of 160 francs or one hour - or a lesser amount and apply that to the phone. You have one month to use it or lose it - a scandalous arrangement by comparison to the 12 months given in Australia ! While we depend on the mobile, the cards don’t last more than a week or so of normal use but now that we have a land line and hardly use the mobile, it works very much in favour of the phone company. The third issue came when I picked up the mail which included a bill for the first month’s use of the land line - 865 francs. We had expected about 500 but 865 was a shock. We will just have to be more communications efficient.
It was also exactly six weeks since I had submitted my application for a Carte de Longue Sejour, my long term visa, and this morning’s post contained a note from the Mairie requesting more information to back up my application. I decided to flood them and so printed piles of information from my bank and insurance companies, pages of nonsense and all in English. I delivered the documents to the Hotel de Ville only to be asked for Maureen’s passport as well - that was predictably on the boat - requiring another trip back to the ancien ecluse and back into town. It was explained that since she was a European passport holder (being originally from Scotland) it would ease the way of my application since she did not require one and was entitled to be here.
Christmas presents bought, wrapped and delivered we began to look forward to Christmas and to drinks on board Hosanna with Bill and Laurel, Caroline, Charles and Patricia and another couple just arrived for Xmas on their boat ‘Passe Pierre’‘ John and Rosemary with their teenagers Oliver and Sophie. A strange time for drinks I thought - the invitation was to join Bill and Laurel "At Home’ from 1130 to 1300. This was not lunch but substantial nibbles were provided and much Xmas news and cheer exchanged along with the mulled wine, champers and orange (Buck’s Fizz) and a new one on me - hot buttered rum. I didn’t try it but Maureen swears by it, and she ought to know, having consumed most of it !
We had a rabbit that night - very nice - cooked in a big pot on our pot belly stove. The fire is a great stove and is being used often now for the traditional ‘pot au feu’ cooking - boeuf Bourgogne, coq au vin or lapin au feu.
It snowed this night as it had for a few days now but the falls are getting heavier and the countryside looks gorgeous until the thin sunlight melts the covering in the mornings. The ancien ecluse being separated from the town by some kilometres, it is very much a rural environment and looks lovely covered with soft powder snow.
Since we had to get rid of the phone credit we took the opportunity to ring friends before Xmas and ended up speaking for far longer than the credit allowed. We fortunately have generous friends who rang us back ! Thanks Ian and Helen.
The beginning of the week also saw us get the car back so we could join Roger and Lindy on Xmas day. We had previously provided them with the car as they have taken a ‘gite’ or apartment for a couple of weeks since their two girls were joining them for the holiday period. They picked it up by riding bikes over to us, putting the bikes in the boot and driving off into the sunset. This time they drove over to us, picked us up and took us to their temporary home for lunch after which we drove back to St Jean.
Caroline was to head off to spend Christmas with Matthew the next day and since I have the job of feeding her cat while she is away I suggested that we get together on Vixit so I could get a better relationship with the cat, which had avoided me like I was plagued the last time I had the job. We went over for a pre Xmas drink and I spent a few fruitless times trying to cosy up to a cat which had very different ideas. Oh well, we will just growl at each other again I guess.
XMAS DAY
We were up reasonably early to make (and receive) phone calls from Australia and to tear into our presents and then to prepare and drive over to Roger and Lindy’s for a very traditional lunch of turkey with all the bits ! M’s mother rang early to wish us a merry and a happy and let us talk to our son Simon who was lunching with them. Given the 7 hour time difference it was late in the afternoon there but early in France. We called Sean (our other son) who was having a somewhat simple and lonely day near the pool in Port Hedland - a somewhat difficult ‘outback’ mining service town in Australia (really a mining sea port some thousands of kilometres north of Perth).
Wrapping paper removed we found that we had been very similar in choosing presents for each other - warm, waterproof boots, scarves, gloves, socks - the sort of things that we definitely need in the current weather. A quick breakfast and a pack up of sleeping things for the overnight stay and we were off about 11.45 for Seurre, the town where Roger and Lindy have their gite. About 20 minutes later we arrived at their place and shortly afterwards had glasses of bubbly in our hands, the Cullen’s Cabernet Sauvignon and Rosemount Chardonnay we had procured from Australia were breathing and the turkeys were being finished off. All preparations having been successfully completed we sat down to a sumptuous lunch shortly after 2.00pm and got up some hours later.
It was a very pleasant Xmas - made even better since it was our first in Europe and it was a white one, the snow had not let us down and was dusting the fields and houses all around. Great to spend time with fun people including Annie and Jennifer, Roger and Lindy’s delightful daughters.
The next day we were driven back to the shops at St Jean to change presents for the right size and back to the boat for a very quiet boxing day where a long walk (about 8 km) to Esbarres was the highlight. Even 24 hours after Xmas I have to admit I was still feeling it’s effects and was pleased to take a long healing sleep and rack up the first post Christmas AFD (alcohol free day). Thursday was predictably a slow day but positively early by comparison with Friday when it took all our energy to get up before lunch. The pace is telling on us !
We walked into town the next morning as we had a few things to do, like picking up the mail, which including a couple of beautiful jumpers sent over by M’s mum, Mary. Thanks Mary, they fit really well and being 96% lambs wool, were very warm. I spent the rest of the day watering the boat - not to make it grow but filling the water tanks as we had about 5 loads of washing to do. That required heaving the line over the iced over canal again, and since I did not have Matthew on hand to assist I used a much heavier spanner as the weight and thankfully threw it well clear of the boats on the opposite side.
The boat immediately opposite is an ex rental and has positively lethal decks - very, very slippery. I nearly went into the water (or onto the ice) twice, once getting onto the deck and once negotiating the walkway to it. The watering was done by 5.30pm just as it was getting dark and I elected to leave the heaving line in place, reckoning that no-one was about to take their boat through the ancien ecluse during this period of deep freeze. So far that has proven to be correct but I will take up the line after Caroline returns on the 29th and refills her tanks.
We accepted a suggestion from friends in St Jean that we attend the New Year’s revelries at L’Amiral, a ‘bistro’ in St Jean where the owner at least tries to put on meals that are not straight out of the deli counter at Casino, the supermarket. (Another ‘restaurant’ has daily specials which can be found at half the price in the ready to eat section at Casino). Giles, the owner, is also progressively more friendly and generous as the nights progress in his restaurant as he imbibes at twice the rate of the guests. This often works in our favour as he starts dealing out large quantities of liquor onto desserts or just into glasses as the end of the night approaches. For 200 French francs (about $A54) we are supposed to receive champagne (it will probably be a blanc de blanc) all drinks (his house wine is just bearable) and a three course dinner (??????). With the kind of crowd that normally attends L’Amiral it should be a hoot. I should finish this explanation with a description of Le Patron - he is short, rotund, very dark and has the most incredibly rasping, gravel based voice - basso profundo. He is always dressed in pants that look like pyjama pants and slightly grubby tops - tee shirts mostly, despite the weather. He is funny, kind, irascible and much loved by his regulars, themselves a motley lot, his children and the ever present dog.
Friday saw us wake late, get up even later, study French for a bit over an hour, clean the pot belly and re-stock the wood inside from the pile outside and then ride into town. A few pieces of business had to be transacted like paying the huge first month’s phone bill and, in order to do it without overdrawing the La Poste account, putting money into that account. I had planned for the bills to be paid automatically from La Poste but somehow this has been overlooked by France Telecom and we now receive an account which can be paid by just signing it and returning it with an authorisation form (after which they will deduct it from our account) or sending a cheque.
I had written out a cheque - all correct in French and with all the bits in the right places but had to tear it up when I had the option of the authorisation explained to me by our very helpful friend Catherine at H2O - she sold us her car and has been helping us with details of bureaucracy ever since. However - this was my first Euro bill and payment - I suppose that is something to remember.
One of the downside results of the ride into town unfortunately was that our bike wheels, which do not have mudguards, splattered mud over the backs of our newly washed jackets - bugger !
The snow has all gone since we had a big change of weather overnight - it rained pretty consistently all night, washing snow and a fair bit of ice away and replacing the surfaces with mud. As already reported, the mud around here is magnetic - it is attracted to everything, especially boots and gets right into the carpets and all over the decks and walkways. We take our outside shoes / boots off as soon as we come into the wheelhouse but it still manages to gravitate into the boat. Fortunately it dries and can be vacuumed. A task that happens more and more regularly.
I have the task of feeding our neighbour’s cat while she is away in Amsterdam with her bloke, Matthew the pilot. He has a three day stay-over there. They don’t call them lay-overs in these days of political correctness ! Puss has had every opportunity to become a mate but has steadfastly refused to take up the option despite my continued acts of kindness, so we have a sort of stand off relationship. I unlock and enter and Puss streaks past on his way out of their boat. He returns late in the afternoon unless it is very cold, in which case he stays close to the boat and returns before I finish cleaning and replenishing the various cat dishes and bird seed containers and cleaning out his kitty litter. The other day the cold must have affected him as he lay still enough for me to give him a bit of a scratch behind the ears before giving me ‘the look’. If he stays in doors and I try to approach him to dish out a ration of TLC he normally just stalks away, giving me a studied view of his backside - a thing cats do to show their disdain, but on this occasion I think he was not prepared to let his cushion get cold.
I spent some time today breaking ice around the boat - no mean feat despite the small change of temperature we have recently experienced. I used the heavy deck bucket, a solid piece of black plastic with heavy rope attached, filled it with water from an area that was melted nearby and dropped it from a great height onto the ice beside the hull. This had two effects. The first was to shoot a geyser of water straight back up at me and the second was to break off a small section of ice. It was from this exercise that I was able to measure the thickness of the ice sheets surrounding Van Nelle. It is pretty consistently 6 - 8 cm thick - about 3 inches. We are fortunate here in the ancien ecluse since we seem to be a fair bit warmer than the Gare d’eau (marina) in St Jean and the section of the Bourgogne canal that makes up the Port Fluviale as our ice has not been as early or as thick. Theirs had human footprints on it, across the canal through the snow !
We had been told by Charles that there would be a warmer period - this seems to be it - even the weather forecasters predicted most of the changes we have seen today although they disagreed about the extent of the rain or the variation in temperatures. Some predicted up to 7 degrees the others about 4-5C. The good outcome of all of this may be a reduction in the rapid use of both diesel fuel and wood as we maintain a reasonable temperature in the boat.
For anyone interested in some operating statistics - very rough ones - we have been operating on an overnight and morning working temp of 15C and pushing that up to 20C at night using the pot belly stove. On that basis we are using about 65 - 70 litres of diesel a week, about 60 pieces of wood and about 70kwh of electricity (we do not have electric heaters). This adds up to a weekly cost of ff 650 or $A 200. At say $A 800 per month plus $A 250 for the mooring cost and $A 150 for the phone - that’s about $ 1200 per month. We spend about ff 1,000 on groceries per week and another ff 500 on wines and meals out plus ff 500 for fuel in the car for a grand total of $ 3,500 per month.
Well that’s enough to depress me at the moment so I will suspend this session of the journal for another week or so as it is Friday 28 December. I will take up the tale again after the New Year.
Weekend 29 / 30 December.
Rain began Saturday and the news that night told of floods in the north-east of France. No doubt we will get some run-off from the rain further north of us as it drains southwards through the Saone River valley (which we are on) on it’s way to the mighty Rhone and finally emptying into the Mediterranean. Since it seemed to be a stay at home day we spent it re-pressurising the water central heating system and designing the third and final bed which we will manufacture ourselves. This bed, in what is currently the third bedroom acting as a store room, will be 2 metres long but only 120cm wide. That’s about the size of a rental boat double bed and big enough for us while we have guests in the other two rooms. This will not be a frequent occurrence but having the third room available gives us much greater options. It will also be a very generous single.
With the increase in local temperatures that are associated with rainy weather, the ice on the ground and around the boats in the ecluse is beginning to melt. No doubt this will add to the increase in river flow and the possibility of flooding in this region.
Sunday saw us on Passe Pierre, the boat behind us which is owned by a couple of British teachers, Rosemary and John Bullock. It is only occupied at Xmas and their term breaks by themselves, their daughter Sophie and sons Oliver and Tim. Their third son is currently working in Egypt where he announced his engagement to his partner of 5 years as a kind of Xmas present to his folks, which he accompanied with airline tickets for them to visit when appropriate. A nice way to get some sun during these cold winter months.
The meeting on Passe Pierre was another of these English "at home" drinks sessions, apparently a tradition in the UK as people head home from Church and stop en route before finally going to their own hearths for the roast beef Sunday lunch. I am not comfortable with them since they generally start at 11.00 or 11.30 and go on to 1.00pm with nibbles and drinks taking the place of lunch in our case. We will stick to having people over for Sunday lunches.
The news told of extensive additional flooding north of St Jean.
Monday 31 - New Year’s Eve
We are to dine and carouse at L’Amiral this evening and in preparation I went into town to obtain some cash from the ‘distributeurs’ and found that not one of the cash dispensers was doling out money of either kind - Francs or Euros. I hope Giles at L’Amiral has a credit card machine. The few little bits of shopping therefore had to be done using the credit capacity of the La Poste plastic card I have and that worked fine. Thank goodness for our French bank account.
Later in the afternoon we received a phone call from Lindy and Roger, who, with their daughter Annie, were having lunch at Autun, a picturesque village about 70km from St Jean. After their lunch, our car, which they were renting from us, refused to start. Roger suspected the starter motor and asked if we had roadside assistance. I advised we did as part of the insurance and directed him to the card on the windscreen. Another call some time later advised that the assistance number had refused to assist since we were ‘not registered’. They caught a bus to Beaune and a taxi to Seurre. This is one of the risks of loaning / hiring an oldish car to friends and was a great aggravation. We arranged to recover the car later, which we were able to do the next day, courtesy of Caroline and a short tow that jump started the car and enabled Roger to drive back to Seurre, where we left it at the Renault dealers yard for repairs the next day.
Meanwhile, we attended the soiree at L’Amiral that evening with 9 other disreputable boaties. A five course (coarse ?) meal consisting of a plate of appetisers (oysters or escargots), sorbet swimming in a lethal liquor, boar or river fish, cheeses and mixed desserts. All this was washed down by house red and white wines, cocktails, champagne and liqueurs plus thick short black coffees. I can’t say that the quality was ‘gourmet’ but the effort was there and the result a hilarious and appetising evening that we left them to after dancing till well past 1.00am. The whole evening was provided for the fixed price of 200 francs per person, approx $A 55. As you can guess, the next morning and afternoon was taken fairly quietly except that we dragged ourselves off to Autun to rescue the car.
That done it was time to wonder at the water level which had started to rise the day before and was now undulating upward. How far would it go we wondered and what effect would it have on the boat and the moorings.
Chapter Five - 2002 Cruising the centre and going south
Over the next few days the water level came up about a metre to just under the level of our passarelle, the walkway or gangway to the boat from the shore. In preparation for the gangway to be inundated I moved concrete blocks that had been provided during last year’s flood, onto the passarelle. This would give us approximately 9 inches or about 20cm extra height, after that it would be a matter of wading ashore or staying on the boat ! The region now has considerable flooding over the low lying paddocks and fields but the roads and bridges are all well clear.
The VNF, the French bureaucracy responsible for the inland waterways, adjusts the settings of the locks and barrages up and down the major rivers to ease the probability of flooding - but sometimes gets it wrong. Last year they held up the head waters too long and when they could no longer contain the water it created the worst flooding at Avignon the town had ever seen. Perhaps they should just let it do what it has done for thousands of years, spread out into the country side, thereby providing it’s own relief and spreading the threat onto farm lands that are lying fallow during winter anyway.
Thursday saw us invite the Bullocks aboard for drinks since they were to leave for the UK on Saturday morning, thereby being unable to attend our next Sunday lunch. Caroline was also invited but as it was the night she had to pick Matthew up from the Dijon station, she was unable to attend.
We woke on Friday 4 January with the boat on a decided list to starboard (the right side as you look forward from the stern towards the bow or front of the boat). During the night the water level had dropped about a metre - perhaps the VNF had opened the sluices allowing the waters to subside on the river. Our ice pack on the starboard side had crowded the boat against the mooring and the steel pile was under our substantial rubbing strake which caused the port side of the boat to be held up and the starboard side to drop, hence the list. I had re-arranged the rubber glissoires I had attached earlier to the piles at the end of the passarelle to avoid the boat being hooked up but had no influence over the water freezing against the side of the boat and therefore pushing us hard up against them. We spent half an hour or so armed with our two mammoth boat hooks, long poles with vicious iron hooks attached to their ends, breaking up the ice immediately alongside. This allowed the boat to move away from the piles and righted the ungainly angle.
This evening was Caroline and Matthew’s annual Christmas Eve party, postponed since Matthew had a period of flying duty that had finished only the night before. About 20 people attended on Vixit, their barge. A lovely spread of mostly vegetarian curries and a wide array of other appetising morsels accompanied by a fine selection of reds, whites, sparkling and still wines. We stayed till about 2.00am before retiring for another sleep-it-off late morning.
By Saturday 5 January, the weather had improved dramatically with sharp, clear, sunny days and clear cold nights. Ice was reforming but the days were a delight to be out walking, riding the bikes and even braving the wind chill factor on the scooter. A couple of visits to town had the shopping completed for the Sunday lunch to which John and Jan and Caroline and Matthew were to join us.
Sunday was a clear, bright day for which Maureen had prepared a Moroccan lemon chicken dish accompanied by couscous, while I arranged the entré of Jambon terrine and the wines, a 1998 Medoc and 1999 Bordeaux plus a couple of Champagne and several bottles of Saint Veran, a lovely Burgundian Chardonnay. Caroline generously brought over dessert that had survived the hungry hordes at her party and John and Jan contributed crusty fresh bread and a pleasant red wine. Lunch slowly wound up at about 4.00pm but Caroline and Matthew stayed on till 8.00pm, chatting and flying a Boeing 737 through Hong Kong on my PC based Flight Simulator.
Monday dawned with heavy hoar frost and the sun struggling to get out from behind heavy clouds. It would be a cold day and I gathered some of the few remaining logs for the fire and left a message for Caroline to see if we could get a re-supply of fire wood as soon as possible as we have less that a week’s supply left. We will need another two ‘stehrs’ (approximately the capacity of a small French van) to see us through to March and we will also have to re-fill the diesel tank as we have now used half our supply through the central heating furnace. Electricity remains a minor item with about $ 20 per week being the current (‘scuse the pun) expense in that commodity since we have no electric heaters and the lights and pumps all work off the batteries which take little current to recharge.
Week of 7 January
We have just returned from a quick trip to Switzerland ! While that sounds pretty exotic it’s actually only 100km from our base and even our old Renault managed to make that in a couple of hours. We went past the border into to Lausanne and had to convince the border guards to stamp the passports - essential for our visa legality since without a Carte de Longue Sejour I have only three months at a time and I have been in France for about 5. We stayed overnight in Montreaux, the scene of the famous annual Jazz Festival.
On the way to Montreaux we passed through Lausanne, a large city and fairly industrial on the outskirts. It was OK in the city centre as it was untouched by the wars that destroyed French and German towns and their old buildings. It's on a huge lake and has lovely old hotels and shops right along the waterfront, which is extensive and punctuated by many marinas with large numbers of (mostly) small yachts. We stopped off for lunch in Lausanne and to do some site seeing. This was made very easy since there is an extensive underground car park adjacent to the largest waterfront hotel which is right in front of the best part of the old city centre. The shops were all displaying sale signs and some of the discounts were extensive - more than 50% on many designer labels. We could have saved a fortune if we had an equally sized one to spend, but we held off the urges and headed for a pizza / pasta restaurant up some narrow stairs, near the city square. We were served by a humourous middle aged waiter who wanted to speak English as we greeted him in Italian and switched to French to order. We really are becoming quite multi lingual.
I also wanted some cash and seeing no dispenseurs on the streets, made my way into one of the large and beautifully furnished Swiss banks. I found no gnomes - but then we were not in Zurich. I did find a very helpful young clerk who had cash for us tout de suite.
The road between Lausanne and Montreaux runs along the lake and has amazing, steep terraces filled with grape vines. I had no idea that the Swiss had an extensive wine industry. (We tried a white at dinner and it was very drinkable). We passed the Nestle Headquarters and were amazed by the number of Swiss watch brands on sale in the jewellery shops, once we had a chance to wander past them. That, their famous chocolates and the amazing vistas of high mountains ringing the lake, plus snow capped majestic peaks rearing through the morning mist, made up an unforgettable memory of the Switzerland you expect on your our first day in the country.
On to Montreaux and our pre-booked accommodation, an old house that looked like a Frankenstein castle in the gloom of the late afternoon. The building was obviously the former home, now converted into a small hotel, of an old woman who was extremely helpful re the walks and local sights. Not so accommodating regarding breakfast as ‘the staff are all home for the holidays’.
After we arrived and unpacked we took the walk she recommended along the waterfront to the town centre. There is a pedestrian road along the lake that has been carefully made into a continuous garden with the most amazing creatures created out of some kind of thin vine. Dragons and elves, horses and small furry creatures are intermingled with the shrub pots and flower beds, currently sleeping through the winter chills. It is a good half hour walk into the town where we sought out a restaurant for dinner and sussed out the Casino and shops. Again, the shops were full of discounted goods with designer labels well to the fore. Again we resisted and taking advantage of the bus pass we had been provided by the old lady hotelier, we took the frequent bus service back to the hotel.
After a short rest and a change we drove to town for dinner and a look around by night. We had chosen an Italian restaurant up a small cul-de-sac and were not disappointed with the service or food. The place was run by a young man and woman who spoke excellent English and presented us with an extensive menu and wine list, advised us about the Swiss wines and the food to go with them and were quick and courteous with the response to our requests. We tried a Swiss white wine which was named the Eagle but strangely had a picture of a lizard on it’s label. It was pleasant, unassuming but fresh and well complimented the entrees. The main courses were accompanied by a Valpollicello, an Italian red.
We wandered to the casino after dinner but were turned away since to gain entry one needed a passport. I had mine but Maureen had left hers in the hotel. It was not a disappointment however as we were close enough to the action to realise that the one room was filled with slot machines, one armed bandits as they are known, and we had no great desire to stand around pushing coins into their voracious apertures.
Returning to the hotel we tried to get the two single beds to resemble a double with no luck and went to sleep, only to wake the next morning to the realisation that my jacket had disappeared. We both searched the room several times, sacking the bed and wardrobes with no luck. As it was the only one I had brought with me, this was going to be a cold morning as we had planned to visit the castle. Leaving Madame with the unwelcome news we took the car to the Chateau Chillon (pronounced chee-oh) and I froze as we explored this extensive and beautifully preserved fortified castle, built right on the lake. Armed with a guiding pamphlet, visitors are directed through the many rooms, dungeons, stores, kitchens, halls, balconies and courtyards. Many of the huge rooms have huge fireplaces but unfortunately none were lit and we became steadily colder. Fortunately there were a few places where the sun could get through and I took advantage of these to keep from freezing completely. It took about an hour and a half to get through the Chateau after which we returned to the Hotel to take our final belongings into the car and head off. But first the confrontation with Madame.
I had checked back with the restaurant to ensure I had not left the jacket there at dinner but was assured I had not, so it was with the added assurance from Maureen that we had definitely left it in the room and that neither of us had been able to unearth it that I re-entered the property. Madame rushed out and almost danced with indignation as she announced that she had discovered the offending article of clothing under the pillow ! I made it my business to grovel convincingly for some time to calm her down before we got underway to return home.
The trip back gave us another perspective of the farm and ski fields along the way, not grand in this part of Switzerland (and later France) but pleasant and inviting - especially to those becoming a bit too old for the ultimate thrills of the black downhill runs - the advanced terrifying ones. We enjoyed an easy drive back and arrived at Van Nelle in time for a late lunch.
The weather turned really warm, by winter standards that is, reaching about 6 or 7C outside, so we turned our thoughts to outdoor activities and went for some long walks and even did a bit of work on Nellie. Unfortunately this just turned up the errors I made originally so we ended up stripping off much of the previous fibre glass repairs. Then the rain came so Little Nelle is back to being holy.
Week of 14 January
This week we decided to manufacture the third bed and I began by making extensive and careful plans to ensure I didn’t waste the effort or the timber bought for the purpose. We also had to organise Australia Day since I had repeatedly threatened a Fete on the 26th of January and was going to be held to my word by the expatriates - none of whom are Australian. But first, we received a parcel from my sister Sandra which contained a book about Great Grandfather - CY O’Connor and a set of videos of the WWII Changi Prison camp in Singapore in which my Father was interned for some time before apparently assisting the Emperor with the Burma railway and ending up in Japan as labour. These were great gifts as the nights are long, dark and cold and reading or watching good English language videos are a great way of diffusing their effect. I should comment that at this time we were only receiving French, German and Italian TV programs via our satellite system. Later the BBC changed satellites and broadcast five channels free to air as did ITV. But that was well in the future.
The bed we were to make had to fit into the smallest of the three bedrooms and because of the inward swing of the door, the overhang of the interior, hull side wall and the presence of a radiator, it was only able to fit one way. The bed had to be higher than the radiator, narrower than the doorway and tucked under the overhang to allow its proper length and the greatest width possible. The dimensions therefore confined the size of the bed to 1.20m by 2.00m, a bit narrow but just OK for two. Being the third bed, we don’t see it being used often and if needed, will be used by us so that guests have full sized beds to spend their leisure hours in.
The room also was not quite square which required a bit of planning but soon we had a platform secured against two walls with slats across the bed frame and boards on the front and side to secure the mattress. A mattress, or ‘matelas’ as it is in French, was bought from a ‘literie’ - bed shop - in Dijon and furnished with a new doona and covers. Being quite high it enables lots of items to be stored underneath and so the room continues to be useful in absorbing items not required everyday. Some furniture items stored here such as the second refrigerator (a bar frig) and a large set of drawers were re-positioned in other parts of the boat.
Australia Day, we decided, would be held at a restaurant, since it is too cold to hold as an outside barbecue, our original idea, very Aussie. We chose L’Amiral since Giles, it’s owner’ is a character, offers great value and is very willing to assist. I had a conference with him, partly in English, partly in French and we decided the following.
Saturday, 26 January at 7.30pm will see an all inclusive three course meal comprising mini meat pies for entree, rack of lamb accompanied by mashed potatoes and peas for main course with Pavlova to finish. We have been able to purchase Australian red and white wines and a dozen cans of Fosters beer to start off the evening with. Entertainment will be Australian songs (by me) recitations (Maureen) and jokes (everyone). We have a set of Two-Up pennies which may well come out into the open later on.
The list was prepared, marketing strategy considered, flyers produced and circulated and sales calls organised. A week later we reported to Giles that we had 17 people booked and he admitted to another 2 or 5 depending on whether or not they are double bookings with our RSVPs. So all is ready for the big night.
The other highlight of the week was the loan of a digital satellite TV set up from Roger and Lindy that we eventually set up and coaxed into action, attached to our TV. It gives us a range of shopping, health, travel and middle eastern programmes along with CNN and ITV news, a Turner Movie channel and a couple of documentary channels - all (except the middle eastern) in English. We are madly recording movies to watch when R&L take the set back in a week or so.
Our next Sunday Lunch was a decorous affair attended by two New Zealanders, Alan and Ann, who have a boat which was stuck in the mud at St Symphorien but is now afloat. Anne’s sister and a friend plus their son Charlie and Maureen and I of course made up the numbers. Roast Pork with cherries and veg, pate as the entre before and an apple pudding with ice cream to finish. Very pleasant. Beaujolais Villages to accompany together with a bottle of bubbly (the local Bourgogne cremant) and a white, the Macon Blanc rounded off the offerings.
Saturday 19th was Judith Reed’s birthday back in Oz. We had sent a card and tried to call on the day but had no reply so left a message. It was also the day that I got to drive Matthew’s Cobra, a brutish sports car assembled from a kit by he and his son some few years ago and now mostly kept in their garage in St Symphorien. With their workmen refurbishing the house, the garage is needed for tools, so Caroline had arranged for the Cobra to be stored in a large shed on a neighbour’s property in St Symphorien. She however did not want to drive it so I was recruited. What a great thrill. It is an extremely attractive and very powerful open sports machine with controls that feel more like a racing car than a gentleman’s vehicle. Unfortunately the distance was short and the weather cold but the experience was very hot.
During the week we also resumed the French lessons and had to apply for a Carte de Longue Sejour for Maureen. The prefecture at Dijon is being difficult about mine and the Mairie at St Jean advised this way would expedite the process - the alternative is to have to leave the country and apply from Australia, a thought that escapes description.
As we are now entering our 11th week in the Ancien Canal at St Jean we have used a fair amount of the diesel fuel we had aboard and will have to arrange a truck to refuel us in the next couple of weeks. We also will have to buy yet another gas bottle as we are now using the no 1 French one and as they will not take the Dutch ones we had we must refit our boat with the French version to have a spare to take over when the primary bottle runs out.
Week of 21 January
We started this week on a beautiful sunny Monday with a car trip to Seurre to pick up Lindy and Roger and then on to Beaune, Nuits St George and Vosne Romanee, all great French wine producing towns situated only an hours drive from St Jean. We had the chance to inspect the Hotel Dieu in Beaune, a truly amazing and beautifully restored Hospice for the poor and now a tourist treasure and also the wine museum and the ramparts of the old town. We passed through Nuits St George fairly quickly as the wine houses wanted huge amounts for a degustation and went on to climb the ancient hills of the Vosne Romanee area where we located the original and still the best plot of historic vines.
The Romany Conti, a rather light pinot noir, is sold for between 1,000 and 2,000 Euros per bottle, making it the most expensive wine in the world at first release. I have yet to taste one.
The nearby Clos de Vogeot is another large, beautifully restored chateau (castle), created by the Cistercian Monks who used it to produce wines for centuries until taken over by the committee for public safety during the Revolution it was sold and finally passed into the hands of the Chevaliers de la Tastevin, a 10,000 strong association dedicated to the promotion of Burgundy and it’s wines. The buildings feature huge wine presses and halls where large and important dinners are held to welcome new members of the wine fraternity.
On Tuesday the rain started the day so it has been declared a day for preparation of the material for Australia Day and other small tasks. While there is some rain, the ice has mostly melted here and in St Jean. St Symphorien has water back in the canal and all the water points at the garde eau are defrosted and working so people are starting to emerge like moles to look around and see what is on the go for fun and entertainment. Tonight is Harry Potter, the movie, in French, at the nearby Salle de Fetes in Losne.
Wednesday - We saw Harry Potter last night. While I did not understand the subtleties, the plot was easy enough to follow - even though it was in French. Since Maureen had read all the books and this was only to cover the first, she understood a great deal more than I and explained small points quietly. The movie was held in a local village hall where the travelling cinema man brings a projector and sound equipment and everyone comes at the same time - kids and adults. The little ones sat on the floor at the front while the adults huddled together further back to keep warm. It actually became quite hot towards the middle of the film with more bodies packed in to the room than they had ever had before. Quite popular this Hairy Pottair - as the French pronounce his name.
The next day I had some running around to do for the up coming Australia Day Dinner. Decorations were required and so I had an assortment of Australian flags to decorate the restaurant, a huge one of ours - about 3 x 1 ½ metres, another half that size from Matthew and Caroline and a boxing kangaroo flag from them as well. I went to the Australian Flag entries on the internet to get a small one that we duplicated and printed in colour then cut out and attached to barbecue sticks for each place at the tables.
Bookings reached 28 by the time the dinner was held on Saturday 26 January. With a squeeze we managed to fit everyone into the front room of the restaurant with just enough room for Giles and his off-sider to serve and clear. During the week I also went onto the internet for the words of Waltzing Matilda, the Road to Gundagai and Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport. Stupidly I forgot all about I Call Australia Home, although I suspect it might have been a bit difficult to perform, partly due to my very rusty guitar skills and partly as a result of my preponderance to emotion at times when such sentiments are expressed.
The balance of the week passed normally enough with the French lesson on Wednesday after which Roger and Lindy borrowed the car to move back to their boat after hibernating at Seurre in a couple of gites - the name for small apartments rented out for holidays. We also had a very enjoyable lunch with John and Jan on the Thursday which left Maureen with a migraine for the next two days, only just clearing sufficiently for her to partly enjoy the hilarity of the Australia Day Dinner.
During this time we had been waiting for a transfer of funds direct to our French Bank and after two weeks it still had not appeared. By the next Tuesday I arranged a meeting with the visiting bank manager and gave the problem to him to sort out as by then the Australian bank (Macquarie) had proven that they had transferred the money to Bank of America who had claimed to have sent it to the Bank of France and they to La Poste. Why the number of steps I have no idea. However it turned up late the next week after having been used by the banks for some three weeks. We won’t do that again but it is annoying that something so simple can become so complicated. We normally have money deposited direct to our Australian bank from which we can transfer it to our other accounts - such as onto the Visa Cards as a credit balance to draw locally from the cash distributors here. We can also pay accounts in Australia by this method but prefer to send cheques since they provide us with a direct audit trail. Why the French system has to include Bank of France and why Macquarie has to go through Bank of America is beyond me, even transfers to our Dutch account go direct.
Friday arrived and at 7.00pm people started to arrive at Chez Giles. The evening shot past in a blur - more blurry later than earlier - as everyone got right into the Fosters aperitif and then enjoyed the Kangaroo Ridge Chardonnay and Barossa Shiraz that we had been able to get from outlets locally and in Dijon. The songs went over well with most of the revellers using the song sheets we had printed to join in and sing along.
The meal was somewhat hysterical and left the non-Australians wondering at our culinary preferences. Giles had created several meat pies rather than a lot of individual ones but unlike Australian versions, these had real meat and flavour and the slices were huge. The chops that followed were a sort of large butterfly chop, very tender and again with a great deal of flavour but not barbecued and burnt as we had suggested. The mashed potato was real and served in huge bowls passed down the tables and the peas were the tinned variety. The piece de resistance was his Pavlova. These consisted of two small cake sized swirls of meringue, a slice of Neapolitan ice cream, a large dollop of whipped cream and a small pile of chopped Kiwi and other fruits. These ingredients were tastefully arranged beside each other on individual plates. The end result in the tummy was the same but the normal vertical arrangement was missing.
Giles supplied the meal and any additional house wine at the cost of 89 Francs (about $A 25) along with coffee and a great deal of white rocket fuel which found it’s way into the room later in the evening - this is his own brand of Eau de Vie or Marc - a distilled spirit from grapes that the French call a digestif - something to clear the stomach after a large meal. It does more than that ! Everyone had a great time and surprisingly, left the restaurant at a reasonable hour. We had Caroline with us so we were home before midnight - quite an achievement. Spoilt somewhat by me staying up to listen to music until after 2 am.
Sunday was spent writing articles for our sailing club in Western Australia, the Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club. I wondered what they made of them as I am sure I didn’t edit them after drafting but on my return to Perth years later I was assailed by many members demanding more.
Week of 28 January
The beginning of week 12 in St Jean - almost three months. It doesn’t feel at all strange to be here, we have settled into the pace of the place, doing jobs on the boat as they present themselves or when they start to niggle at the conscience. These include small bits of finishing off - painting, sewing, screwing hooks into place, tidying up bits of unfinished timber and so forth and also the bigger jobs servicing engines, splicing new lines, re-doing plumbing and wiring and of course, patching Little Nellie.
The beginning of this week was taken up finally sorting the bank transfer, getting bits and pieces together to make up a flag pole for the stern of the boat, buying oils and filters for a service on the generator and the steel pieces for attaching our mooring lines to steel reinforced canal walls when we take ‘wild moorings’ in the country-side - more on that later.
My sister Sue in Australia had cheerfully agreed to order and send us a more reasonably sized Australian flag which we will fly from the stern when we can carry the long flag pole I am about to manufacture. At about 3 metres long and 1 ½ wide our current large flag is too big for anything but ceremonial occasions and is sure to be the target for petty thieves so it will be prepared for use but only brought out to steam triumphantly into important harbours or celebrations. It is also too light to spend it’s life in the elements. We have a pole step in the deck just forward of the rudder post which will allow for a 14 cm circumference (4 cm diameter) flag pole. The poles supplied in the local bricolage (hardware shops) are almost exactly that size and are about 2.4m long - just perfect for our needs. The purchase of a reasonably straight example of these was arranged along with suitable hooks, cleats and varnish from the boat shop at H2O. A day or so was spent varnishing the pole and fitting the hook and cleat and sewing a strong line into the hem of the big flag. By Friday the work was completed and the new pole and large flag were unveiled for the first time. It stayed in position until very strong winds descended on us on Sunday and the flag was then taken down and stored for suitable use. We await the arrival of the smaller version with great anticipation.
I began the service on the generator, which had not been run for the 12 weeks we have been attached to shore power, by assembling all the items I would need and use for the purpose. Special high grade oil, a vacuum pump, a new filter and a drum into which I could put the old oil once the engine had been run for some time to thin it. Having given instructions to M to start the motor from the control panel in the office, I went to the engine room to monitor the running, especially the water pumping from outside the boat to cool the engine. The generator started, somewhat reluctantly after having been ignored for three months, and ran. I quickly established that water was not being pumped from the river through the heat exchange system and shut the engine down to investigate.
The inflow hose is fitted with a non return valve at the hull fitting to stop the cooling water receding after use but this had obviously not been able to retain the correct water level during the long break, so I now needed to prime the system in order to ensure that the rubber impellor (sort of a propeller) in the pump did not shred itself since it was not being lubricated and cooled by the water it was supposed to pump. This was not an easy task as the pump is at the top of the system and right at the back of the sealed generator engine, accessible only via a top inspection hatch. After a while of pondering I worked out that after priming to the filter, if I took the pipe to the heat exchanger off and raised it above engine height I could fill it while attaching another hose to the exchanger I could blow water into it and probably almost all the way to the pump. Then, if everything was blocked and the action quick enough, I could re-attach the correct pipes and hoses and start the engine before the water agreed with gravity and flowed out. A couple of dress rehearsals and with the first mate’s assistance the deed was done and the engine quickly switched on. Water gushed out of the outflow pipe on the side of the hull ! Success. I have to say that this underlined our opinion of 80% Frank’s design skills. Fancy putting a water pump that is not self priming at a height of about a metre above the outside water level - just silly.
The next problem was that the vacuum pump hose would not fit into the sump of the motor, rendering it useless for extracting the oil. Since I could not drain oil from the sump plug as that is unreachable and anyway the oils would just flow into the insulation under the engine, I had to use the pump supplied on the engine. I had not planned to use it as a special fitting was not supplied to attach a hose to carry the hot oil away from the top of the motor and into a waiting receptacle so I had to undo the pump from its permanent home and bend its hoses such that the oil would flow safely out and into the waste receptacle. None of these things prove to be difficult but overcoming the challenges gives one a reason to feel useful. Hopefully it does not pass on to the reader a sense that boats are a constant source of challenge and problems. Far from it, Van Nelle works very efficiently and reliably, but like any mechanical equipment, will continue to do so only with good regular maintenance. Unfortunately, little thought was given to the need of the operator to regularly work on items such as the generator and so little room to move was provided in key areas.
Some time and experience later I discovered far easier ways of both priming the water system and emptying oil for services but for now I had succeeded and could clean up and take a well deserved aperitif.
Wild Moorings. Living on a boat on the waterways of Europe gives the owners a number of options of where to stop. Towns, with their attendant facilities; marinas, with their clutter of other boats and boaters; and the countryside, with its quiet and picturesque outlook. A wild mooring is our description of a countryside stop. This can be for an overnight stay, for lunch or just to inspect a canal-side attraction while travelling through. Often, there are beautiful places along the canals and rivers where one would like to stop but these are passed regularly by other vessels which presents a problem. When a boat travels through a canal it creates a powerful bow wave that pushes ahead of it causing moored boats to be pushed onto the bank. As it then passes, the movement of the water being drawn through it’s propeller creates a large suction, accentuated by the narrow canal, that will pull your boat off the bank and into the side of the passing vessel if it is close enough and you are not securely moored.
In order to attach the boat securely to the side of the canal, a number of methods are used depending on the conditions of the bank. Some canal sides are reinforced by sheets of interlocking steel plates which generally have small holes cut in their tops. These holes give the opportunity for secure places to attach ropes if you have suitable tackle to attach to the holes. You cannot put ropes directly through the holes as they are frequently too small and having very sharp edges will quickly cut though valuable lines. Therefore some form of attaching bracket is required. The best bracket is one that swivels flat to pass a section through the hole and then opens out behind the plate to hold itself in place with a ring left out on the canal side to attach your rope to. We have not been able to find or have these made but have manufactured different sized T pieces that should slip through and lock in place. They are galvanised and have large rings attached for easy attachment to the ropes. Several of these for bow and stern would hold Van Nelle securely.
The other method is to hammer large steel stakes into the bank and attach lines to these. This works well if the banks are sufficiently dense to resist the stakes being pulled out with the suction of passing boats but loose enough to be able to sledge hammer the spikes in. If suitable trees or roots, rings or bollards are available, one would obviously use them but they are rare to find away from the proximity of the locks or recognised mooring places. One must never tie lines across the tow path that lies alongside the canals since the paths are used by walkers, bicyclists and VNF (canal management) vehicles. Some time this week was used locating suitable raw materials, making up the attaching brackets and testing them on the steel plates near the town of St Jean.
We did not ignore our responsibilities during the week to food and wine tasting either. We enjoyed a beautiful piece of rib beef on Monday, a pasta dinner on Van Nelle with Caroline visiting while Matthew was away flying on Tuesday, Jan and John visited on Thursday and ended up dancing to loud rock and roll music until after midnight (and then were suitably terrified by my driving them home along the tow path). One great benefit of the spaciousness of Van Nelle’s saloon (and in summer months her huge flat top deck), is that they make great dance areas. Several notable dance parties have been held to celebrate various occasions - both in ports and in the country - to the amazement of nearby people or cows.
Jan and John invited us back to their canal cruiser ‘Blackbird Fly’ on Saturday night which was a lovely three course meal with a raft of white wines (unusual) which we followed up on Sunday by taking them on a drive to Beaune.
Beaune, centre of wine production for the Burgundy region, is a large town with a medieval centre, complete with a beautifully restored and maintained set of historic buildings. The key attraction is the Hotel Dieu, a huge complex with amazing patterns of multi coloured tiles on its tall roof. Provided to the town after the Hundred Year War by a benevolent Duke and Duchess, it has served the community until recent times as the town’s main hospital and retirement home. The hospital has recently moved to a modern facility but the older generation remain in a separated section of the grounds, away from the front half, now a tourist attraction.
This is a magnificent structure, totally re-furbished and re-furnished as it would have been hundreds of years ago, complete with models of the nurses, patients and doctors. The cost of this great work, including the building of the modern hospital, was completely covered by profits made by the extensive vineyards bequeathed to the Hotel Dieu by its original benefactors. Indeed, each year, the most important and largest wine auction is held here after the harvest. Wine from the estates of the Hotel Dieu are auctioned to negotiants who bottle, label and sell the product at handsome profits. The least expensive variety (based on which quality level of ground it comes from), sells for more than 40 Euros.
Nearby is the Musee du Vins - the wine museum of the region, explaining the soil, vines, cultivation and lifestyles attached to this mammoth wine producing area.
After visiting these attractions we retired to a nearby restaurant which offered teas and light snacks as well as full A la Carte meals. This was an occasion where my limited language and lack of concentration caught me out. I noticed others having apple pie and ice cream and so looked for tarte de pommes avec glace on the menu. The nearest thing to it was a fouillette de pommes avec blah blah blah and so I ordered it. The waiter cross questioned me about whether I wanted the glace with the pie. I replied in the affirmative and pointed to a nearby table where the occupants were enjoying the very same (la meme chose). He left and the teas and coffees arrived. No food. We were about to leave when all at once a woman appeared with a hot meal which was made up of a couple of different small pies - mushroom and onion, with salad and sliced apples as a garnishment. In a separate bowl a dollop of ice cream was put next to the plate on the table and with a haughty look she left. Well, I was obviously stumped so I gracefully shared the very pleasant snack and we left with some level of amused embarrassment
On our arrival back at the ancien ecluse sometime later, we found our scooter lying on it’s side in the road, obviously felled by the now very strong winds raking the area. Another job of minor repair for next week as this accident had cracked the plastic fairing that makes up the front of the scooter Thank goodness for duct tape (gaffer tape to some and duck tape to others - the grey material like variety).
Week of 4 February
A windy and mostly wet week13 of our winter saw me finally bleed the central heating system, look after Caroline’s cat for a week and fix the broken plastic part of the scooter. Further work was done on Little Nell, we rode to the nearby town of St Symphorien, assisted a friend to get a quote for a Bimini top for his canal cruiser and discovered a slow leak on a rear tyre of the car and had it fixed.
The Kabola heater has a bleed screw which allows trapped air out of the system, therefore allowing the pressure to be regulated and eliminating unusual noises and unnecessary wear on pumps and other working parts. The screw had been so securely wound shut that all my previous efforts to loosen it were to no avail. I was following the instructions in the manual and turning it, against all odds, clockwise. Now that this was starting to bother me and since the folks at H2O were no help, I rang Kabola to check. They put me right as to the direction of the screw - it should have been anti-clockwise (not what is indicated in a clear diagram in the manual). Knowing that all my efforts had just tightened it further convinced me to try the last resort - using a screw driver against the edge and gently tapping it in the direction required. This worked and I was then able to use my patented new semi round screw driver (an Australian 20c piece held in a clamp) to do the rest. Hey presto, the Kabola job was completed.
The scooter needed a retaining piece re-attaching to the fairing face plate and some super glue was perfect for the job, but first I had to get the face plate off. I quickly realised that required an Allen key, which I have lots of, but once all the seemingly correct sized ones failed to fit in the screw heads I further realised that it was a non standard type. Going to the next size up I took a file to the pentagon head of the key to modify it and after a few attempts had the screws out. Then one fell into the well of the machine requiring all the external panels to be removed in order to reclaim the errant part. This completed I was able to glue the part back in place and leave it to set overnight. A week later it appears to be nicely fixed.
John Johnson wants a Bimini on the top of his canal cruiser and left the UK in too much of a hurry to have it done there. There being a contractor here in St Jean however, he decided to arrange a conference on the boat to discuss it with the local bloke and get a price. He asked me along to cover any gaps in his French vocab. Saturday morning and we all gathered on the top deck of the aforementioned boat and began the rather stilted discussion, aided by paper and pen to sketch where fluency was insufficient. We managed to get the design explained and asked for an estimate. The result was somewhat shocking - 5,000 francs (some French people still have not converted quickly to Euros) which is about $A 1500 for the material part of the front section and another 2,500 francs for the extension - excluding the stainless steel frame on which the material would be hung - and - before the scalloped trim was added. All in all John will not see any change from perhaps 15 - 20,000 francs, $A 4500 - 5500. At that price John started to seriously consider buying a big market umbrella or two.
Rain hampered work but did not exclude it entirely and by the end of the week, little Nellie was re-patched with two gel coats over the finished areas and just one new area to gel coat when the rain stops (I had completely missed one hole altogether). A coat of paint away from being a new dinghy.
Saturday night was the night of a big choral concert in the church at St Jean. The choir of the military academy at St Cyr - the equivalent of Australia’s Duntroon, were joined by two local choirs and a small orchestra. Predictably, the local choirs had to ‘strut their stuff’ first, went on too long and tried just a few too many difficult pieces which had their sopranos hunting for the high notes with mixed success. The choir of St Cyr was marvellous. One diminutive blond girl surrounded by about 25 very healthy and handsome young male officer cadets in marvellous 18th century uniforms. Feather topped kepis finished off the dark blue jackets and trousers decorated with gold braid. The solitary girl had exactly the same with the exception that the trousers were a sort of culottes come skirt. They looked and sounded marvellous and received the sort of enthusiastic and patriotic applause at the end that they deserved. Heart-warming. All the choirs joined together at the end to be accompanied by the slightly off key and out of time ‘orchestra’ in a credible rendition of Mozart’s Te Deum. A pleasant end to a workaday week.
Week of 10 February
Roger and Lindy had set off a week ago to explore some of the other ‘areas fluviale’ - places in France with waterways, and had returned on Saturday. We were eager to know what they had found in their travels south so went to afternoon tea on Sunday. They recounted their train trips to Roanne, a barging town in the centre of France at the end of a canal specially created to enable Roanne to import and export its goods. This town is larger than St Jean and has a large and comfortable harbour, priced reasonably. Spread around a large open Port de Plaisance, each mooring has water and power (the electricity supplied direct from EDF, Electricite de France), therefore probably cheaper than we pay here through H2O. On one side are large boats like ours and the other side is inhabited by yachts and small canal craft.
They next headed south towards Marseilles but turned right to explore Carcassonne and other ports along the Canal de Midi. This area is undergoing change with the towns eager to move on old boats that have been there for years and get some new blood in along with the attendant fees. If one wants to get moorings there, the scheme apparently is to write to them, supplying details of your boat and then wait for ever for some kind of response. The other theory is just to turn up when you want to settle down for the winter period. We will continue to make inquiries for our next year’s port as we plan to spend the winter 2002 in the south.
On Monday I had a number of jobs to do including the last gel coat on Little Nellie, a trip to the Stand de Pneus to get a tyre repaired. since it has been leaking slowly for the last 5 days or so, and to take delivery (or not) of the fuel that had been ordered.
I woke in a bit of a sweat on Sunday night realising that it was quite possible for Caroline, who had ordered the camion (fuel truck) to have overlooked the fact that we should only have white fuel on board as we have only one usable tank currently and you have to be able to prove that red fuel has not been used for anything else but heating and power generation. The tax is taken off red diesel fuel since it is an essential service. I had not specified any type to Caroline and it was only when I thought about it from their point of view that I realised that they probably only needed red. Nothing could be done until Monday morning anyway so at 9.00am I was up and ready when the truck arrived. I explained to the driver that I could only take part of the 700 litres I had ordered for me because that was all I would use from now until the end of our winter period. He explained (I think) that there was no need to worry between October and March as during that period the official belief was that red fuel was taken for the correct use as no-one travelled and that only after March would it be a problem.
If only I had known this when we first moved here, since at that time we bought 750 litres of white at 0.8 euros per litre rather than at the 0.375 euros per litre for red. I could have legitimately saved myself some $ A 1,000 in fuel bills. Bugger ! Well at least I have saved some $A 200 by taking the 300 litres of red today. Hopefully there will be no problem but in any case, I will need to take on 500 litres of white soon for the next season’s requirements which will bleach out the colour in the remaining fuel.
Having sorted out the fuel issue I set off for the tyre shop in Blazey, only to find on arrival that it was closed Monday mornings. No problem. I took a quick trip on to SaoneAuto, a friendly garage where they had assisted me with a need for a new part some months ago. They couldn’t do the tyre but I needed to have the underside of the car and the brakes checked. The owner is really nice and for nothing, checked the brakes, the suspension, the gears and clutch and took the car for a test drive. Some of these people are princes. I booked the car in for a service with all the trimmings for a month hence and headed back to town.
A friend I ran into at the bricolage while picking up a few paint brushes suggested I take the tyre to the local garage which I did and it was repaired immediately for 9 euros. Quick, cheap and hopefully efficient. Having a tyre repaired is quite remarkable. The mechanic hunted for the leak with a corkscrew gadget which he used to fish out a nasty piece of screw. He then used it to ream out the hole and being satisfied that he had done a job as good as some of my old dentists, took an oversized bag needle gadget into which he threaded a gooey, pink string thingy which he then plunged into the tyre. Pushing it all the way to its ends he then wound the goo until it was at breaking point and quickly withdrew the needle, breaking its hold on the gooey string. That was it ! I put the wheel back on the car and drove off - after paying of course. I hope the plug stays in on some of our longer and faster trips ! (It did - for years !).
On return to Van Nelle I checked the last gel coat which had almost completely set, thankfully, since rain threatens. The surface of the dinghy is now smooth and seemingly waterproof. It has a somewhat checkerboard appearance but that will be well covered by a judicious coat of paint at a later time. Tomorrow, if the weather is dry, I will launch Nellie and leave her floating to check whether she is waterproof.
Tonight we have John Johnson’s birthday dinner with a return to L’Amiral - Giles the patrone is doing well out of us - but tonight he will get one of his gift vouchers back and no orders for his exotic and very expensive bottled wines - we will suffer the vins du table ! Oh yes, I also had to pay the latest invoice from H2O - always a painful parting of money but I feel better afterwards knowing that all the accounts are up to date.
17 February - 27 March
A week of dreary weather with some frosts, drizzle and wind saw the car dashboard lights go on the blink - or off it actually. The fault was a light in the boot shorting the fuse it shared with the dashboard. Annoying but not a safety hazard and soon fixed. I’m becoming quite a mechanic.
We actually went for our first cruise in something over three months on the Monday. Admittedly it was only to St Jean for 300 litres of white fuel to balance the 300 of red we had accepted the week before but it felt great to be on the water and underway again. Getting clear of the mooring lines, unplugging the phone connection and the power cable was easier than expected and we were soon on the river. It did not take long to get out of the ecluse and down to the fuel barge and even less to fill up with 300 litres of fuel. We dawdled on the way back to enjoy the experience.
With our friends David and Judith Reed and their daughter Jennifer expected to visit for a short cruise soon, we had a few little jobs to be done to make our visitor’s life more pleasant - like putting strips of foam rubber protection on a couple of low points in the boat to ensure we avoided damaging anyone’s heads - and these jobs were quickly done. It took somewhat longer to try to clear problems on our neighbour’s computer which had been a gift to them from a relative but which has an unusual hotch potch of programs and operating systems loaded. I spent some hours firstly understanding and then cleaning a lot of dead software away to try to get it to run. It seemed successful at the time but apparently has relapsed since.
Some three days before the Reed’s arrival, Maureen found herself in agony with kidney problems. She endured a night of intense pain which continued into most of the next day until her appointment with the doctor who immediately proscribed a series of tests and a lot of pills. A couple of days later and the test results showed the probable passing of kidney stones followed by a slight infection. Within a week the anti-biotics had done their work and the first mate was on deck for the arrival of our friends.
Week of 24 February
Monday this week saw the arrival of David and Judith Reed, with their daughter Jennifer an excited addition. The SNCF (French train system) was running true to recent form in that the TGV (fast train) was an hour late into Dijon. After a day on trains from London however they all arrived, were bundled into the Renault and driven back to Van Nelle for a dinner of Boeuf Bourguignon. The evening was a relatively early one and the next morning they were all up early for the tour of St Jean, Aisery and St Symphorien by car. We dined at L’Amiral that night and prepared for the cruise departure on Wednesday for Chalon-sur-Saone, some 60km to the south.
Still displaying its winter character, the Saone river was in flood and running at about 4-5km on our outward journey so Van Nelle made about 15km per hour on about half throttle. We left St Jean a bit after 9.00am and arrived at our mooring in Chalon by 2.00pm. Both David and Jenny had turns at the wheel which was a big thrill for a girl who had never steered a boat of any kind before. After a quick look around the town we prepared for a night out at La Gourmand restaurant, a favourite, in Chalon’s street of restaurants.
The next day gave everyone a chance for some power shopping at Carrefour (a giant supermarket) plus the boutiques of the old city area. David found a lovely gold scale, that is an antique set of scales to measure gold - he being a specialist gold stock broker - and Judith bravely fought off the urge for a six pack of decorative plates. We had a very late night that night with our noise continuing till about 3.00am. The next morning was very sedate with Jenny not rising till the afternoon. The museum and the imposing church near the Mairie were the focus of the day’s adventures and some serious cooking followed for a pasta night on board. Fresh mussels, prawns and pasta were expertly mixed by the three lady chefs and we rounded off the meal with fine wines and cheeses of the region.
Friday was the day for our return to St Jean, now against the current. I had expected the trip back to take some 6 hours but with the throttle fully open, Van Nelle pushed back against the stream in just over 5. We were back in time for the preparation of another on board meal (barbecued chops) and the next day headed off to Beaune for the markets, lunch and the Hotel Dieu. Following the sights of the town we wound our way back via the wine areas of Nuits St George and Vosne Romanee, the (unhappily closed) Clos de Vogeot and the Cistercian Monastery where several items were purchased at the re-opened shop of the monks. Dinner that night was another excellent meal at the Auberge du Paradis, a hotel and restaurant near Losne, just across the river.
Sunday saw us heading for Auxonne (where Napoleon completed his artillery training), for the town’s annual Carnivale. Thinking it may have started at 10.00am we were some 4 hours early for the actual festivities which really began at 2.00pm so we spent the time exploring the town and feasting on pizzas. After lunch we (and a couple of thousand other spectators) assembled on the main street for the parade of floats, people on horses on foot and on the heady vapours of the local liquor. This very colourful and humorous parade started at 2.45pm after a few false starts and was still winding it’s way past our vantage spot after 5.00pm, at which time we quit the area to avoid the traffic on our way back to the boat.
Sunday night was for packing, an excellent meal accompanied by a bottle of the beautiful Hospices de Beaune red wine that David bought and we packed it in for the night in order to get an early start for Dijon and the Reed’s 10.21am train to Paris. We arrived at the station as quickly as possible as a quick check before we left revealed that the train ticket for the three guests had been misplaced and needed to be replaced or their connections to Paris and London that day would be jeopardised. With about 10 minutes to spare we arrived at the station, bought new tickets and had the three travellers on the correct train just before it left - unbelievably - 15 minutes EARLIER than scheduled. I have never seen that happen before !
A terrific week had been spent by the five of us, our guests thoroughly enjoying the boat, the beds, the tours, the food and wine and the kind weather. It had not done more than a quick drizzle throughout the week they were with us and the temperatures were quite bearable, despite it still being officially winter.
Week of 3 March
On my return from delivering the Reeds to Dijon, Maureen advised there were papers to be collected from the Mairie regarding our requests for Cartes de Longue Sejour, the French long term visas. We expected to have to undergo medical examinations and worse but on arrival at the Mairie the secretary had two temporary permits. These, she explained, would be followed up in 6 weeks with further requirements and paper work. We however were delighted to receive the breakthrough (temporary) visas which promised a happy ending to our visa saga.
That night we overcame our unhappiness at having waved goodbye to the Reeds with a barbecue on the back deck with John and Jan, Lindy and Roger.
The next couple of days saw me putting my muscles where my mouth had been when I volunteered to fix the road to the anchorage. The gravel road had become badly pitted and pot holed by rain and traffic during the wetter parts of the winter and a large new pile of gravel had been acquired by Charles of H2O to repair it. I was given an off-sider, a young apprentice at H2O named Mikhael and together we filled quite a few potholes. It took me that day and most of the next to make a complete job of it and we can now drive comparatively smoothly over the road to town.
Wednesday saw us at our usual French lesson with Corrine at the Tourist Office and on Thursday I was able to stand on the decks of Vixit (our neighbouring ship) as it majestically travelled down river to St Symphorien where it’s owners, Caroline and Matthew, have a house. Matthew wanted both the opportunity for a short cruise between flights (as he is a 747 captain) and, having the barge near the house they are renovating made it possible to get a lot more work done. I was even given the opportunity to drive the boat for a distance, an opportunity I grabbed with both hands. Mooring the boat alongside the river bank was an experience as we took some time to find a nearby area with sufficient depth to enable their gangway to reach dry land. It was managed after some backing and filling and Maureen turned up for lunch aboard and to drive me back to our own ship.
Our new year plans included a planned trip north east through Besancon towards Mulhouse and Germany. Friday saw the sun emerge hot and bright so we took the opportunity to drive to Besancon, some 60km away to explore some of the likely mooring places along the way. We discovered a number of delightful spots, lunching on delicious rolls en-route before arriving at and exploring the large town of Besancon. It has a central island which we traversed and two inferior mooring places, between which is a long quai (quay) area that we thought might do us for a night or so in the near future.
We have decided a general course of action for the year which focuses on the central areas of France including the Burgundy Canal, Paris and the western group of canals before heading south towards the Mediterranean about August. This should satisfy the visitors who will be joining us during the summer, staring with Gillian Ragus just after Anzac Day and including the Princes and the Palmers, friends from Perth, Western Australia.
Thursday night saw us drive to Aisey for dinner with Mike and Memory, a Canadian couple who spend a few months each year in France on their canal cruiser. We ate at a small restaurant which was high on quality but low on quantity. The house wine also was pretty awful and as our company included Matthew and Caroline who had (surprisingly) given up alcohol for Lent, we decided not to increase the stakes into the bottled varieties. Mike is an ex Canadian Air Force jet jockey who transferred to their navy after breaking his neck. He retired to a life of coin auctioning while his partner, Memory, writes for wine journals.
Week of 11 March
Sunday saw an eventful lunch aboard Jan and John’s lovely ‘Blackbird Fly’, especially when Jan walked straight off their boat into the water while chatting on her mobile phone. Unhappily, the phone and a pair of spectacles were lost, as was a fair amount of pride on Jan’s part. Fortunately she was not hurt and was swiftly returned to dry land and after a cuddle or two to comfort her, was warmed by a hot shower and continued the pleasures of the day.
Mike and Memory came by for a few pre lunch drinks. They were planning a long bike ride but I think the drinks put them off. We agreed to meet the next Thursday at L’Amiral for dinner to introduce them to Giles, his wife Sylvie and their estaminet.
I promised John and Jan I would take my SCUBA gear over to their boat in the Gare d’Eau (marina) on Monday to look for the glasses, a vacuum tube they had lost earlier and their phone. As Monday turned up a hangover from the Sunday lunch, I took some time fulfilling my promise. Some 20-30 minutes in the freezing water was quite enough and though I could see absolutely nothing through the impenetrable silt and sludge of the 2 metre deep anchorage I did manage to find the vacuum tube. No luck with the phone and glasses unfortunately, but we did try.
Tuesday saw me off to Brazey en Plaine to have the car serviced. While that was being done between 2.00pm and 3.30pm I went for a long walk about the town. I discovered a number of previously hidden buildings which look to have had very interesting histories. Unfortunately there is no tourist office in Brazey and I was unable to ascertain the information on the architecture. Nor was I made any the wiser regarding the inhabitant of a coffin that was the chief interest of a large number of mourners at the Church. Most shops and businesses in the town appeared to have been closed for the event which kept me from inspecting the church.
Wednesday was our last French lesson with Corrine at the Tourism Office in St Jean. She has been a great help and a willing teacher for which the office gained by 3 Euros per person per lesson and she gained only the bunch of flowers Maureen bought for her on this day.
After lunch, made up of pastries bought at the supermarket deli section and eaten riverside at St Jean, we detached Van Nelle again from the mooring to cruise down river to assist Matthew get Vixit off the bank. The river level had risen during their stay near their house but subsequently dropped again, leaving the boat stranded on the shelf. We arrived to see much action but no result from Vixit’s own power and so, after attaching our lines (Van Nelle’s that is) to Vixit, we added the strength of our 150 horsepower. Our second manoeuvre, pulling at an angle rather than straight away, was successful in pulling Vixit’s stern into the river and away from the bank, after which she was able to continue on her own power, back to the ancien ecluse, our shared home.
On our arrival back at our mooring with a stop for a beer at the Quai Nationale in St Jean, we were invited to a delightful dinner by Matthew and Caroline taken at L’Esperance restaurant in Aisery. This delightful (but very slow) restaurant was quite near the church I had been unable to inspect earlier in the week. It was also just over the road from a large, swiftly gathering crowd of show ground people, now preparing for Aisery’s Fete on Saturday - we must go.
Maureen walked into St Jean the next morning and arrived back with a notice from the Mairie regarding our Cartes de Longue Sejour. Believing that this would be our invitation to have documents translated, medicals undertaken and costs paid, we went to the Hotel de Ville to hear the worst. Imagine our surprise when we arrived to find our 5 YEAR Cartes already there and ready for us to take possession of. Not only that but mine allows me to work at all professions while in France for the period. This was REALLY GREAT NEWS and we had to show off as soon as possible, which we did with Jan and John immediately after picking the cards up and signing for them.
This evening we were again to be at L’Amiral for the introduction of the Canadians to Giles and Sylvie and for us to become better acquainted with four Australians who have arrived in town to take their boat cruising soon. This will be a big night ! Some 14 of us boaties will gather and imbibe singing syrup in quantity. Tomorrow will be another slow day !
Now that we have our Cartes de Longue Sejour, we were able to go off to Dijon and sign up for a mobile phone ACCOUNT rather than have to constantly buy pre-paid cards that are twice the price of a regular phone service. The necessary documents were handed over to the Phone Orange people in Dijon and a new SIM was presented - yet another phone number - but the phone we had bought some months before was able to be converted for use with the new SIM.
We visited Doras the bricolage (hardware store) on the way back to the boat to pick up the ladder we had ordered, their stock items being too long for our purpose of converting it for use as a gang plank (or passarelle as they are called in France). This entailed also buying a length of plywood cut to size to fit in between the uprights and be screwed in place on the rungs to provide a walking platform supported by the rungs.
We also bought grey paving paint with which to mix sand to provide a non-slip surface. These were all packed into the car with some difficulty, the echelle (as a ladder is called), hanging out a front window and we headed back to the boat to put the passarelle together. The paint is a quick drying version so it took only a few hours to place the screws, paint the board and assemble the whole piece, which is now a very effective gangplank.
Brazey-en-Plaine is a small town near St Jean. It had advertised a fair to take place on the Saturday so we picked up our friends John and Jan and went off on Saturday afternoon for a look. A really small fair started operations an hour after our arrival so we headed for the nearest café for a beer or two before taking to the bumper cars and then to the shooting gallery where John and I each scored sufficiently well to be awarded small furry animals as a reward. We handed them solemnly to the girls and headed back to St Jean for a BBQ on Van Nelle. These fairs and small circuses are a feature of France in particular and resemble the side show alley variety in Australia with tawdry prizes awarded to noisy customers by seedy operators. All in all quite colourful and fun.
Sunday was a beautiful sunny day and St Jean was hosting a kayak competition with competitors from as far away as Strasbourg so we packed a picnic and went to the Quai Nationale to join a few hundred supporters watching the young boys and girls labouring heartily around the course on the river Saone. A large, heavily laden barge threatened to interrupt the proceedings as it sailed through but the competitors were not greatly inconvenienced, just darting around the ponderous bulk carrier and the program continued without delay.
The next week - 18 March, was to be our last full week in St Jean as we planned to depart on the Canal lateral Saone au Rhine in the direction of Strasbourg on Thursday 28 March. We had a few ‘jobs’ still to do before departure so the week was mostly one of working on the boat and provisioning for departure. We did have one major social engagement however - the inaugural meeting of the new boating association, dreamed up during a previous dinner with John, Jan, David and Dianne. At that event we foresaw a loose association of non financial members being those people who were ‘serious plaisanciers’ - those who lived substantial parts of the year afloat. The idea was to incorporate during the dinner at which a name and a list of objects would be considered together with forward planning for additional meetings.
Those at the dinner agreed that the name should be the Red Bandanas as we had previously agreed that the identifying mark of the members would be the wearing of a red bandana, scarf or neckerchief. On a visit to Dijon’s shopping area Maureen and I had bought 6 metres of red and white check cloth which Maureen sewed into triangular shapes and which were distributed at the dinner. The event was conducted at Chez Giles - the L’Amiral Brasserie, accompanied by a three course meal and wines included for just 16 Euros (about $A 24 per person). Some 20 boaties attended including two new Finnish friends and some Australians.
I arranged to pay the accumulated mooring account for electricity, purchases at the chandlery, labour for the engine service and work on the stern gland and engine head but was unprepared for the enormity of it and had to sit down when Robert Bond presented it to me in the H2O office. Some 1700 Euros or $A 2,500 rather took the wind out of my sails and a large lump out of the bank account. Labour rates in France are high and 19.6% tax is added to them. As it was the work on the engine had achieved exactly nothing which made it all the worse.
I had engaged H2O to work on discovering why we had a few oil leaks and to see if we could discover the source of the coolant which was finding its way into the sump. They had removed and replaced the engine head and achieved nothing. H2O’s cost - 1,200 Euros. To add injury to insult, H2O charged 360 Euros for a couple of engine filters I later found out to be worth 30. They refused to refund the difference claiming they had paid almost 300 for the items. I thought they ought to have known the cost was way over the top as they are supposed to be expert boat chandlers and repairers. More ‘experience’.
All in all we had been at St Jean de Losne for some 22 weeks, about 5 months, most of which had been spent in the ancien ecluse. We have met some wonderful and eccentric people, most of whom are committed to this water borne lifestyle. We had experienced our first white Christmas, been entombed in ice some 7cm thick around the hull, burned a tonne of wood and 1000 litres of diesel keeping warm and had discovered many of France’s low cost wines, some high priced ones as well, local delicacies and much of the surrounding district. But the adventure had really just begun.
From 28 March - Departure day from St Jean de Losne
The day dawned bright and clear. The weather had been terrific for the last week or so and now it is not only sunny but also warming up. We had seldom used the pot belly stove for the last couple of weeks and had re-programmed the central heating down by degrees. We had enjoyed a farewell dinner and Jan’s birthday at Giles’ L’Amiral restaurant a couple of nights before and fortunately had a day to recover from his largesse.
On this lovely sunny spring day we had only two jobs to do after casting off all the attachments to the shore (power, water, phone), they being to hoist the scooter aboard at the entrance to the ecluse and then to stop at the fuel barge to take on some 450 litres of white fuel before heading off down river to St Symphorien and the lock that ushers you into the Canal Lateral Saone au Rhine.
We had decided to head off in the direction of Strasbourg to see how far we could explore this little used canal before having to turn around and retrace our steps back to St Jean and then up the Burgundy Canal to Dijon to pick up Gillian Ragus, our first visitor of the new season. We had of course had David and Judith Reed together with their daughter Jennifer on board during February, but that was considered part of the winter period rather than the now burgeoning spring / summer / autumn season.
While we had not planned to become a B&B operation, we were keen to invite interested parties aboard for a week or so at a time to teach them the skills and knowledge needed to enjoy this wonderful lifestyle, and therefore had added an invitation section on the website. We knew most of the skills but at this stage had gained only a modicum of experience navigating from Amsterdam to St Jean but we knew enough to start. Besides - the best way to learn is to teach. (During the few years we ran Van Nelle we accumulated lots more experience and shared that with more than 50 interested people, many graduating to their own boats soon after travelling with us).
On the canal Saone au Rhine lies Besancon, once a Spanish town. That surprised us since it is well north of the centre of France but such were the borders of Europe during the period 1000 to 1700AD that parts of these countries often changed hands with wars or strategic marriages. Much of the canal to Besancon is based on the Doubs River which sometimes provides the waterway and sometimes runs parallel to it. It is a fierce river when carrying the run-off from the spring thaw of snow from Switzerland but at this time of the year it is reasonably slow flowing. This will be important when we get to Besancon as when we drove to the town to check out moorings we found the river flowing at about 6-7km per hour in the centre of town, too fast for comfort.
This time of the year was also immediately before Easter and we had been warned that it was likely the locks would be closed until the 7th of April, but our Finnish friends Ula and Olieboy had called the VNF in Dole who had insisted it was open. We also called up and were satisfied that all would be OK.
We drew away from the fuelling barge with our friends John and Jan waving frantically, all of us wondering where and when we would meet again. Into the 3 km/h current, Van Nelle forged ahead with little effort and we turned the corner of the Saone leading to the entry lock of the canal just before the time we had elected, 10.00am.
As we arrived at the lock we saw through the open doors that another boat was already inside. Since the ecluses are only 38.5m long and we are 27m, that leaves only 11.5m for other craft. I pointed this out to the eclusier who was unconcerned, unlike the occupants of the other boat as we towered over them on our approach into the lock. It turned out they were only 9m long so we had a whole 2.5m clearance for the stern of Van Nelle to the rear lock gates now closing on us. With some helpful coaching to the occupants of the other boat (a very black woman and a very white man), they were able to hold their rental boat fairly still and avoid banging the lock gates or us. They preceded us for the balance of the morning until they stopped to do a spot of fishing. We passed by and continued through to Belvoye where we stopped for the night.
I had begun to refer to the shiny white plastic hire and private cruisers as ‘fenders’ (those objects used to cushion boats from unwanted contact with hard and rough surfaces), as they will fulfil that purpose in the hands of the unskilled as we come together in enclosed situations. Our 50 or so tonnes of iron and steel will be well protected by the crumple rates of such lightly built boats, handled by people who seem incapable of holding a straight course. We saw a boat approach us in the canal later where we had stopped for the afternoon and night, performing the most unbelievable changes of direction and almost but not quite, hitting each side of the canal as it rapidly tacked down the length of the bief (area between locks). We were sure it would bounce off us as it went past but it straightened just for that distance, avoiding us, and our ire.
We had decided that our cruising this year would not be at the same frenetic pace that we had adopted last year. The countryside was brilliant from St Symphorien through to Dole but especially for this first day of cruising in the new year. The change of scenery from semi built-up to fully rural with its soft greens and overhanging trees, the accompanying bird songs, the slow movements of the cattle and the slowly changing scenes of grand chateaux and rustic barns, was a great way to start this new year of travel and exploration.
The previous day’s travel mates, the hire boat with the checkerboard crew, accompanied us through the next three locks as they had caught up in the morning, until we reached a lock inevitably closed for lunch. We secured Van Nelle to our mooring spikes, iron water pipes manfully beaten into the bank by the first mate Maureen. Following lunch the black and white team stayed put, indulging in some recreational fishing and we continued on to our overnight mooring, just past a huge cement factory. We were fortunately just around the corner from a bellowing, smoky factory, at a spot marked as an ‘aire du picque-nic’. It is not a great site for mooring in our estimation as it is lined with rusting hulks and is still within earshot of the factory-cum-mine-cum-power station. Our mooring, a little further along, was on the side of a toilet seat factory, a number of seemingly abandoned buildings and home to a large community of curious cats. I think they all came aboard during the night for a bit of an inspection but fortunately did not insist on bringing their meals with them or indeed staying aboard for the continuing journey.
We finished the day walking up to the nearby town, a couple of kilometres uphill, to find an absence of romance among the modern shops and supermarkets of this village. School came out as we passed on our way back to the boat and the sound of primary school children meeting their parents who were waiting to take them home, split the quiet air with Easter joy. Their school was festooned with bright pictures of Easter, clearly visible to the passing traffic through the school room windows.
The night was peaceful and quite quiet despite the proximity of the factories and we barbecued some chops and sausages, enjoyed a couple of beers and a glass or two of the latest cheap red - a Minervois - and so to bed.
I should add that our taste for wine is normally of the more refined end of the market but we had decided to explore all varieties to establish some good ‘quaffing’ wines while at the same time building a respectable cellar of the best. We were to discover that the temptation of raiding the cellar outstripped our ability to keep it full, especially when guests were aboard.
Friday started quite early as we both woke before seven and so started preparations for our rendezvous at the next ecluse at 1000. The boat was doing everything right, engines and systems all working fine. We had only three or four locks to Dole, a large town in this region and one with a pretty port de plaisance, so we set off before 10.00 and arrived at about 11.30. The country we passed through was a mixture of wide open rural scenes, bordered with slight hills on which was the occasional grand chateau interspersed with some more mechanized scenes as we passed under huge motorways and railway bridges.
A word about locks. In order to traverse the countryside, locks are built into the canals to keep the water levels adequate for transport and to raise or lower boats to pass over hills. Reservoirs above the highest point of the canal feed the top section and this water flows down the system by gravity, feeding the locks as boats pass up and down. If you are proceeding up the canal you arrive at a lock where the upstream gates are closed to stop the water flowing through and the downstream gates open for you after the water level in the lock has been allowed to subside to your level. You enter and the downstream gates close behind you. Water from the upstream side is then allowed to flood the interior of the lock by gravity, rushing through sluices in the main gates by the use of winches attached. When the water level in the lock has reached the upstream level and the pressure on the upstream gates has equalised, the gates are then opened with the help of winches or operated by hydraulic rams. You can then proceed on the next section of the canal.
Many locks are still manual but the VNF (the Voies Navigable de France - the responsible government department) has been progressively upgrading them in the major canals to automatic, hydraulic operation. In many canals now you are issued with a battery operated switch, much like a garage door remote control, that you point at the lock from a distance and which initiates the automatic system. Fine when they work !
The canal in this area is narrow and since it is not used for commercial traffic, not repaired to the same level as the more popular or populous ones. It has some very narrow corners and I thought forward a couple of weeks to the time we will be returning and wondered what it will be like infested with ‘fenders’, the pretty white hire boats of the Nichol’s fleet. We will find out I’m sure. I also thought about the phone call we had as we were leaving St Jean. Marcus Leguijt called to advise he was on his way by car to Lyon to pick up his boat, left there at the start of winter, and to take it back to Holland (sorry, the Netherlands) with his father-in-law as crew. They plan to use the Rhine to get back quickly so we will have to pass en-route. We made plans to keep in touch and to party on contact.
Meanwhile we arrived in Dole and took some time to moor the boat securely against the shallow and very sloping side wall opposite the floating pontoons of the town port de plaisance where the finger wharves are far too small for Van Nelle. This has it’s advantages since it lets us off the financial hook of the cost of mooring at the port. We quickly noticed our black and white friends of the first day, and right across the road from us, an enormous and elaborate fair ground, filled with side show alley attractions.
The fair was strangely quiet and remained that way for the day, the night and all the next day. It seemed strange to us to have their capital tied up for so long during the holiday weekend without any activity, save the children of the show families playing in the dust around the rides and games. At the extreme end of the fair is ‘trailer city’ where all the showmen and women have their caravans, their washing, cooking and children - oops - forgot, and the dogs, lots of mangy dogs. We have since been to the Tourist Office to find out that it will open tonight (Saturday) and will operate for the balance of Easter.
After a bicycle ride through the city’s sporting ground behind us and along the tow path to the next lock, we reversed our direction to investigate the huge shopping area on the opposite bank to the city, back in the direction from which we had come. It is a big shopping complex with a giant Geant (a chain similar to Target) together with accompanying hardware and other stores. We of course had to worship at the temple of Brico and there bought some fly screen material to cover windows later in the season when the mozzies get an urge to feast at ‘chez McDaniell’. Maureen also found the volcanic rock that turns the empty cage of the barbecue into an efficient griller. We retired for pizza and beer on the boat, since right next to us is moored a floating, wood fired pizzeria. Another early night gazing at the spectacular church which dominates the skyline and is lit, fantastically at night.
This is a very pretty place and one worth exploring as the historic centre of the town has been preserved as a medieval walking space, now filled with opulent boutiques, magasins de cadeaux (gift shops) and restaurants. Dole also boasts the birthplace of Louis Pasteur whose birth house is preserved as a tanning and Pasteur museum (his father was a tanner). Tanneries line the edge of the watercourse that is diverted into the town from the river Doubs which flows fulsomely right in front of the rows of medieval timbered houses and ateliers (workshops). The old tanneries are now smart townhouses and apartments.
The markets were open and full on Saturday mornings, covering the square and the ‘place’ in front and around the huge church which is adjacent to the permanent covered markets which open every day to sell foodstuffs. Outside, the market place is for cheap jeans and ladies underwear, trinkets, haberdashery and knick-knacks. Interesting and colourful with meat, fish, cheeses, pates, salads, vegetables and fruit.
The restaurants here are also wonderful and varied, many specializing in the regional specialities using fresh local produce. Roasts and thick stews of rabbit, beef and chicken are washed down with Burgundian red and white wines and are followed by the rich and fantastically decorated pastries and chocolates that are on display in many shop fronts. Many of the restaurants entreat you to dine in or take away ‘plats de emporter’, an alternative to BYO perhaps since almost nowhere in France can you take your own wine - a common practise where we come from. Take-away restaurant food is a great way to have a feast on the deck of the boat in warmer weather without the formality of the restaurant.
Maureen found and bought some local pate-en-croute (terrine encased in pastry) and jambon persile (ham chunks suspended in a parsley flavoured gelatine) for lunch which was accompanied with the bitingly delicious local lemon cordial and fresh round loaves of bread, with salted butter of course. The French enjoy mostly unsalted butter (doux) while we peasants prefer the salted variety (beurre au sel).
This afternoon we will visit the Mediateque which is housed in a big and very beautiful 17th century building. This promises to be a showcase of audiovisual and written records of the city. We will also explore the city museum, visited briefly once before on a car trip and filled with a rich array of art and archaeology. It’s a good day for indoor pursuits as the sky has taken on a slight overcast and the temperature has failed to rise much since morning.
Well, the Mediateque turned out to be a bit of a damp squib as it was really just a library with a couple of PCs connected to their data base. Mind you, it’s a very nice library but not as ‘tech’ as we expected so we moved on to the Musee de Beaux Arts.
The Musee has a very good range of paintings and sculpture by a surprisingly well known collection of ‘masters’ so we took our time to explore all the rooms and exhibits. Among the wide range of styles and ages, including many gloomy religious works, were some really stunning pieces. A huge picture of Napoleon’s army retreating from Russia featuring an obviously spent and dispirited officer sitting on the flank of his expired horse, one of his boots missing and the long line of soldiers behind him, dragging their weary bodies through the snow back to France. I have forgotten the numbers but there were something like 400,000 troops sent to Russia as part of Le Grande Armee but only some 40,000 returned. The Russian policy of scorched earth and the ravages of winter defeated the great force, expertly recorded in this painting.
There is a section containing impressionists including Picasso, Lautrec, Van Gogh and others. This section also was stunning and kept me involved for much longer than I had expected. On the way out, down the grand staircase I also came across a whole collection of exquisite paintings and statues of female nudes with the ages of the pieces going back 200 years and reflecting a wide range of subjects from legend to modern opera. The French love exhibiting the female form ‘sans vetements’ (without clothing).
On our return to the boat we noticed a duckling which had obviously become separated from its mother and siblings. Crying plaintively it swam back and forth the length of the port against and with the current before disappearing downstream towards the barrage. Some days later, on our return journey through Dole we noticed the duckling’s mother was reduced to 5 ducklings from her original 7. That’s the way of nature. Unfortunately we were unable to do anything about the orphan we saw as it was well out of reach and we had no way of catching it.
That night we attended the fair and chose a four story, walk through, chamber of horrors as our entertainment. It consisted of narrow passages with moving floors, blacked out sections and mechanical spiders etc. It was great fun to abandon adult gravitas and just laugh through this rather childish fun palace as we continued on to the bumper cars and shooting gallery.
Sunday saw us packing a picnic to take by bicycle to a part of the river we could not get to by boat. This was a branch of the river that flowed over a large barrage, all of it running along the camping and sports area of Dole. There were a few other wanderers including a man and his 4 year old boy who waded across the barrage to a couple of the little islands standing along the dam. It looked pretty dangerous and certainly something that would be prohibited in Australia but the two explorers made it out and back, the young boy enjoying his ride on his dad’s neck.
During the picnic we had a call from Marcus and Els who advised that they were now not doing the same canal and therefore we would not have the chance to meet them on their trip back to the Netherlands. This was a great disappointment as we had been looking forward to renewing our friendship since they left St Jean in November for Lyon. I agonised about it for some time before coming up with the solution. We would take a taxi to St Jean to pick up our car which we would drive to Pontailler, their next stop. There we would pick them up and bring them to Dole for a night on the town and an overnight stay on Van Nelle. We would take them back to their boat the next morning after breakfast and return the car to the ancien ecluse before getting a taxi back to Dole and continuing on our way. Expensive but fun. We called them and they agreed so we packed up the remnants of our picnic and headed back to the boat to make arrangements. We soon had a taxi at the car park and were on our way.
The taxi driver turned out to be a bonus as she spoke quite good English, allowing us to practise our French with her as she corrected our verbs. This worked both on the way to St Jean and the next day on the return as we booked her for both trips. As the drive was something approaching 30 minutes each way she had a bonus as well, since the weekend was turning out to be slow for her business.
All worked well and we picked up Marcus and Els (and Hout, their tiny dog), which was given a stern warning by Maureen as it had bitten her in November. Hout behaved very well for the next 24 hours as we made our way to Van Nelle, settled our guests in and then all headed off to dinner at the Templiers Restaurant with them. This being Easter the restaurant had devised a special (more expensive) menu for that night and we dined on sumptuous local specialities and wines. I really must keep good notes of the meals and wines we have had at restaurants but it seems too onerous at the time to work, while we are enjoying the cuisine.
Templiers is a very smart and efficient, but friendly place, which has an air of formality among the starched white table cloths that are placed on various sized tables distributed under medieval arches. This could have been a feasting hall or dungeons, given the stone walls and high arched ceilings supported by spidery stone pillars. The owners and staff are courteous and helpful with suggestions about the best wines (and not the most expensive) to compliment the foods chosen from the 6 course menu. We were all in very casual dress but that didn’t faze them as it does in some (to be avoided) restaurants in Paris. We had a mixture of foods including fish, lamb and pork main courses, all beautifully cooked and sauced and arranged ‘a la’ nouvelle cuisine. The wines were young local whites (quite acidic with a taste of resin) and reds (soft, fruity and quite light) after starting the meal with an aperitif of a wine liqueur made by distilling wine to a spirit and blending it back into a sweet wine.
We headed back to the boat and went to bed early as we all had journeys to make on the morrow. By 11.00am the next morning we were heading back to St Jean from Pontailler, having dropped our two Dutch friends back at their boat ‘ST53' aka ‘Something Else’ and at 12.00 the lady taxi driver picked us up for the return to Van Nelle. We spent the afternoon reading rather than cruising and had a BBQ before heading to bed to rest for the next day’s adventure.
A quick trip to the supermarket in the morning preceded our departure to Ranchon, a place we had picked out on our recce by car. This is a small town with a lovely quai for pleasure boats in a narrow section of the canal. We were lucky and on arrival were the only boat there. That did not last, as by the evening there was a 27m luxemotor tied alongside us and two ‘fenders’ (white hire cruisers) at the end of the quai. We had enjoyed the cruise to Ranchon as it takes you through really beautiful countryside along a narrow and winding canal which, from time to time, gets quite shallow. We met a loaded barge heading towards Dole and went crunching over the loose gravel bank as we slipped past its huge bulk.
One of the key reasons for staying a couple of days at Ranchon was a restaurant we had discovered on the main road a couple of kilometres before the town. When we drove past, it’s ‘car’ park was full of huge trucks, some 30 or 40 of them. Any time you see a restaurant with a full car park, especially if the vehicles are trucks, it means you have found a place of exceptional quality and value. We had decided we would lunch at the restaurant on our return and so on arrival we unshipped the bikes and headed back to make a reservation for tomorrow’s lunch. We had a couple of beers and chatted to a lady who had recognised us from a visit she had made to St Jean some months before. She thought we had a small dog - actually it was Marcus and Else’s ‘Hout’ that had accompanied us all to a waterfront café where the woman had been drinking with friends. Our luncheon booking made and beers consumed, we headed back to Van Nelle.
The next morning, in order to work up an appropriate appetite for what turned out to be a large meal, we turned up the scrapers and sandpaper and stripped back the front of the wheelhouse in order to re-varnish it’s sun and ice affected coverage. In a couple of hours we had stripped, sanded and applied the first three coats of Deks Ole No 1 varnish and a coat of the No 2 to the timber. We washed and dressed in our cleanest dirty jeans and set off on our bikes for the Restaurant de la Maritime. On arrival we were ushered towards the dining room, all pretty with table cloths and nice tableware. We were having none of that and insisted, to the amazement of the portly woman maitre’d, on going into the laminex wonderland that was the adjacent truckers dining area.
Maureen was the only woman in the room which was filled with some 30 or 40 burly truckers, and perhaps it was her presence that kept the noise and behaviour subdued, but no-one complained. The menu was four courses with several choices in each. We chose Oeufs Mayonnaise and Charcuterie - both huge entrees, followed by Coq au Vin and Filet de Dinde with Frites and Choufleur. These generous plats principale were followed by the plat du fromage and then dessert, pastries and fresh salad de fruits. All this was washed down by a litre and a half of ‘Le Vin Rouge’. The whole cost 27 Euros or $A38 - for two !
We waddled out to our bikes as the truckers headed off to all points European and wove our way back down the tow path to meet the two Swiss men who arrived shortly thereafter on the beautiful luxemotor Baron de L’Ecluse, which we invited to tie up beside us, a manoeuvre that was inevitably followed by drinks on their boat. Four people from Basle in Switzerland own the boat which was to be kept at St Jean. On board at the time were retired art teacher Ulrich Boni and maritime entrepreneur Beat Heydricht, who had a supply of crisp white wine from Switzerland.
M and I had been very surprised on our visit to Lausanne and Montreaux to find huge vineyards lining the roads to those Swiss cities. We had tried some of the product at an Italian restaurant in Montreaux and had brought some back to St Jean, now here was another opportunity to broaden our tasting experience. We exchanged the favour with a South African white after which both boats were inspected by each other’s crews. The next morning I delivered fresh baguettes to them and adjusted their lines as we were passed by another loaded peniche. That I had to take pictures of, since it was improbable that these three barges would be able to fit side-by-side in the canal at the same time. Somehow it all worked and shortly after, Baron de L’Ecluse and two of it’s four owners steamed off - direction Dole. We left soon after - direction Besancon.
Actually we had chosen to stop at a place called Thoraise which boasted a pontoon, aire de pique
nic and a couple of Chateaux. At the end of the short stretch of canal after the ecluse leading into this attractive dell was a tunnel which we would have to navigate the next morning. As we arrived in the lock we noticed a couple of people fishing on the pontoon and as the lock filled I went ashore to explain that we would be occupying their fishing spot for the night. They accepted this news happily and moved off to an area further up the canal as we manoeuvred Van Nelle against the pontoon and tied up for the night. A quick check of the mooring and we took the bikes off to investigate why a commercial peniche that we had been following all day was now seemingly stuck in the end of the tunnel ahead.
We rode up the tow path and through the tunnel to discover that they had stopped and tied up with their stern in the tunnel and the front 7/8ths of the barge out in the turn-around that confronts you as you leave the sous-terrain (tunnel). Just big enough for a 38m barge to take the absolute 90 degree right hand turn, this section of the canal is another challenge for boats like us without a bow thruster. If you get the angle of departure from the tunnel wrong, you end up ingloriously hard against a rock wall, pushing with boat hooks to give your vessel enough room to continue turning. However, that challenge was for the next morning, right now we wanted to know why the boat had stopped, whether it would be there for long, and why the VNF and the Gendarmes were there.
The rather formidable wife of the skipper explained in broken English (as they were Dutch) that they had seen rocks falling as they approached the end of the tunnel and had stopped short to investigate with a camera. She had discovered a number of youths throwing large pieces of rock into the canal at the end of the tunnel from high overhead and had photographed them in the act. She now wanted the Gendarmes to take the evidence and capture the culprits. We left her to it and went off to investigate the town and the Chateaux.
A steep hill climb on the bikes made somewhat easier by our 21 gears had us at the top of the village to find no useful shops but a salon for ladies hairstyling (they exist in every town in France even those without any other commercial enterprise) and a Mairie that opened occasionally. Some council workers were cutting down the only grand looking tree in the village square so we went on to the gates of Chateau Thoraise. Unfortunately the place was shuttered and barred but we saw enough to be impressed. This is a grand residence with commanding views and cultured walks through home fields littered with ancient trees and arbors. The turrets and vaulted windows add to the splendour of the symmetrical architecture and one can vividly imagine the ladies with low cut, long silk gowns carrying their song birds and lutes to a shady spot as the men in hose and doublets watch their falcons preen, waiting to be unleashed on an unsuspecting dove.
We let the brakes off and rode like the wind, back down the hill to the grotto in which we would spend the night. As the sun set, the few people sitting in this delightful spot gathered up their belongings and their children and wandered off to hidden cars and their homes. We lit the oven for a roast New Zealand leg of lamb for dinner and popped the cork on a local red wine to accompany it.
The next day we expected to make Besancon and so set off reasonably early as we needed to investigate various mooring options on our arrival. During this phase of the cruise we used a mixture of manual locks served by eclusiers of both sexes and the ‘telecommande’, the little battery powered transmitter that operated the automatic locks. This device seemed to be varied in it’s performance as sometimes it would trip the electronic switch at more than 100 metres and sometimes not until we were some 30 metres distance. This made us somewhat cautious on our approaches to the ecluses as Van Nelle is easier to handle while moving than at a dead stop, especially in cross winds. On our voyage to Besancon we also had to pass through some narrow passages, bridges, garde locks and channels, some which curved or deviated mid-stream. For these, the best approach is the slowest, and Maureen stood by with a tyre on a rope in case part of the boat came too close to the stone edges. We survived without noticeable ‘adventure marks’, as the scuffing is called.
We arrived at Besancon at about 1.00pm and took the left channel through the loop of the town to the main quai in the centre, rather than the right channel through the tunnel that cuts off the town. This was a bit of a gamble as when we had reconnoitred the moorings, the river current was quite strong, and if it had remained that way we would have an uneasy night. We passed the place where our Swiss friends had said they moored, adjacent to the lock and below the walls of the huge citadel that is perched high above, admiring this imposing fortress which has guarded the city for hundreds of years, and cruised slowly around the loop to the quai. There were no other boats and the onlookers on both sides of the river, gazing down from the high embankments, were amused to see a boat appear and moor, right in the heart of their town. For the next couple of days we became a focal point for tourists with cameras and young passers by who use the area as a recreation and drinking spot. Fortunately we suffered no inconvenience from the mostly good humoured girls and boys who passed by and who often called out various comments to us about the boat or encouraging us in our meals. One young girl stood looking at Van Nelle for some time and then put her thumb out as a hitch hiker would. I wondered how serious she might have been.
We walked through the old sections of Besancon that afternoon and the next morning before we departed for adventures further up current. This city is a centre of watch making and many shops concentrate on watches and clocks. This was an opportunity to get the batteries changed in our two Tag Heuer watches as Maureen’s had stopped months before and mine would certainly stop soon if I ignored this chance. As other shops in Reims had been unable to get the back off M’s watch we wondered if they could here and if they would re-pressurise the watches for our SCUBA use. They could have it done they explained but it would take up to five days - obviously a job for specialists in some other location. We opted for the 9 euro battery change only and would chance the water tightness of the current seals.
Besancon was a Spanish town in the sixteen hundreds and was ‘liberated’ to the French by one of the King Louis - I believe the 14th - the Sun King himself. It has little Spanish influence now but it does boast an extensive ‘old town’ that has been preserved, as so many European centres have. These are a joy to walk though and a great place to take in the changes of architecture and building in the various quarters of the town. Timbered buildings with bulging walls and overhanging second floors seem to defy gravity as they continue into their 4th or 5th hundred year of useful existence. Grand stone buildings are now museums or Hotels de Ville (town halls) and there are the galleries, museums, grand bridges and boulevards, all here for the eyes of the traveller - and there are many travellers. As one walks through the towns you can pick up the conflicting cadences of different national languages, obviously French, but also American, German, English and Italian. Many young people are here, travelling cheap or studying in the Lycees and Universities that have taught for hundreds of years.
We spent some time in the Musee de Beaux Arts in Besancon and were rewarded by a rich collection of art, both ancient and modern, the most striking being those of Cezanne and Matisse and some grand historic pictures together with the more sombre religious works. They also have many pictures showing major historical events, such as the sieges of the principal nearby towns by successive armies, these leading to the ultimate unification of France as we now know it. Maureen noticed one ‘the Crossing of the Rhine by Louis 14th’ where the various banners leading the troops were one of white, one of red and one of blue. These later merged into the symbol of French nationality - the tricolour- just as the towns and regions did, to make up La Belle France.
After leaving Besancon and heading further north-east I did a regular engine check and discovered a small leak of coolant from the side of the engine block that I suspected had begun after having had substantial work done in St Jean. This was a huge blow as it could have presaged a catastrophic break in the outer casing of the engine, an engine I was still somewhat hesitant to fully trust as a result of the coolant leaks discovered originally in the sump. I had a very sick feeling over this, as an engine change would be a huge and very expensive undertaking, despite the fact it was insured under the generous terms of our Dutch insurers. Rather than allowing this to prey on my mind and possibly increase in severity further from help, we turned around just north of the city and returned through the tunnel and back to Thoraise on the way back to St Jean.
This day was Maureen’s birthday so a special effort was made on arrival at Thoraise’ leafy glade that we had enjoyed a couple of days before. Our last bottle of L’Amiable Grand Cru Champagne was chilled, wild flowers picked and presented, presents opened and a special meal prepared. We sat up and enjoyed the location and the occasion. While in preparation for the repast, a large converted peniche came through the lock. I inquired if they wished to join us at the pontoon and was brusquely brushed off by a very bossy British woman who indicated that they were on their way to a much better spot, and they passed by. ‘Potagoo’ was the name of the barge and I guess that’s an indication of what holds it and her crew together.
The next morning I took the first swim of the season - unintentionally. We prepared to leave Thoraise by first operating the electronic device at the lock which rewarded us by beginning it’s operations to automatically let us in. In such calm conditions very close to a lock we normally use the substantial boat hooks to gently push us away from the pontoon and line us up with the ecluse but on this occasion I used a thinner, shorter pole since the amount of push needed was not great. Unfortunately I put it against an insubstantial ledge of the pontoon and it slipped as I was extended and I found myself unbalanced and heading for the gap between boat and pontoon. I made an instant decision to leap for the pontoon and changed it in mid flight with the result that I landed in about a metre and a half or so of water having bounced off the pontoon. The boat of course was now free and drifting away. It’s funny how super human you become in such situations. I was back on Van Nelle within seconds, using a tyre that was hung off the side as a ladder and I swiftly stripped my wet clothes off, put the boat in gear and made for the lock.
It was at that stage that I realised that some interested passers by were approaching to take a better look at this boat going into a lock - if they did they would get a shock since I was now completely naked !
I needed some clothes urgently which Maureen, still in a state of shock rushed off to get me. I was shortly thereafter clothed and Van Nelle was safely in the ecluse. It was all a bit sudden and silly and shows just how easy it is for these events to happen. On this occasion it was funny but in other circumstances it could be tragic. I had a substantial and painful bruise on my ribs to remind me for the next few days.
We made Dole that day and enjoyed a quiet night before departing the next day for St Jean de Losne where, after having to take lunch in the penultimate ecluse, we arrived back in the ancien ecluse at around 3.00pm. Home again.
By phone on the way I arranged for a conference with Phillipe, the maintenance director of H2O, for the next morning regarding the engine and was satisfied that a course of action was suitable after discussions with he and Charles, the senior director of the company. The outcome of that issue came some days later, after the local Baudouin engine expert, his offsider, Phillipe and Charles all arrived on board shortly after 8.00am for a look at the leak and caught me still in bed. Once joined in the engine room, the expert was somewhat dismissive of my concerns regarding some minor oil leaks from the head gasket as these engines apparently all leak to some extent. The slight coolant leak he said could be fixed simply with an additive and the other issues should just be monitored. The additive, Holt’s Soudure block moteur (a sort of liquid solder added to distilled water and replacing the antifreeze coolant), was ordered for the following Monday when I will mix the potion, drain the coolant and replace it with the Holt’s, then run the engine hot for some time to have it take effect. We will see what this does.
Our combined inspection of the crack also discovered scratches marking the extent of the crack which had been painted over. Obviously this was not a new occurrence. (We found that to be true as some years later when we met the previous owners we were advised the crack had occurred when the engine was left on deck in winter before installation. It had operated perfectly for years before our ownership).
So. We are back in St Jean and over the next couple of days we drove back to Dijon to recce the port and to catch up with John and Jan with whom we have planned another dinner at L’Amiral for Saturday - tonight. We have a couple of weeks still before our next guest, Gill, arrives which we will spend doing the bits and pieces of painting, engine jobs and manufacturing mosquito proof nets for the various window and skylights we open in summer to keep this big boat cool.
8 April - 26 April
Well the next three weeks were pretty uneventful. I spent much of the first and second week preparing the engine for its new treatment to eliminate leaks and then administering the treatment, mostly just a matter of draining coolant and replacing it with Holt’s Soudure Bloc Moteur, then emptying it and refilling it again with the same after receiving a new thermostat as I found during this whole process that the original was not working.
In all this maintenance (why didn’t we do it over the winter period ?) we also found that the engine temperature gauge is very accurate measured against a thermometer on the engine head. We can now run the engine a lot warmer than it has been to date as a result of the new thermostat and trust in the gauges. To test and make sure the Soudure does it’s work we needed to run the motor and did so on some little cruises up and down the river.
The final week before heading off to Dole to pick up Gill Ragus, we decided to do some painting. That turned out to be - repaint the entire ship. Cabin tops, wheelhouse roof, decks, parts of the hull and the blue and white trim running the length of Van Nelle. Why did we start this ? Anyway, the ship looks brand new and hopefully the paint will cure hard soon. The deck paints seem to take ages to cure to a walk-on hardness.
Also during this time, Maureen struggled with netting to make mozzie screens for some of the skylights and port holes. This proved to be a thankless and difficult task which has not yet reached completion.
We arranged a "Happy Hour for Boaties" during this time to which about a dozen, mostly new arrivals, turned up. Tall tales and true were told over a few beers in the spring sunshine on the Quai Nationale.
Towards the end of the three weeks we had a couple of little car issues, like the driver’s seat breaking free of it’s anchorage, collapsing while in motion. It was replaced in half an hour from parts obtained from the local car scrap yard. One of the immobiliser activating keys has also decided to die but thankfully we have a second which continues to operate the doors and ignition. In trying to fix the other I discovered I had left the electrical tester on for some weeks so it was flat and needed a new battery. It’s never straight forward when it comes to minor repairs - there always seems to be something that needs fixing before the original problem can be tackled. Why is that ?
Our neighbour, Matthew, was off to fly 747s around the world for his employer, Korean Airlines, and asked me to run their Zodiac while he was away. This is one of the larger units with a very powerful motor, full remote steering and engine controls and a semi-rigid hull, and it goes.... I took it up river to the Gare d’Eau in about 5 minutes, a distance that takes Van Nelle half an hour. While there I stopped in on David and Susan from South Australia, who are working on their boat ‘Wanderer’. Their engine just stopped on the way to St Jean just before winter and they were semi-marooned in between towns on a canal. Now they wait for May to have the engine repaired and while doing so are installing a shower, extra water tanks and doing some inevitable painting jobs.
Maureen is making yet another bed, a sort of emergency conversion for the wheelhouse settee and I have installed another fire extinguisher since some of our others (just a year old) have run below their green pressure markings and we have no time to have them re-charged here. But, apart from those little ‘make work’ items, we are ready to head out tomorrow (Friday) for the trip to Dole to pick up Gill. We made contact with her and suggested the change which has us travelling in one direction through St Jean to Dijon from where we can continue on up the Bourgogne Canal.
It is ANZAC Day today and I remember the stirring Dawn Service and City Parade we helped bring about in Albany just a year ago. All this was still a dream at that time. This is a good place to remember the ANZACS as so many of them perished in France in WWI, fighting for a Mother Country few had seen. Lest we forget !
25 April - 12 May
St Jean - Semur en Auxois
So, after our false start to Besancon, we are now properly on the. Not that I can complain about St Jean since it was there that we were able to get the car and our Cartes de Longue Sejour plus update the website and establish ourselves as French residents. But now the serious business of cruising is on us and we are on another positioning trip to Dole to pick up our first guest for the new season.
We departed St Jean for Dole on Friday 26 April and immediately had a problem, in that a commercial barge happened along as we were waiting for the lock to the Rhone au Rhine Canal to open for us off the Saone River. Since we have to give way to commercial boats, this meant a wait of what turned out to be an hour an a half. Big Bummer as we had arrived at exactly the time we had advised them. Anyway, we used the delays to monitor the engine temperature range now that we have taken to limiting the water flow to the exchanger. The engine runs better and hotter and the temperature gauge is remarkably accurate, as measured against the thermometer on the engine itself.
The commercial being ahead of us slowed the trip down as they travel at a sedate 2kmh but we arrived in plenty of time at about 6.00pm and passed through the port in order to turn Van Nelle around. We managed that OK and went back to our original spot near the Pizza boat.
Next day was ‘Gillian Ragus arrival day’ so we finished our final jobs preparing her room and the boat and waited for the taxi to pick us up to go to the Gare (station) which is too far to walk with baggage. The car arrived on time and so did the train so we were back on VN shortly after 7.30pm and after a bottle of welcoming Champagne, off to the restaurant (Le Bec) at about 8.30. Delightful meal and wines.
Gill had a bunch of washing to do as she had been travelling for weeks with a different place almost every night so the next morning was spent doing a bit of domestic work before heading out to see the sights of Dole. We walked and talked, took in the town sights in the morning and the musee after a pleasant lunch on board. That night we prepared for our departure on the morrow to St Jean de Losne.
We had an easy cruise the next day to St Jean with a stop for fuel at the bunkership in town on the way to the ancien ecluse where everything was just as we left it. The car was perfect and started without any problems so we were soon off for a trip into town to check out a rumour regarding the closing of the lock system on May Day, Wednesday. We planned to have a day in St Jean on Monday and two days cruise to Dijon for a day there before Gill had to leave for Switzerland and Italy. The VNF confirmed the closure so plans were altered. A one day cruise to Dijon would take place on Tuesday. This would be a bit of a stretch but possible, it normally taking two days pleasant cruising to achieve the distance.
We dined at L’Amiral with Giles being his usual ebullient self and set off the next am early to hit the ecluse at St Jean right on 9.00am. We were ahead of the game until lunch time when we did the right thing and stopped before the lock for lunch. We were really tee’d off when a hotel boat - Continental Waterway’s Hirondelle passed us and went into the lock. It then proceeded to meander for the next two hours holding us up and nearly costing us the entrance to Dijon since we arrived at the last lock with only 20 minutes to spare. They had been stopping to receive deliveries of foodstuffs from their chef along the way, thereby delaying us as well. Really bad manners !!!!!
Hotel boats often exhibit arrogance on the canals, especially to hire boats which they toss off moorings. They have the right to do so but exhibit an arrogance that seems to come with their culture. We had several face to face encounters with hotel boat managers who insisted, quite without any basis or rights, that we should move from areas we were entitled to be in. It was cold comfort when some years later that company went to the wall, bankrupted by the huge downturn caused by terrorism, Bird Flu and other factors which kept millions of Americans tourists at home.
Arriving finally at the Port Fluviale in Dijon we moored up to the quai where we spent the next three days without cost and without any services. Time for Gill to explore the city, do a fair bit of shopping, and also some planning for the trip on to Switzerland and Italy.
Gillian was an employee when I ran Lexmark in Western Australia and an elite athlete, training for her chance for the Commonwealth and possibly Olympic teams. She had come to Europe to compete in several first class competitions which were now over and stayed on for a bit of sight seeing.
Wednesday was May Day so we expected some demonstrations, marches or rallies but saw nothing. Didn’t see much of Dijon either as, despite it being a holiday, everything was closed, and I mean everything !. Well we caught up on a few of the sights as the visitors centre was open and had a walking tour itinerary which we followed, finding some new and interesting spots along the way, including an antique shop where I saw (and subsequently bought) a couple of old champagne glasses and two crystal wine glasses. They are both of a very chunky old faceted design and are quite pretty while being solid and functional. They probably came from a hotel and restaurant supply shop originally, but they look and feel good so I’m happy with them. (This began a five year collecting spree of old wine glasses and antique silver. We bought it bit by bit all over France until we shipped back to Australia a 10 piece setting of almost matching crystal and silver. A pleasant an inexpensive way to bolster interest in shopping and pleasure in ownership).
We had the next day to check out the art gallery which was undergoing some renovations, so the big picture I wanted to photograph was not available - the retreat of Napoleon’s army from Moscow. I’ll probably discover it is in the museum in Beaune and not Dijon if I keep looking. (Actually it is housed in Dole so I was not going to find it on this trip).
We also went to the top of Phillipe Le Bon’s tower which offered magnificent sights of the surrounds of Dijon. That night saw us enjoy another roast lamb to celebrate Gill’s stay after which we played cards and Trivial Pursuit. Seemed like a fun thing to do.
Gilly left us on Thursday night for her continuing trip through Lausanne and on to Venice and Rome. We had an early night and prepared for our departure the next day in the direction of the Pouilly tunnel, some 20 or 30km up the Canal de Bourgogne. This section of the canal is over populated with locks so a full days travel is about 12-15km with about double that number of locks. We made Fleury the first day and had an uneventful night after a pretty pleasant but energetic day’s cruising.
Rivers formed the best transport routes through early Europe, especially for large, heavy materials and precious and fragile cargoes of crystal and china. The important towns grew up on the banks of major rivers as they formed not only transport links but essential water supplies, the raw material for life and manufacturing. To link rivers and major towns to other rivers and markets, canals were built, starting at one river, rising over the intervening land to descend to another river on the other side of the range. In order to climb and descend, locks were built into the system. Capable of raising boats about 2-3 metres each, meant 10 or more locks to climb 30 metres . In this stretch of the Canal de Bourgogne the rise is more like 100 metres - so more than 30 locks. You travel maybe one kilometre for each lock, sometimes only 500 metres and each lock has to be flooded, opened, closed flooded or voided and opened for you to travel through. This normally takes about 20 minutes if there is no-one in front and the lock is available to you. If you are following another boat it will take 20 minutes for him, 20 minutes to turn the lock around and 20 minutes for you - an hour. So a stretch of some 29 locks in a day is a big day out ! We have done that number several times in order to make a deadline arrival of guests but its not something you want to do every day. It can be exhausting.
The next day we moved on to La Forge where, after a kilometre walk we discovered the Abbaye de Bussier. This is truly remarkable restored abbey with grounds that sweep down through trees and water features to the road that fronts the extensive property. Built by the Cistercian monks it was taken by the Revolutionaries but restored to the Catholic Church diocese of Dijon which now uses it for retreats and small group conferences. A group of young girls were being welcomed as we toured the grounds, which are free to visit so long as no conference sessions are in progress.
The next day we passed on to the area just below the fortified town and chateau of Chateauneuf which we had seen on a car recce to the area months before to check out the Pouilly tunnel. This is another fabulous place. Built in the 13th and 14th centuries it was taken from the woman owner who murdered her husband and given by Louis 11 to Phillipe Pot, his courtier. The chateau contains two residences, one in ruins but originally for guests and the other in quite good condition, furnished as it might have been during the 17th century.
Remarkable for me was the fact that the toilets are preserved, two ‘en-suite’ to bedrooms, but with very cold stone seats. Perhaps they had cushions. They are the ‘long drop’ versions, sort of just hanging out over the side of the building - a bit draughty. I think they are remarkable since toilets almost never appear in historic buildings, having been destroyed and turned into broom cupboards or whatever as if they had no need for such things hundreds of years ago. The village is very well preserved but now going through what appears to be expensive renovations. There are a couple of pleasant 2 star hotels made from local houses - all 12th - 14th century but modernised inside and I’m sure, complete with WCs.
The trip to Chateauneuf is up a very long, steep hill. We took the bikes but walked up 3/4s of the distance - the ride down was exhilarating. We went up twice since on our first day everything was closed -‘ferme lundi’ We should know not to trust guide books, all of which said it was closed Tuesday ! Anyway, it was no great effort to stay another day and repeat the climb in order to be able to roam through the buildings and streets. The Chateau has extensive furnishings and the chapel has, in Phillipe Pot’s crypt, a copy of the original coffin supported by cowled monks, the copy made by the artisans of the Louvre so they could have the original.
Getting to Chateauneuf by canal is a delight, despite the number of locks experienced on this hilly part of the ‘systeme fluviale’. The countryside is all rural, dominated by rolling meadows of deep green pasture, interspersed by paddocks of bright yellow crops. We have been advised that these are rape seed but also told that they are mustard. Perhaps they are both. Whatever they are, they are a surprisingly bright yellow, standing out vividly against the background of the pasture’s deep greens and the nearby forests of trees in all shades of green. Through these placid fields the canal meanders, joining town to town and village to village. Villages are situated about a meal’s distance apart on foot - less than 10 km - but many are shrinking and disappearing as the young migrate to the cities and the old go to les maisons de retraite (retirement homes).
Boat speed here is limited to 6kmh to ensure that the already eroded banks are not further damaged. The canals are about 15m wide but due to erosion and the subsequent collapse of the walls (once proud examples of the stonemasons art), the navigable depth of about 1.8m is only found close to the centre. For a boat of Van Nelle’s girth it is both dangerous and potentially damaging to stray of the centre line as parts of the original rock walls can shatter propellers while the boat’s suction, caused by the large prop sucking water from ahead and abeam, can cause large waves to wash away further parts of the banks if this speed limit is ignored. Van Nelle is a very ‘clean’ boat with its very shallow, curved shape and flat bottom, quite different to the deep square shape of commercial boats, so at 6kmh in canals we create very little wake and suction.
Suction also causes difficulty steering large boats in the canals, as it tends to drag the stern toward the nearest canal side. Countering this action causes the stern to swing toward the opposite bank and once again the suction acts to drag the stern even closer. A zig zag course can be the result of too much power or of the helms-person not concentrating on keeping a central course. Another potential hazard is the approach of another large vessel, since their size requires a diversion from the centre line and their propeller also causes suction that affects your boat, as yours does to them when passing.
Imagine if you can, a long U shaped channel about the width of two and a half large barges, the sides of the channel eroded so they are very shallow near the edge and underlaid by thick mud and large rocks. Now introduce two barges approaching each other. Each barge’s propeller is sucking large amounts of water from the confined space below and to it’s sides and it’s bow is projecting a sizeable shock wave forward. The boats approach bow to bow, both keeping to the centre of the channel for fear of becoming stuck or hitting submerged objects. As they get within half a boat length, both turn slightly to the right so that the angle allows them to miss each other until about abeam. At that time they turn slightly left so that they head back toward the centre of the channel. As they approach each other, their shock waves tend to push the bows apart, but as they begin to pass, the suction tends to pull them together. Meanwhile, the length of each causes their sterns, and therefore propellers and rudders, to swing close to the edge of the canal and the possibility of damage. Both skippers reduce power and hold their breath, waiting and listening for the inevitable scrape of gravel down the side and the kick of the wheel that indicates the rudder going aground. Once past, each lets out a long-contained breath and fights his boat back to the centre of the channel.
We have seen two boats become hopelessly stuck while passing, coming to rest on both sides of the channel and completely blocking it. Long minutes of maximum power ahead and astern normally sucks and blows enough of the base of the canal aside in order for the boats to refloat and continue.....but not always.
We departed after lunch on Tuesday for Escommes, the large port before the Pouilly Tunnel, for which we have to take down our roof. These boats are built with the wheelhouse made up of folding panels on the sides, removable doors and roof panels. We had not had a rehearsal of this de-mounting procedure so we wanted to have a clear morning to be able to ‘play 9 and adjust’. As it turned out, it took us just a half hour to take down the three roof panels and their supporting aluminium sections, remove the doors and fold down the front, back and two side window wall panels. Everything worked very easily and fitted neatly on the front deck. The roof sections are a bit heavy but nothing that we couldn’t handle with a bit of a grunt. Actually Maureen always complained about the weight of the roof sections and so in 2005 I had the roof rebuilt to reduce the weight).
Then for the Pouilly Tunnel...... This is a low, dark, cold, long tunnel. It is 3.3km long and no boat over 3.1m high at the centre and 2.2m at the sides may enter. One must have lights, fire extinguishers, floatation jackets, boat hooks and a bucket ! Exactly what you do with the bucket I’m not sure but the rules are strict and the equipment inspected, especially the operation and power of your spotlight. I had planned for this by installing a small but very powerful floodlight on the mast, which while folded down, gave an adequate base for our headlight.
We started at 11.00am and were through at 12.00noon to the port fluviale at Pouilly at the other end of the tunnel. The traverse was cold but easier that I had expected, the hard part being to keep your concentration on steering in the centre of the narrow, dark hole. The tunnel was actually much bigger than I had thought however and we ended up with lots of room - well about 50-70cm all round, more than the 30cm I had planned for. We had attached timber rubbing boards extending outwards from the rear bollards, a trick passed down from generation to generation, to act as fenders against the wall but only touched one side once through the whole trip. We were very pleased with ourselves.
The Port at Pouilly was unmanned so there was no cost and no water or electricity on offer. We had filled out tanks in Escommes to do 5 loads of washing and topped up the water tanks there for 3 Euro however so all was well. It was a shock another day on, to arrive at Port Royal (a private port) where the cost was 8 euros per night without either water or power. But back to Pouilly.
It was a holiday the day we arrived and the shops were open only until 12.30 the next day as that also was a holiday (Ascension) so we stood in supermarket queues for hours with lots of other people as we had to stock up for the next week or two. There are almost no shops near the canal on the stretch after Pouilly, so water, food and things like milk, have to be stocked or gone without. We did a couple of big shops and carried the stuff back on the scooter.
Another boat arrived later - a Luxemotor named Fryslan - which we had seen at St Symphorien and had noticed since it was a different version of the spelling of that Dutch town where many similar boats were built. Tam and Di Murrell also have a boat named for the town - but the other spelling Friesland. We offered our power since its owner Russel, was short an alternator, but he managed to get his system up and running so we offered drinks instead and spent a couple of hours chatting about things fluviale.
We left Pouilly after a couple of days and arrived at Port Royal at its expensive Halte Fluviale, leaving there the next morning after a ride around to explore and a beer at the café during the afternoon. The next stop was Marigny which boasts a nice harbour which we couldn’t use since it was to be the site of the next day’s fishing competition (funny - I thought the canals were for boats), a chateau (we didn’t get to) an epicerie (a small convenience store - we did get bread at twice) and 11 km away, the preserved 12th-14th century town of Semur.
It was raining the morning we went to Semur-en-Auxois, but despite the discomfort, we took to the mountain bikes and pedalled the distance. We were met, after passing through industrialised suburbs, by cobbled streets, a 13th century church and tiny streets passing through impossibly narrow arches that hold buildings up, and apart. Pressing in on all sides are half timbered houses and shops with modernised facades, but in all other respects, ancient.
We arrived just at the end of the eleven o’clock church service and entered that amazing structure to hear the end of a long processional piece being played on the 17th century organ. Choir boys came back into the church from an attached room, bearing their vestments for a mother to collect and freshen. Parishioners stood about companionably, chatting before wandering off to their Sunday lunches. We took advantage of the English version of the guided tour notes to investigate this priceless relic, which is once again undergoing renovation. The notes advised us it had been renovated by the great French architect Viollette-le-Duc in the middle of the 19th century. While the main part of the building, and some of it’s stained glass, is over 800 years old (correct me if I’m wrong), it is in a town where Charlemagne presented it’s castle to the monks during the 7th century ! These little snippets of longevity keep surprising me as I think about our own 200 or so years of history and especially of the time I talked about a ‘really old building in Perth’ to a French person......
We missed looking in at the fishing competition since it was raining and we wanted to get back to the boat and light the fire - which we did. Roast chook and vegetables for dinner - and perhaps a glass of white wine. Why not ?
The next day, after a lengthy visit to the church and it’s surroundings in Semur, we retired to a local restaurant for the Boeuf Bourguignon and some Bourgogne Passetoutgrain, a light blended red wine of exceptional flavour but without any of the heaviness evident in so many flavoursome Australian wines. I am constantly surprised by the light character of many of the local reds, easy to drink with few side effects. Perfect for lunches, especially with meats, pates and cheeses. We are finding many of the lighter local red wines are the traditional Pinot Noir but now blended with Merlot to lighten and freshen the flavour, something the Italians do as well.
One of the other local traditions is to mix the rich red cordial Creme de Cassis (a local product), with the astringent local white wine - Bourgogne Aligote to make Kir, or with the Cremant de Bourgogne to make Kir Royale, or with Champagne to make Kir Imperiale. These are popular aperitifs along with Macvin, the sweet white wine blended with the fiery wine spirit, Marc de Bourgogne.
As the temperature has been increasing and as we have been worked harder on the more numerous locks in this area, we have also come to enjoy the local ciders, of which there are quite a few, with colours and flavours from very light and ‘apple-y’ to deep yellows and ambers with stronger more smoky character. All of these are only about 4% alc by vol, less than beer and very refreshing. Since we have to stop for lunch as the eclusiers take the hour from 12.00 to 13.00 (the French operate on a 24 hour clock), cider is a good alternative to wine for lunch.
Daylight is now from about 6.30 to about 22.00 (10.00pm), which means the evening meal is later and walks afterward are a joy. The sky is still light and the canal sides are full of bird song. Just the thing to take the edge off the meal before turning in to the quiet of the country-side. Our days start at about 7.30, we get underway at 9.00, stop at 12.00 for lunch and stop at our next destination normally at about 15.00 (3.00pm). This allows us about 10-15km distance and up to 15 locks in a day’s travel, each lock taking about 15-20 minutes if we don’t have to wait for boats ahead.
At this rate we ought to be in Paris by mid June.
Chapter Six - Burgundy to Paris
13 May - 2 June
Semur en Auxois - Tonnerre
Just as I thought this amazing country could not get more scenic or historically crowded, we spent the next two weeks almost silently gliding through the sun dappled, still waters of the Canal de Bourgogne, turning it’s corners to be confronted with new visions of the past - chateaux and villages cradled in soft green undulating hills surrounded by lush fertile meadows and fields, populated by slow moving Charolais cattle and fine, energetic horses. The pace of life has now settled to a slow rhythm as we slowly descend from the high point at Pouilly en Auxois to the next river, the Yonne.
We tend to travel for two or three days before stopping for longer than a day at major points of interest. The next, on our voyage of discovery, was the port at Pouillenay in order to visit the Abbaye de Flavigny, now the place of manufacture of the Anise de Flavigny, a small round, anisette flavoured candy. The company actually makes about 10 different flavoured sweets of the same construction and exports them around the world in a variety of decorated tins and old style boxes. To get to Flavigny, one has to ascend 5 km of very steep hills, punctuated often with false crests - a real ‘heartbreak hill’ for those who, like us, attempt the climb on mountain bikes. Despite the excellent gearing of our bikes, the climb was laborious and exhausting, taking nearly an hour. We arrived to find that, as usual, Monday was the day they were closed. We walked through the village that surrounds the old Abbaye and descended the hills to the boat in about 10 minutes.
We were determined to see the ancient crypt of the Abbaye and it’s more modern processing procedure which is housed in buildings a couple of centuries younger than the crypt but still hundreds of years old. These buildings are now inhabited by noisy machines rather like cement mixers, churning out the little white pills that has given this ancient village it’s current lease of life. We unshipped the scooter the next morning and put it to the test of carting the two of us up the 5km hills. We arrived in about 15 minutes ! No more will we drag our tired bodies up daunting hills on our bikes while the little silver Peugeot is available to do the work for us.
The effort was well worthwhile as this is another of ‘the most beautiful villages of France’, the other we had seen recently being Chateauneuf. Built between the 12th and 15th century, most of Flavigny’s buildings are original from the end of that period and remain clustered together with narrow streets separating their inward leaning second floors. Steep walks up and around the centre of town (to an imposing 15th century church), mark the places the monks and nobles would have mingled during the feasts and famines over the centuries of medieval life. Plagues, pestilence, wars, famines and harvests have rolled past the stones of these buildings as now, in air conditioned busses and cars, the tourists roll by. Some Australians even come on bicycles!
Only 5km further down the canal stands Venarey les Laumes, the jumping off point for the Chateau Rabutin and the ancient Roman ruins of Alise. Roger de Rabutin was expelled from the court of Louis 14 to his property near Bussy for writing a book called ‘The Amorous Adventures of the Gauls’. Based on and exposing the scandalous antics of the best known members of Louis’ court who hopped from bed to bed, the manuscript was feloniously borrowed and copied by an ex lover who then made sure the King was given a copy. As Louis, his wife and mistresses all featured in the book, he took umbrage at Roger’s writings and after letting him languish for eleven months in the Bastille, sent him to exile for 27 years. Finally pardoned, Roger had only a few years to enjoy the Sun King’s company again before dying just before the end of the 1600s. While in his prison home, he spent the time decorating his chateau with witty pictures and writings based on the key figures of the day. These amusing and somewhat cryptic creations are now the points of inte
The nearby ruins of the almost complete Roman town of Alise are laid out neatly for the visitor. Issued with a written guide, you follow the point by point description as you walk through the theatre, the market, houses, offices and public buildings, all laid open to their foundations. This site is very near the battlefield where a young Julius Caesar overcame the last defence of Gaul by Vercingoretex and his army of about 40,000. Caesar put in place a fortified encirclement and starved them into submission, thereby taking control of the vast and fertile Burgundian plains for the next 500 years or so. (NB: Serious historians will certainly point out minor factual errors in my descriptions, spelling and numbers here as I only have my somewhat addled memory to go by).
This area of France is lush. It is heaped in beauty, rich foods, supple and delicious wines, pungent cheeses, fresh fruits and vegetables and the most amazing arrays of ‘deli’ foods I have yet to see anywhere. The markets and traiteurs, the boulangeries and the charcuteries are stuffed with produce and pre-prepared dishes and pastries filled with pates and meats, cheeses and eggs, vegetables and fruits. All of these can be accompanied by sumptuous creams, sauces and seasonings. Cured hams and sausages hang from hooks and in the patisseries the trays of tarts and cakes overflow the counters onto tables and stools. Everywhere are regional products with an amazing range of brands, names and appearances. It will take years to understand and taste this vast selection of sensual pleasures.
The sun has been shining for days and we now look forward to the heaped, white, fluffy clouds that slowly scud across the nearly unbroken pale blue sky for some relief from the escalating temperatures. We are uniformed in shorts and tee shirts, with heavy sandals to protect the feet from the heat radiating off the steel decks of Van Nelle. Although especially painted light grey, the outer decks can get as hot as the tar streets of Subiaco used to when that hot black topping would stick to running young feet during primary school days - several (?) decades ago.
Another day, another departure and so, on to Montbard and it’s chief point of interest, the Abbaye Fontenay. This collection of buildings was constructed by the Cistercian monks from the 10th century, begun in 1118 and helped along by an exiled English bishop who escaped persecution across the channel with his fortune intact to build the large church at Fontenay. Now a world heritage site, the Abbaye covers a great area and includes the first iron manufacturing facility in Europe, where locally mined iron ore was forged and, with the help of water power, hammered into sheets by the world’s (?) first hammer mill. This collection of buildings was kept in remarkable order since it was taken from the Cistercians during the Revolution and sold. After several other owners, it was bought by the Montgolfier brothers (of hot air balloon fame). The grounds are beautifully manicured with stern warnings to ‘stay off the grass’. Several of the buildings are inhabited by management and staff.
Montbard was also the home of the Count Buffon who elevated the area to national prominence with his work in forestry for the king, the building of a (then) modern iron foundry, and his amazing work in writing and editing the ‘Natural History of the World’, a series of over 30 encyclopaedic volumes. He endowed his home, now a park overlooking the town, to the commune at his death at an age of something over eighty. We were able to take a private, conducted tour of the park and the several buildings left standing by Count Buffon. The guide was the ‘guardian’ of the area, a bright and highly amusing young woman with some English, who delighted in shocking her guests with descriptions of the awful things the soldiers of the fort (that had originally stood here) threw down on invaders. She also insisted we looked out and down from the top of the tower, through the portals from which their mess was delivered, a truly frightening experience as it induced the most intense vertigo.
The next village along the sleepy canal, still very quiet as the European holiday and summer period has not yet begun, is Ancy le Franc which boasts yet another amazing Chateau.
By this time we were starting to blur all the chateaux, churches and abbayes together, so that when asked by a couple we invited aboard for drinks, ‘where had we been and what could we recommend to see ?’, we constantly confused one place with another, putting buildings in the wrong towns. After a while, it’s a bit like seeing the paintings of the Louvre and the Musee d’Orsay in one day and trying to remember which was which. (Of course the d’Orsay is contemporary and impressionist).
The social life continues apace of course with a lively interchange of gossip among the boaties, many of whom wander up and start conversations which end up as ‘end of the day drinks’ or a meal on a boat or at a nearby restaurant. The enduring pleasure of this life is the meeting of similarly enthusiastic and motivated people. On arrival at a mooring it would be unusual if someone did not come to help you tie up, taking your lines and attaching them helpfully to the rings or stakes available. They then point out where and what is available in the way of boulangeries etc and leave you to it, unless a suggestion is made to gather later for an aperitif - more usually done quite quickly. You of course do the same as others arrive and soon your name and address book fills with the identities of those from around the world who have decided to take time out to enjoy Europe by its waterways. Meeting such people is done quickly as time is limited and you know you will soon move on, but there is always the thought, and often the act, of meeting them again somewhere else a week, a month or a few years hence.
The next town was Ancy le Franc - and yes - it’s amazing Chateau. This, along with some other chateaux throughout France, was bought by an investment company which partly subsidises these semi-self reliant businesses, funding the massive costs of restoration. The buildings are used for tours and functions, weddings and state occasions, art exhibitions and concerts. Unfortunately, as waterborne gypsies, we have yet to fluke arrival at the right place at the right time to be involved with such revelries as concerts and state occasions - but that will come.
The Chateau Ancy le Franc was restored and added to by it’s high-born owner back in the 1700s with the aid of an Italian architect and as such is considered a priceless example of Renaissance architecture. It boasts the most regular features in its structure, a perfect square of wings enclosing a handsome courtyard about 50 metres on each side. The outer wings are three stories and are packed inside with art and furniture of the period. There are huge bedrooms, dining rooms, entertainment halls and smaller vestibules and other useful facilities such as kitchens (again vast).
20 kilometres down stream is the town of Tanlay and again - it has a chateau. This is still owned by the original family, although it is now almost all turned over to tourism, as the heirs of the estate live and work in Paris but often return to their private wing for weekends. Queen Juliana of the Netherlands was the last official guest of the owners in the 1960s. She was hosted by the then matriarch, the Marquise, who was the French Ambassador to several European and Asian courts during her life. The Marquise’ photographic and painted portraits dominate the entertaining rooms, showing her in a succession of designer gowns and lavish diplomatic decorations. These jewelled decorations from many countries can now be seen along with those of her forebears in a presentation case in one of the many foyers of this huge and gracious home. When I say home, this building is as big as a hotel and stands on a park that holds a golf course, a private section of canal and stables
extensive enough for Bart Cummings. One can still see where the 17th and 18th century carriages chipped and wore off the stone edges of the gates and entrances to the massive forecourts of the chateau.
After exploring the chateau we entered a restaurant in Tanlay as its hoarding advertised an 11 Euro menu (three courses for about $19), available every day except Sunday. When confronted with the regular menu inside after being seated, we were advised that the menu de jour was not available on Fete days. This day was a Monday and named for some obscure Saint. We left, not interested in paying more than double for the same menu as a result of St Fidgit’s day or whatever. We returned to the boat for chilled Chablis, pate, avocado and smoked ham, pastries filled with goats cheese and peaches with ice cream... and a second bottle of chilled white... total cost, less than 10 Euros each.
It is not that we are cheap or miserly - we have happily paid princely sums for gorgeous meals throughout Europe - but when you live and work in the area and just want lunch, and when the sign says - lunch for E 11, you are rightly indignant when that is merely used as a trap to get people in to pay much higher prices. Besides, paying mooring fees and restaurant prices every day here would soon deplete the working capital and dull the experience of a good meal, occasionally prepared by someone else.
That evening as the sun slowly settled toward the hills, the peace of the late afternoon was disturbed by a large compressed gas burner filling a hot air balloon as it’s crew prepared it for the guests of the hotel barge that was tied up behind us at the small port. Once opened up and partly filled on the football field adjacent to the port, the burners were turned up to full, completing the filling and giving the craft it’s lift. The passengers climbed into the cane gondola and after a few more bursts of heat, went into the almost still evening air, floating serenely over our boat. We toasted them and set the barbecue to heat the flightless birds we were to enjoy that evening as dinner.
Departing at 9.00 the next morning we cruised slowly towards Tonnerre, a mere 9km and three locks distance where we arrived at 11.45, just before the locks closed for lunch. Our luck was out though since the water in the next pound was at such a high level that we could not fit under the small bridge which marks the end of the ecluse. The eclusier took to his van, speeding off to the next lock to open it’s sluices and allow the water in the intervening pound to reduce, thereby letting us out. We emerged to find a perfect spot in the centre of the shaded section of the port with access to free electricity and water. We used both to do a load of washing, using our clothes dryer to complete the task.
Exploring this town was somewhat hampered since they do not open their tourist attractions until June 1 - and this was May 22. The next day it rained, no it poured. We didn’t mind in the least since we took the time to catch up with writing and reading and had an AFD, alcohol free day, a rare experience here.
The third day dawned cloudy but dry and we took to the scooter to explore nearby Chablis - famous for its dry, crisp, white wine which comes in 4 varieties - Grand Cru, Premier Cru, Petit and Bourgeois. This again is made from Chardonnay grapes whose original vines were wiped out by phylloxera in the 19th century, but fortunately have been replanted with virus resistant stock from the New World, in order to please the palates of millions. It is quite different from the ‘Chablis’ produced in Australia as it has more flavour and is more delicate - not as dry and astringent as some by the same name at home. In tasting the different Crus (grades) we discovered that there was a sameness about them (as marked as say all reds from the Hunter River) but also distinct differences in acidity, length and fruit flavours. Note we are now starting to use real wine terms.
We arrived at a 13th century cellar just ahead of a pre-arranged tour group and thereby gained the benefit of a tour and wine tasting. The petite manageress of the establishment spoke excellent English, albeit with an Irish twist. Since her name was Maureen, we could only imaging she was either Irish by descent or her French parents had some close affinity with the Irish. Whatever the case, she explained that the original 40,000 hectares of the Chablis appellation was now reduced to something over 6,000 with the best plots (Grand Cru) located nearest the centre of town on the flatter, lower ground, surrounded by the Premiere Crus further out and the Bourgeois and Petit even further up the hillsides. She then gave us two Bourgeois or crus ordinaire and a Premiere. Since we showed interest in buying after the group left we also got to taste two of the Grand Crus, one of which I remarked could have been opened for perhaps too long for it to be in the best of health. She immediately opened a replacement bottle and was (I think) pleased that I could tell. We bought a Grand Cru and her recommendation and one more at another Cave in town.
On arrival back at the port at Tonnerre we discovered that some English friends in a similar type and sized boat were in town having been following us for some days. We ended the day with several G&Ts (gins and tonic - unusual but a nice change), a bottle of white and a good goss (gossip) with them and their Kenyan friends.
We are now approaching the end of the Burgundy canal and nearing our rendezvous with guests at Auxerre. Gary Prattley and his wife Dianne were with us on a hire boat some years ago which we took through Auxerre, so it will be a double reunion. But first we have to pass through St Florentin, Migennes and a few smaller towns along the way.
June 2 to July 15
Now that I don’t have a regular job, I wonder how I ever had the time to fit work into my life.
Certainly I have a lot to do keeping an 86 year old barge with its motors, pumps, electrics, plumbing and other complex systems working properly, but I don’t seem to have the time to do all the other things I should be doing, such as writing. It’s been more than six weeks since my computer was attacked by the three fingers I use for typing and in that time we have travelled quite a distance and experienced a great deal.
Summer has arrived, but it is a different season from it’s Western Australian counterpart. Hot and humid 30 degree days are interspersed with cool 17 - 20 degree days, while clear sunny vistas are regularly replaced with cloudy, brooding, and even threatening skies which frequently drop quantities of rain on us. We explain to those planning to come to Europe and who ask for the best time of year, to plan for rain whenever they come, since Europe spreads it’s rainfall almost equally though the year but concentrates it on the days visitors expect clear skies. There is a benefit to it of course - it provides good clean water to wash the decks.
At the end of May we were at the confluence of the Yonne River and the Canal de Bourgogne, heading for Auxerre to pick up a couple who had shared a hire boat here with us some three years earlier. Gary, past CEO of the Western Australian Planning Department, had left Perth for Sydney in 2001 to take up the top planning job there and was scheduled to attend a conference and meetings in Europe at this time. We arranged Auxerre as the meeting point for their three day cruise for old times sake. Tragically, it was not to be. Arriving in Migennes (where you turn into the Yonne to Auxerre), we were informed that a barrage (a sort of dam that guarantees water levels in the canals), had broken apart and the temporary repair allowed only boats under 20 metres in length to pass. With the magic of mobile phones and e-mails, we were able to reschedule our meeting to Sens, another cathedral town nearby.
Arriving in Sens, we pulled in to what looked like a rickety walkway / jetty and made fast, just behind a couple of commercial barges that were dressed gaily with flags and bunting for a wedding. Through the rest of that day and night, relatives, friends, bridesmaids, and the bride, groomsmen and the groom, came and went. It seems the boats and an adjacent marquee, were used as a meeting place, while the ceremony was elsewhere. We were not invited but watched and listened with amusement as the young guests formed car-borne cavalcades and drove through the town with their horns blowing - a very French custom.
Gary and Dianne arrived off the Chunnel (channel tunnel train) in their hire car, and so with company from home, we explored this beautiful cathedral town with it’s narrow twisty streets leading up a steep hill from the river, exposing 14th and 15th century, timbered houses. Their exposed, thick oak beams, are carved into stories. One shows the genealogy of Christ while another tells the tale of Cain and Able. The cathedral is a magnificent blend of Romanesque and gothic architecture and on the Sunday was alive with organ music at the end of a colourful service, complete with choir and masses of clergy. Outside the cathedral’s doors lies the main town square, surrounded by sidewalk cafes, all basking in the sun, just waiting for thirsty Australian bargees. We took advantage of one brasserie’s 20 Euro menu and dowsed the food liberally with local wines, Crisp Chablis whites and rich but delicate Burgundian reds make excellent partners to local meats and, a favourite, mussels imported from Brittany - moules frites - mussels and chips.
The next morning we set sail for Pont-sur-Yonne, just 20km and several large commercial locks down river, direction Paris. Our guests revelled in the quiet of the cruise mixed with the bustle of locking the boat and steering it through the river traffic of private and commercial boats of all descriptions. Too soon we arrived at Pont-sur-Yonne to find that the advertised port de plaisance finger jetties, attached to the large mooring pontoon, had all sunk. We found one end of the pontoon serviceable enough and tied Van Nelle securely to it’s floating remnants. Since our guests had another appointment in Nice to get to the next morning, Gary and I set off back to Sens in the local train, a ten minute trip, to recover their car. That done, we explored the town and prepared for a gourmet meal accompanied with Premier Cru wines, onboard Van Nelle.
Mousse de Canard washed down by Sancerre was followed by Boeuf Bourguignon and Nuits St George. Dessert was a selection of pastries from the nearby patisserie accompanied by Macvin, the mixture of wine and grape spirit. Everyone sleeps very well on Van Nelle with no complaints of night borne noises !
We waved goodbye to Gary and Dianne the next morning after a sunny breakfast of fruits, breads and local confitures and as they drove south, we untied and headed for Paris.
We needed just two overnight stops en route to the City of Light, which we took at a lovely Halte Nautique at St Mammes, a centre of commercial barging that boasts a beautiful pleasure boat jetty with all facilities, and at Corbeil Essones, where we stopped at a commercial barge loading dock. St Mammes provides it’s facilities free for two nights and then at a moderate rate for additional nights. Power and water are available for each boat, also at moderate rates.
Opposite the port is a fuel depot where the next morning we took on 500 litres of diesel. Since they did not take credit cards, Maureen set off for town to withdraw cash from a distributeur (tin teller). Unfortunately she used the wrong pin number three times and the machine swallowed the card. She arrived back at the boat distraught, in tears, knowing what the loss of a card meant to us. Explaining why we could not pay for the fuel and leaving Van Nelle as security we returned to the bank on our bikes. Fortunately the bank had a technician arriving at 11.00am to do some maintenance who could open the machine and they kindly returned the card rather than following procedure which demands sending the card to Australia. Unfortunately that principal card now would not work since the code had been violated. We had a back up and were able to use our reserve card to get cash, pay for the fuel, retrieve Van Nelle and, somewhat later than planned, left St Mammes.
Corbeil Essones promised a Jazz Festival on the day we were there, but try as we did, we could not find any of the performances. After walking the town we arrived back at Van Nelle to find a commercial barge had arrived and asked us to move up the quai as they expected to begin loading building materials early the next morning exactly where we had moored. A few minutes of man handling and everyone was happy for the night. The next morning we would arrive in the heart of Paris, so that evening was spent studying the charts to ensure we would make no wrong turns into prohibited or one way channels. We also rang the Arsenal, a marina right in the heart of Paris, to make a booking.
The Arsenal has room for some 200 boats, being an old ‘bassin’ where commercial boats used to wait to enter the Canal St Denis via a canal and tunnel under the streets of Paris. With the slackening of commercial trade, the area has been made into a very popular marina right in the centre of town. We had previously inquired, only to be told our ship was too big, but when you just arrive they often manage to make adjustments. Mind you, at the amount they charge - 50 Euros plus another 12 for power and water - their adjustments make good money for them. They encouraged us to turn up and the next day at 1.00pm, we did.
On arrival outside the lock that takes us off the River Seine and into the bassin I got on the VHF radio and requested entry. Some discussion was followed by a long wait - some 25 minutes. During this time we were buzzed continuously by a great number of passing barges and ‘bateau mouches’, the tourist scenic cruisers that seem as big as battleships. Manoeuvring Van Nelle against a 4km current in order to stay out of the channel and avoid ramming the river banks or other boats, poses a moderate challenge since there seemed to be no obvious places to moor up while waiting on that side. We finally made another radio call which elicited the information that they had decided there was no room for us, so we would have to go to their other marina situated under the shadow of the Tour Eiffel. We headed off in that direction only to arrive at the bridge at the end of the Isle St Louis which was showing a red light. The bridge has traffic lights allowing downstream boats only 15 minutes passing time from 25 minutes to the hour. As it was 5 to the hour, the lights were red. We pulled over to the left bank, on which we now had seen bollards and used this mooring, adjacent to the University park and the Academy Arabe, to secure the boat.
We had a late lunch and discussed the options. The other marina we knew from other travellers to be pleasant but constantly washed by passing traffic, since it is actually on the River Seine. It is also almost as expensive as the Arsenal with few of it’s advantages. Other marinas are much further out of the heart of this magnificent city, so cheaper, but less attractive to those who plan to spend days wandering the streets and boulevardes of this magnificent locale. We figured that where we were was convenient - free, and by the lack of signage indicating otherwise, allowable. We decided to stay put, 5 minutes walk from the Notre Dame cathedral on the Left Bank, right in the heart of Paris.
Some six days later and just before a weekend fishing exhibition to be held at the park, along came the river police and a city official in an inflatable with a stern warning for us to leave the area. Apparently it was only to be used for boats waiting to pass through the bridge with the traffic lights. They produced a book of rules which did not explicitly support their argument (which became even more flimsy when they admitted that several fishing boats would be there for the exhibition and we were taking their space), but as they pointed to their police badges and started threatening fines, we elected to make a tactical withdrawal with a moral victory. It was only on our way out of Paris on a later visit that we saw one ‘no parking’ sign, some 300 metres up the left bank.
Meanwhile, however, we had a week of front row seats to the magic and marvels of what must be the most beautiful city in the world. Paris was spared bombing during WWII and no other war has marked the town, so it’s fabulous buildings and monuments are all intact. Additionally, since Napoleon gave carte blanche to Colonel Hausseman to eradicate the slums and remodel the boulevardes and central streets, Paris has had every opportunity to become and remain the showplace it is.
We revisited our favourite gallery, the Musee d’Orsay (once a bustling railway station) which is now the home of the Louvres’ fabulous collection of Impressionist art and statuary. We discovered Rue Mouffetard, a narrow student market street on the left bank near the Sorbonne with wonderful food and wine shops and its intersecting streets filled with small, inexpensive restaurants. We wandered through the Tuilleries Gardens and up and down the Champs Elysee. We climbed the hundreds of steps to the top of the Arc de Triumph and took innumerable metro trains through the underground labyrinths to sections of Paris we had not had the time to explore on previous trips. The sun shone and, as we took the open topped double decker bus (L’Opentour) through Paris to discover even more of it’s secrets, we enjoyed the freedom of not being on a timetable and having the time available to just sit and watch the world (and their dogs), walk by.
Free Jazz concerts were advertised in the Parc Floral every Saturday and Sunday afternoon during June so we jumped on the metro and headed out to Vincennes where one of Frances’ King Louis had built a huge Chateau (which we wandered through). It’s parklands are now the Parc Floral which houses a large stage and audience seating area, used extensively for free concerts. Saturday saw an American male jazz singer followed by a very experimental trio and Sunday, a fabulous double bass player (shades of Tommy Emmanuel) followed by a Django Reinhardt type ensemble, complete with electric violin. All the performers were world class and the production marvellous. We took picnics, enjoying the expansive lawn areas and then took our places in great free seats in the open air auditorium for the three hours of entertainment. We were accompanied by up to 10,000 others.
Before we were asked so graciously to leave our free mooring, we had decided to go through the Arsenal bassin and it’s locks, onto the Canal St Denis. We had heard that there were places for big boats in another bassin some 3km up that channel. The Canal St Denis runs through busy Parisian streets - quite a novelty, and emerges at the Isle St Denis, downstream of Paris centre. We radioed the Arsenal requesting passage and they opened up the lock for us. Through the 200 boats crowded on both sides of the narrow bassin we crept, heading for the lock at the other end that was immediately followed by a long tunnel under the streets of the neighbourhood, including the Place de la Revolution where many heads rolled after the storming of the Bastille. They say that even oxen would not pass through the Place during that time, since the smell of spilt human blood was so strong.
7 locks up the canal we entered a huge bassin with almost no boats. We were directed to the far end where there were bollards and shady trees and so spent another three nights in Paris centre.
Paris boasts a Science City that is situated right next to the Bassin de Villette where we moored. This is no single building but a complex of huge buildings and other exhibits including a submarine and a 360 degree geodesic cinema. The exhibition buildings house space labs, whole aeroplanes and collections of cars, with many mini theatres and computer based interactive displays to keep adults and kids busy. It could take days to go through, but we tired after 4 hours and wandered back to the boat to spend the afternoon wandering through Montmartre.
Our third night there was unfortunately interrupted by drama as Maureen, who had stayed up reading, heard what she thought was noise on the deck. People were still wandering about at midnight and we had occasions where young people would jump on board to get their friends attention or to get a photo taken. On this night however it was our stack of four mountain bikes the local kids were after and they had already cut through three of the four safety chains securing them ! Maureen yelled at them and they walked nonchalantly off the boat and away into the night, watched by more than half a dozen onlookers in the park. We moved the bikes into the wheelhouse and the next morning bought a huge chain which now secures them. We decided to depart for the balance of the Canal St Denis and ports north of Paris after our ten free and easy days in the capital.
Departing at 9.00am, we travelled through the mostly industrial canal to the last lock before the opening to the Seine where the lock keeper demanded about 12 euros. It was explained that 3 euros per night was the fee in the bassin and the balance was for transiting the Canal - the only place in France where a separate fee existed. Not a bad price to pay for a week and a half.
Taking my official receipt back to Van Nelle, we started the engine and entered the river, turning right to head downstream towards the sea to the port of Conflans St Honorine, centre of commercial barging in France and a place that houses the premier museum of water life. We arrived there a day or so later to find it was the first day of the Annual National Grand Pardon de Bataillers - their Blessing of the Fleet festival weekend. We had finally arrived somewhere in time to take part in a major festival.
As we cruised past the hundreds of commercial barges tied four and five deep on both sides of the river, we despaired at being able to find a mooring anywhere near the action. As it happened, the boats had been arranged in such a way that they had left a 30 metre gap right at the town centre. Since commercial boats are 38 metres and need about 40 to fit, it was a spare space that was perfect for our 27 metre length. We quietly slipped in to the space and no one blinked. For three days we were right in the centre of the festival.
That Friday night saw all the restaurants alive with music, from French folk and busker performers to slick rock and roll bands. Saturday was taken up with ceremonies and grand lunches while we explored the museum. That night the grand spectacle was promised in the town park at 10.30pm. (They start such things late since it is light until 10.30). We took low folding chairs to the park and had centre seats, just in front of the sound technicians (always the best place to be as they arrange the sound to suit themselves). Shortly after we arrived, the spectacle began.
The ‘Commandos of Percussion’ entered from behind the thousands of people crammed into the audience area and from the start of the show we knew something very special was going to happen. It was electric. Six semi naked men with science fiction electric drum kits secured to their waists played their way through the huge crowd as they made their way to the stage. Fantastic rhythms from loud and frantic to soft and dreamlike. As the tempo increased, one of their number shed his drums and set to work on a keyboard mounted on the stage. It was an electronic firing mechanism for spectacular fireworks.
In perfect timing with the complex rhythms, the multi coloured jets of fire erupted from just behind the stage to explode immediately over the heads of the audience. It was so close, so immediate and so well coordinated that it was absolutely thrilling. An hour and a half flew by as if seconds and then they were finished. The crowd had other ideas however and as the band tried to play themselves back to their dressing room through the crowd, they were mobbed, surrounded and forced to a standstill - so they just kept on playing. Eventually they stopped, exhausted and soaked with sweat, as was the crowd which had danced itself to a standstill. Tired but still excited, people trooped down the hill from the park to fill up the cafes and brasseries, to sing and dance into the small hours of the morning.
We were up early enough the next morning, Sunday, to bicycle along the riverside to the confluence of the River Seine and the Oise, for which the town was partly named. ‘St Honorine’ being added in remembrance of the saint who came from the district and who had rescued mariners from drowning in an ancient legend of the area. This morning the area was the site of the Grand Pardon Mass and the beginning of the Blessing, which took the Bishop and the officials by boat down the river, past all the barges, to sprinkle the route with holy water as part of the ceremony. They passed Van Nelle on the way out and back so we were twice blessed.
By Tuesday, June 18 it was time to depart Conflans for Paris again and then to head south to pick up two more sets of guests, booked to cruise on the upper Seine and Canal de Briare. But first, we planned to cruise slowly through Paris itself, under the famous bridges and by the landmarks of the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Musee d’Orsay, Notre Dame and the city’s islands - Isle de la Cite and Isle St Louis, and then to turn right at the confluence of the Seine and the River Marne, to head back to St Mammes for our rendezvous.
En route to St Mammes we took a left turn into the Petite Seine to visit Meaux, a town with a ‘Spectacle’ that takes place every Friday and Saturday night. The production features 500 actors - all town’s people, 3,600 costumes, horses, vehicles, special effects and fireworks. This production traces the history of the town from medieval times to the Second World War with music, action, drama and comedy. Placed between the town cathedral and the museum in a town ‘place’ it has grown over the years to include professional scripting and production and semi-permanent sets and props and stadium seating for over 1,000.
The town’s marina is free, including power and water, so on arrival we attacked the pile of washing that had accumulated over a couple of weeks. We were no sooner into the first load when the power dropped out. While we were accused by the Dutch couple alongside of having caused the problem, my investigation showed that our circuit breaker was intact but I went to the tourism office where the officials arranged an electrician. After a brief investigation he discovered that the Dutchman’s friend on another boat was using defective power tools which had taken out the electricity for the whole marina. No-one apologised to us and in fact one guy suggested we should leave, since our boat was too big. I pointed out that the rules of the marina did not exclude us but stated that the maximum stay was two days, and since they had all been there a week, perhaps it was they who should move on. At that the Dutch community shut up and left us alone.
The next day a few more Dutch boats arrived, having to share moorings with their mates who now had to make room for them as they had previously taken a whole jetty per boat. Obviously it was an arranged holiday for a group who resented the Brits and Aussies at the harbour and by taking most of the room tried to keep it for themselves. This was an unusual occurrence since most of the boating crowd are very open and welcoming. As it happened, it didn’t phase us as we just turned on our generator and completed the washing.
The next night we attended the Spectacle, which was - spectacular, and just shows what a town can do when it works together. The script, scenery, seating, lighting, sound effects and acting were all first rate and the whole production bigger than Ben Hur. It was conceived, written, recorded and directed by the town’s artistic community.
A couple of days at Meaux were enough to enjoy the Spectacle, visit the ‘American Monument’ (a huge statue for the dead of the first world war paid for by Americans) and to farewell two English friends (John and Jan) whom we had followed into Paris and Meaux and with whom we had many adventures in St Jean de Losne. They headed east towards Strasbourg and we headed south.
Several days later we were back in St Mammes and ready to take our next set of guests aboard for a four day cruise to Montargis on the Canal de Briare. Penny and Rob were leaders in the computer industry in Perth and were looking forward to a relaxing break from kids and work on the way to Italy for the main part of their holiday. They arrived off the train after Rob had flown direct from Australia to London to be met by Penny and taken immediately to the Eurostar train to Paris then a change of trains to get to Montargis - about a 36 hour, non-stop trip. We welcomed him with the traditional glass of Champagne and set about relaxing them both with some light cruising, some excellent meals and top shelf wines. Interspersed in that routine came the bicycle expeditions ashore to suss out the ancient villages and churches and several games of Boules on the banks of the canals. Boules are small steel balls which are thrown underarm at a smaller wooden or plastic ‘jack’. The nearest boule to the jack wins. Very simple but endlessly entertaining.
While the now rested Rob was eager to drive Van Nelle, play boules and ride bikes, Penny was more content with an easy chair a glass of white wine and the same page of her book, read over again before falling from sleepy hands.
While we often stay in the excellent little ports and marinas built and maintained by the waterside towns and villages, we prefer when possible to just stop in secluded and shady areas along the sides of the canals. A couple of metre long, 3 inch water pipes form our mooring bollards, to be hammered into the soft soil adjoining the canal. The sounds of the birds twittering and the fish plopping in the water are not drowned out by the sound of cars and commerce.
Canal-side stops or ‘wild moorings’ as we call them, are usually accompanied by barbecued meals of Saumon Atlantique, Carre d’agneau, Charolais Boeuf and accompanied by the white wines of Chablis, Sancerre or Pouilly and the reds of Burgundy (Vosne Romanee, Nuits St George) or Chateau bottled Bordeaux. There is also, of course, Champagne in it’s many forms and the excellent Cremant de Bourgogne, a cheaper and very good substitute. Champagnes range from $A25 to $50 while good cremant starts at about $ 10. Throughout France, cheeses proliferate in many forms from soft white Brie and Camemberts to the strong blues of Roquefort and the goat’s cheeses or Crottins. They smell like hell and taste of heaven and are best washed down with a good strong red wine.
The European Union parliament has tried without success to date to curb the French producing cheeses from unpasteurised milk in small village and farm factories. Here’s hoping they never succeed in causing the demise of these wonderful, healthy, tasty fromages.
Our arrival in Montargis saw the re-emergence of Penny and Rob as a couple of rested humans who had spent sun dappled afternoons snoozing on the banks of the canals in big easy chairs and the mornings helping with locks or driving the 27m (88 feet) of Van Nelle through the quiet waterways. They headed off in a hire car for a couple of days of slow exploration towards Dijon and then an overnight train to Florence and their villa in Tuscany.
We had a couple of days to do the washing, vacuuming and restocking of the wine cellar and food pantry before welcoming our great friends and yacht club mates, Ian and Helen Palmer, known to us as the Admiral and Lady Helen. They were to spend eleven days aboard, learning to become experts at big boat barging through Europe.
Our itinerary was to depart Montargis for Chateauneuf, Rogny, Briare, Sancerre and eventually, Nevers where they would take the train back to Paris and the Qantas 747 to Perth. We spent the first day acclimatising them to the boat and the town of Montargis and set off the next morning for the first of some nine days of morning or afternoon cruises, midday stops for a resupply of fresh bread when the locks closed and then completion of the days travelling to our planned destination for the evening - be that a canal side wild mooring or a small port in a town.
The first couple of days saw us visit a number of small villages and while travelling between them, Ian took long hours at the wheel, experiencing the effect of canal suction on the boat and fighting the resultant swing off course with the huge wheel that is attached to the rudder by chain and steel rope - no power assistance here. From basic steering in the canal channels our new helmsman graduated to passing other boats, entering and leaving locks and setting the boat up for long waits at the threshold of closed locks. This can be a demanding enterprise as wind and outfall from the lock pushes the boat off centre and judicious use of the engine and wheel are needed to keep her on track while stopped.
The deck work of handling ropes, arranging them correctly for the position of the boat in locks and especially, controlling the boat when we share the locks with another boat, were also part and parcel of the experience gained on Van Nelle. Narrow bridges and locks set on angles to the approach channel are also challenges that are faced several times an hour by our helms-persons. Time drifts past and hours seem like minutes while the long passages of quiet reflection are interrupted by short bursts of activity.
Briare was not the first town on the trip but with it’s Pont Canal designed by Gustav Eiffel (of Eiffel Tower fame), probably the most spectacular. Arriving here brings the boat into a wide bassin with a fully serviced port on one side and a bank suitable for mooring Van Nelle on the other. At the opposite end of the port, the exit is a bridge some 600 metres long, over a wide river bed, carrying the canal. It’s a weird feeling to be piloting a big boat across this suspended canal, which is exactly what we did the second day after arrival. First though was the need to investigate the extensive and very pretty town of Briare to find a suitable restaurant to celebrate Ian and Helen’s wedding anniversary - no specifics but something over 30 years. We could not find a better place than the Café de Marine, right by our mooring, so that’s where we went. An excellent French meal, brilliant wines, obsequious service (including leaving the wine pouring to ourselves). A perfect place for a great evening of provincial food and wine. Pate’s and ragout, rabbit and fowl, fresh market vegetables, succulent sauces and to finish, fresh fruit and cheeses.
We spent a day exploring the town’s ceramics museum and maritime museum, then wandering through the regional photographic competition exhibition. The next day we headed off across the pont canal, the long Eiffel decorated aqueduct. We had originally planned to make Sancerre the end of this cruise but having found out at Briare that Sancerre did not have a major rail station, we extended the itinerary to finish at Nevers. That required a fair bit more daily mileage so the next morning we were off to Sancerre early.
The wine town of Sancerre is actually some distance away from the canal but two towns on the canal are suitable for stopping at as jumping off places to visit this famous white wine centre. We passed the first, St Satur, which was crowded, and so continued on to Menetreol which had a suitable port. This is a very picturesque town with a huge rail viaduct, now disused, overlooking the town. It has many tiny, twisted houses and some very friendly and helpful inhabitants who gave us the contact number of the local taxi service. The next morning we arranged for Christophe and his taxi to take us on a tour of the local chateau, Bue - a nearby village, the best hilltop lookouts and then into the ancient hilltop town of Sancerre, surrounded by its famous vineyards.
Sancerre has a subsoil similar to that found in Champagne. It is made up of a chalk base which holds in the warmth and moisture during the winter months, thereby protecting and nurturing the fragile vines. The product of these valuable Chardonnay plants is a flinty dry white wine of great character which can be kept for 10 years. Nearby the wines of Pouilly are created on a flinty subsoil and these also have become world famous. We bought a number of the regular vintage and some of the aged specimens to try much later.
All too soon it was time to start the big Baudouin DK6 diesel and head off towards Nevers, with a stop en-route at a wild mooring. Dinner that night was succulent chicken pieces, long marinated in lemon, wine, herbs grown on the back deck, and oil, and slow roasted in the covered barbecue. We put the stereo speakers on the deck and danced as the sun slid behind the trees.
The short distance to Nevers was quickly covered the next morning and a suitable mooring place found adjacent to the Café de la Marine, opposite the small jetties of the Port de Plaisance. Nevers is up a trunk canal off the major route and it was a welcome sight to see a large bassin, suitable for turning the boat. We would not have enjoyed the challenge of reversing several kilometres and through two locks to get back onto the Canal de Briare !
On the way to Nevers a flight of two locks is encountered. Rather than each lock being separated by a short section of canal, these two adjoin each other with the upstream doors to the first admitting you directly into the chamber of the second. This is no more of a challenge than going through two separate locks but it does restrict the traffic as boats heading in the opposite direction cannot pass between the locks and therefore have to wait until you complete both. To add to the challenge however, the locks raise you 10 metres each and are followed by another Pont Canal. As regular locks rarely exceed a gain or lowering of more than 3 metres, this is quite an experience. Fortunately the lock keepers here are very experienced and take your lines via a rope with a hook, dangled over the wall of the lock. Ingress of water to the locks are controlled to ensure boats do not thrash about causing damage to themselves and the lock walls.
So, we arrived in Nevers. Sad farewells to Ian and Helen were preceded by us arranging their trip to Paris, some shopping for last minute gifts for folks back home, an excursion to the Palace of the Ducs de Nevers and the large church that dominates the skyline. The church was half destroyed by allied bombing during WWII but restored following peace. It now boasts very modern stained glass with only two panels of ‘old’ glass, re-created from photographs of the originals.
As Ian and Helen left on July 11, we decided to stay in Nevers for Bastille Day on July 14. This promised to be entertaining with a free symphony concert at 6.00pm and fireworks at 10.45pm. Two other Australian boats and crews were there, an Albany couple Geoff and Lorna Steer and a Melbourne couple, John Doughty and his wife Jan. All of us have a connection, as St Jean de Losne was our common wintering port. Thereby hangs other tales, since the year before, both couples, travelling together did not reach that safe harbour as engine trouble with John’s boat caused extensive delays. Winter ice overtook them as they waited for repairs, forcing John to leave his boat next to a lock some 30km distance from St Jean during the whole winter. On the other hand, the Steers rushed through the forming ice and had their boat craned out of the canal at St Jean, leaving it on shore as they went back to Albany for the European winter - that being the Australian summer.
This had indeed been a busy time with some 600 litres of fuel consumed in some 120 hours of engine use (the fuel also powers the water heater and generator) at a rate somewhat less than 5 litres per hour. During this cruise we had covered more than 800 kilometres at an average speed of around 6kmh. I have not counted the number of locks but it would have been over 200 !
During the next month we cruised south to Roanne, a busy port for many expatriate boaters, back to St Jean de Losne for a visit and an engine service (some 400 hours since leaving there), and then turned south towards the Mediterranean and the Canal du Midi via the mighty Rhone River. We looked forward to another raft of friends from the UK, Australia and Canada joining us and many more confrontations with beautiful foods, wines and scenery.
July 15 to August 17
Decize - canal-side fuelling; Gannay - music and parties; Bourbon-Lancy - night markets; Disappointing Digoin; Briennon - canal musee and Charlieu monastery; Paray le Monial - basilica, art and old friends; Digoine Chateau and Theatre; Montreaux; Montchanin and hangovers; hotel boats and aggravation.
During the next month we had no live-aboard visitors and so devoted ourselves to travel and exploration. That is not to say that we were without company, quite the opposite. When you travel the canals you meet more people in a month than you meet in a year at home !
We departed Nevers after a week, having made our sad farewells to the Palmers shortly after our arrival there. Our next stop was Decize, a fair size town with a cosy canal-side ‘halte fluvial’ just across the street from a large supermarché that had a service station attached. We noticed here that the fuel prices were low this week (they fluctuate 10c regularly) and so decided to try to arrange a fuel delivery.
There are two ways of obtaining fuel in large quantities for a boat like Van Nelle. The first is to buy at canal or river fuel bunker-ships or shore installations, of which there are less and less as commercial barging declines. The second is to arrange for a fuel distributor to send a truck to wherever you are. We chose the second method since there are no fuel stops within days of Decize and, while we had sufficient fuel for another couple of weeks, I choose to keep the tank more than half full whenever possible. We needed 600 to700 litres to fill the tank and since we have only a glass sight tube and dead reckoning as to the exact amount I ordered 600 litres by phone. I did this at the tourist information office, whose staff were kind enough to find a suitable distributor with the right fuel at the right price - delivered.
Quite often you find that while the street price of diesel is (say) 80 cents at the Supermarché service station, the ‘boat price’ is over 90 cents at a bunker-ship at the same time. We had enquired at the nearby boat rental station and they had offered us the same fuel at 1 Euro per litre. We arranged delivery at 70 cents per litre ! One needs to ensure the correct fuel is used since there are three varieties. Gazoil is the diesel for boat engines, red gazoil (at about 34 cents per litre) can only be used for heating and power generation and diesel fuel is a derivative (at about 50 cents) used for domestic heating systems.
We fuelled up, causing quite a stir among other boaties who had not come across that method of obtaining fuel and were all eager to enjoy the price benefits. Unfortunately, unless there are more than a couple of small boats adding their total to more than 500 litres, the distributors are not keen to send trucks running around the country for an occasional 50 litres. The other trap is that, if you order 500 litres, that’s all you get. You cannot extend the amount with the driver, although you probably can refuse to take the complete load if you have over ordered. The trucks have on-board invoice machines but not remote credit card devices, so it is cash or local cheque. We use our French cheque account for the purpose.
While at Decize, we explored the ramparts of the town (early 12th century) and the various waterways that join together there. Decize is the start of the Canal du Nivernais, a beautiful meandering waterway that is punctuated by small, pretty towns and picturesque country vistas. We had explored it about three or four years before with two other couples, on a hire boat from the Locaboat company. Also at Decize is the confluence of the Loire River with the town occupying a sort of island with canals on two sides and the river on a third. Old churches, a monastery turned into a school and narrow streets bordered by half timbered houses make up the scenery, together with a kilometre of walkway between huge plain trees, planted a couple of centuries back.
Garnay was our next stop and by comparison, this is a small village. The little port however is a gem with good water depth at the quai side, plenty of long walls to tie against, electricity and water available free, a toilet and shower block and a port side bar and restaurant. Nearby is the town with a boulangerie for fresh bread, a boucherie for barbecue meats and a small supermarché for other necessary supplies. It was here that we met some new friends and enjoyed music and parties.
On our arrival we were met by a tall, greying, and very cultured Englishman who jumped off his boat to take our lines, injuring himself slightly on a piece of wire near the bollard as he did so. ‘No trouble’ he insisted and disappeared back to his boat after we were settled. Shortly after, as we were fussing over springs and resetting the bow and stern lines, we were accosted by a very playful and very, very shaggy, black dog with an old plastic bottle, much chewed, in his mouth - obviously wanting a game of catch. We indulged him for a while, which automatically meant meeting his owners, a Dutch couple with a 25 metre Tjalk - a converted sailing barge. Huib and Door Winkel have been floating about for 20 plus years, and like us, were just going where they were pointing, unless something or someone came along to provide a reason for a different plan - or indeed a plan at all.
That evening we were entertained by the Englishman, Bob Fellingham, and one of his crew. Bob turned out to be an accomplished accordionist and his crew member played a cut down cello which he had made. They made excellent music ! We ended up staying several days during which we shared convivial times at the local bar and on the back deck of Van Nelle. Barbecues took precedence over formality and parties started at the drop of a cork. We were sorry to leave but as it happened, we leapfrogged Huib and Door for the next couple of weeks, continuing to enjoy their company and getting some exercise by throwing pieces of old kindling for their dog. We also had time during the days to prepare and revarnish parts of the wheelhouse, which was starting to show signs of grey through the gloss.
Leaving Garnay we arrived shortly after at Garnat, another small village, but near to the town of Bourbon Lancy - a beautiful medieval town that was recommended by our Dutch friends as a place to enjoy lunch. We rode the nine kilometres to the town on our Peugeot scooter and were entranced as soon as we arrived. They were right about the beauty of the old town which was like a small historical world with tiny streets and tiny buildings. In one of the streets we were confronted by live music at an outdoor restaurant which not only looked very romantic but was friendly, inexpensive and had delicious charcuterie (plates of meats and breads), omelettes, salads and cheeses. A bottle of Sancerre (chardonnay) was excellent too ! We enjoyed a lazy lunch and wobbled back to the boat after a suitable wait and walk to reduce the effects of the repast.
We decided to continue that day to the next town as it was highly recommended, and, after arrival at Diou, found signs pointing to a night market (Fete Nocturne). We explored a bit and then set off for the field next to the camping area where all was in readiness for the night’s entertainment. The local marching band was seated in the centre, playing their obviously very familiar tunes about three times through, since their repertoire was not extensive. Even we became familiar with the tunes during that concert. Nearby was a rotisserie with huge hams being cooked while next to that was the bar and wood fired oven truck that was turning out loaves of peasant bread (pain paysanne). All around the perimeter of the field were other local produce stalls, beer, honey, cakes, meats, woodwork, wines, cheeses and artefacts. We tried the beer (not very good), the cheeses (very gamey), the wines (pleasant) and then dined on huge plates of ham and frites (chips) after meeting locals in the queue.
Queues are not taken very seriously in France and this becomes a matter of some frustration for us disciplined etrangers. I have arrived at places to be (say) fourth in the queue, only to find that more and more people arrive who know numbers one, two and three in the same line. Soon you find you are number sixteen in the queue and getting further away from the delivery point by the minute. It is at about that time that I take the attitude that ‘good for one, good for all’ is the way to play it, and walk to the head of the queue. You hear some muttered comments occasionally that include the words ‘etrangers’ and ‘connaisance’ and believe that they have recognised that the stranger realises the system and has taken his own action to circumvent it.
No one argues in public but sometimes in crowded boulangeries in bigger towns, and certainly in any La Poste agency, things can get a little heated. In La Poste (the French Post Offices) they now have surveillance video cameras and signs that say "Welcome to La Poste. Our staff are pleased to help you. Please do not commit acts of aggression towards them". I have waited for an hour in a queue of only ten people, as those in front try to outstay those who have made them wait before. When you do get to the top of the queue, the girl puts up a sign "Ferme" and closes the section for lunch. Fun !
We shared a table that night with three French people, a woman and two men who ran the nearby Renault Foundry, making parts for cars and trucks. Conversation in French was simple but very satisfying and we talked for over an hour, understanding most of what was being said. We parted as friends, with offers of tours of the factory if we were ever in the neighbourhood.
Digoin was the next stop. A biggish town and much written about. We found most of it closed or predictable and stayed only long enough to discover there was very little to discover and so moved on to Briennon.
At Briennon you find a very neat port, overlooked by a story book village furnished with very modern looking red brick buildings. Each little two story brick house and building seems to be decorated by boxes of flowers, all in harmony with the layout of gardens tended daily by employees of the Ville. Near to the port is a very neat Musee du Canal, comprising a full size Peniche (38m barge) which has been lifted out of the water and converted into a museum. It is set in a garden that contains a complete miniature canal waterway, complete with locks, pont canals (canals across rivers), ascenseurs (lifting docks), sous terrains (tunnels) and radio controlled model barges. I itched to get my hands on one of the control boxes but feared I would not have the skill of the six year olds currently piloting their boats about the mini-fluviale. We retired from the heat to the air conditioned museum to listen to an hour of very rapid French explanation.
On to Roanne. I should mention that at this stage we had been travelling down the trunk canal that goes off the main North - South route, to the terminal city of Roanne, once a very busy barge port. The port at the end of the canal is vast as it originally had to handle hundreds of busy barges taking coal and other products out of town and bringing supplies and raw materials in. Since the railways and roads took over the job that was once done by barges, the port has converted itself into a popular and well occupied ‘home port’ and wintering harbour for many private boats of all sizes.
Our friends Lindy and Roger Tindley from St Jean de Losne, an English couple we had spent much time with during the past winter, had chosen to move here earlier in the year as Roger spends weeks away piloting remote control submersibles in the North Sea oil fields. Roanne offers better facilities for Lindy, who is left minding the baby - baby boat in this case. We were looking forward to meeting up with them again after a separation of some three months and so looked for their boat as we entered the harbour. We saw it at the end reserved for smaller boats but there was no-one on board at the time. We turned and headed for our berth some two hundred metres away, just near a large marquee that had been erected on the shore side of the port.
We stayed at Roanne for five days, catching up with Lindy (Roger was away working), having grumbling teeth checked by a young and very competent dentist, visiting towns and dams in the area by scooter, and attending the karaoke night market that was held every Saturday night, right next to our mooring (hence the marquee). We invited two new American friends plus Lindy and her daughter to join us on the deck of Van Nelle for a barbecue, and to watch and enjoy the nights amateur entertainment. Fortunately the karaoke finished at 10.30pm so we had no problems having a quiet night sleep.
Our new American friends, Bill and Francis were about to pack up and leave their boat in the care of Jackie the harbourmaster, since Bill had work to do in Dubai. We had other things to do also, especially since the word was out that the Canal du Centre was about to close. This is the canal that we were to take from the top end of the Canal du Roanne to Chalon and thence on to St Jean de Losne via the Saone River. If it were to close before we exited at Chalon we would have to return to Paris and go south via Germany or the Canal Marne et Saone, a detour of about 1,000km. We headed off, ensuring that we made good progress each day so that we could get clear but still enjoy the places of interest still in front of us.
Returning along the Roanne branch canal we again stopped at Briennon and rode our bicycles to the town of Charlieu to see it’s musee and monastery. The town was spared bombing in WWII (unlike Roanne which suffered extensively and has virtually no old buildings), so it offers a beautiful and extensive old town with many venerable ancient buildings set in wide avenues. It also has a beautifully restored Hotel Dieu (hospital) built in the 11th century but updated over time. This closed as the town’s principal hospital only some 10-15 years before and now serves as a dual museum - of silk, a local industry - and of the hospital. Run by nuns until very recent times, this was the maternity, surgery and general hospital for the district. It’s wards are large open rooms which, like dormitories in 1960s boarding schools, were furnished with iron beds around the perimeters of the rooms with only curtains for privacy. The original wooden beds were burned in 1950 as ordered by the Mairie since they were infested with ancient bed bugs !
The town still produces fabulous silk materials that are used in haute couture and in decoration. All the big fashion names are represented by examples of their gowns and in the many pictures of ravishing models, wearing the clothes made from the diaphanous or highly ornamented materials. These, and the methods of production, are all carefully explained in English language written guides.
The nearby monastery is one of the 1600 organisations once managed by its ‘mother’ house, the Cistercian monastery at Cluny. This extensive network of property and production was run, managed and staffed entirely of non salaried monks, making it possible for the gathering of wealth which was the envy, and finally the property, of the revolutionary government of France. The monks owned huge land holdings, the income from which fuelled the growth of their orders. During this period, the French Kings, wanting part of the action, used the rules of the order to install their own management, usurping the right of the monks to choose their own leader, and thereby making it possible to divert much of the income to their own coffers. This cosy system was however upset by the revolution when the committee of public safety ordered all religious buildings and lands forfeit and sold them off to the highest bidders. Since they were at the same time cutting the heads off most of the nobles (who held most of the country’s wealth) it was pot luck as to who ended up owning the lands and chateaux, many of which were vandalised with their buildings ruined by locals plundering the stone and timber to reinforce or build their own homes.
While the museum is the best we have seen in explaining the origin, daily routines and orders of the monks, much of the original monastery was ruined at the time of the revolution, so that while the cloister and some rooms remain, most of the evidence of its passing is told by the foundations that have been unearthed.
On we went to Paray le Monial, a large religious town with extensive facilities for water borne travellers. One approaches the town centre down a tree lined canal, as long as it is straight. On both sides, seemingly for kilometres, are bollards and straight sided walls of deck height. We chose to stop before one of the town’s bridges in a shaded area that proved unfortunately to be exposed to the traffic on the main road. We tied up and explored forward on foot, finding another port section after the bridge in a quieter place. We moved and explored even further forward, only to find yet another port - this one with water and power on tap. We chose not to move a third time as we didn’t need the facilities and were quite happy with our new position.
Paray has a large Basilica which housed the artefacts and remnants of the life of Saint Marguerite Mary who had a vision of the heart of Jesus and started a custom of pilgrimage to the town in the 1800s that has not died out since. The town is geared for pilgrims and religious groups, mostly in the one star category lodgings. They arrive by train, bus and car, to stay in the extensive one star hotels and pensions, camping areas and church owned boarding houses. They attend the basilica and other churches and chapels, where services are conducted, often in languages other than French. There are extensive meeting and exposition facilities, both permanent and temporary. We saw an area furnished with canvas structures such as are used for major temporary events around the world but at least 5 - 10 times the size and extent - acres - hectares of area under modern aluminium framed canvas.
We went on the basilica tour and were learning much about the architecture of churches when a funeral procession entered the church and forced us out into the streets. The one hour basilica tour turned out to be fifteen minutes with the balance being made up by the guide taking us through the old town to the other main attractions. The rest of the town is just as interesting with old streets and buildings predominating. Gustav Klimt, a ground breaking artist of the last century was recognised by a fascinating exhibition of ceramic art, held in the converted tower of a church which had fallen victim to the Revolution, the tower being the only part left standing. We pored over reproductions of his work, made by gluing small pieces of ceramics on a base, instead of brush strokes. Remarkable and very beautiful.
Some New Zealanders from St Symphorien (a marina town near St Jean de Losne) had been to one of our famous Sunday Lunches in St Jean and they turned up here on their 24m Luxemotor barge with a family of paying guests. We chatted, but since they had paying guests (PGs as we call them), we had no chance to party. Just as well, since the last time we had they left us with serious head injuries of the self inflicted kind. There is a clear and present danger of such occupational hazards in this life style and it has a lot to do with liquids - both red and white.
Paray le Monial is an interesting town worth some time to explore so we spent a couple of happy days before setting off to keep ahead of the canal closure deadline, arriving at our next port of call - Digoine - with an E. This is not disappointing Digoin - it is lovely Digoine and features a beautiful chateau that has it’s own theatre and is still occupied by the original family !
The Chateau was a short bicycle ride from the canal where we had stopped in the company of George and Maggie Pringle, a Scots couple who are cruising on ‘Bengta’, a reproduction Luxemotor then 15 years old. The canal side stop is in a quiet location, occupied occasionally by a few fishermen who never seem to catch anything, but if they do, they throw the results back into the canal. Having made fast we took to bikes and arrived at the chateau just before 2.30pm, at which time a conducted tour was about to start. We bought tickets and were shown over the property by (it is rumoured by George and Maggie), the existing family’s grandfather. He certainly knew the whole history of the place, treated it like home and ruled over the property’s stray children just like a grandfather - but perhaps that comes from being the owner of a theatre.
Built purely for the entertainment of the original family, they have a reproduction Italian opera house which is a National Trust monument (but is in need of visitor’s Euros to effect much needed repairs). One can see through the dust and mould to what a gem it was. It would seat about 80 if they were crushed in to the red brocade padded benches in the stalls or the same in the gallery, to witness the Counts and Lords who, as friends of the family, were invited to stay at the Chateau and act out parts in the amateur productions put on for fun. The orchestra pit would fit perhaps three musicians if they played very small instruments, while in the front and centre of the stage is a large prompters box, which, one assumes, was probably much in demand by the amateur thespians who once graced the stage. A couple of programmes, casually pinned to the walls, show that Sara Bernhardt and Offenbach visited. They would have enjoyed the surroundings, as the chateau and its French gardens and English park are very beautiful, tranquil and sumptuously furnished.
On to Montreaux les Mines, a centre of mining - although the much vaunted museum of mining is situated in another town some distance away - and, since I have seen extensive mining operations in Kalgoorlie, I was not enticed away from the canal to visit it. Montreaux offered a market operating right alongside the harbour as we arrived and, at the local three screen movie house, was offering a movie that we wanted to see. That night we went to the movies and while we watched we concentrated as hard as possible on translating the rapid fire French dubbed onto American actors’ lips, but it was too quick and we left the theatre wondering what the nuances of the plot were.
The day we arrived in Montreaux however was also the day of two important person’s birthdays - our son Sean, who had just relocated to Port Hedland, a mining town in the north west of Western Australia, and Miria Jane Cummins - great friend, well known yachtswoman and member of our yacht club. Happy Birthday greetings were made by the magic of the mobile phone. The usual surge of homesick nostalgia was also a result.
We departed Montreaux for Montchanin early the next morning as we had been warned there were nine boats heading in the same direction and we wanted to be ahead of the pack. Following boats without a suitable gap can cause great frustration as many inexperienced water borne travellers can cause havoc with automatic locks and in narrow stretches of the canals, cause long delays. We left promptly and were fortunate to be the first into the stretch ahead that featured a flight of seven locks in one town (7 locks end to end) and a total of 20 for the day’s travel. We went only about 15km in distance but with 20 locks, it added up to a 6 hour travel day. 6 hours is quite a long time to stand at the wheel. Water suction caused by the propeller moving huge quantities of water between the shallow bottom and the hull causes the boat to swing irregularly from side to side, even at very slow speeds, and it becomes tiring fighting the boat back onto a central course. We were pleased therefore to arrive at our day’s destination, Montchanin, in the mid afternoon.
Here we saw the unforgettable outline of a small boat we had encountered at Sens, many weeks before. The owners of the boat, called Chapter III, are Dwight and Fran Fisher, an elderly American couple who reckon that Chapter I was their life before boating, Chapter II was their 30' sailboat on which they navigated the Panama Canal and Chapter III is now their canal boat in Europe. Not bad for a couple well into their 70s ! They introduced us to Bill and Betty, another American couple who have a very small Luxemotor which they believe must have been built to take farm produce to market in the upper reaches of the Netherlands. We invited them all over for a barbecue dinner, after having already had an extensive lunch with Dwight and Fran. Much damage to the brain cells resulted as the ‘water’ stories - good and bad - were recounted.
While everyone accumulates their own experiences, these sessions also pass many shared experiences around so that you often hear the same tales coming back in slightly modified form. Mostly, stories are self deprecating tales of your own misfortune or misadventure, but often they are about accidents and unfortunate occurrences witnessed en-route - and about the arrogance and downright bullying activities of some of the hotel boats plying the waterways.
We were in St Leger later and when we arrived there were a number of large and small boats in a line down a quai outside the town’s port de plaisance. During the afternoon a young man arrived demanding the boats between us and the bridge all move - four boats including two over 25 metres. Several of them were secured with their own stakes that have to be hammered into the ground when there are no bollards available. There already was a suitable area for a hotel boat, with power and water alongside, just 100 metres down stream but this guy wanted to put his boat next right next to the nearby bridge. Why ? So his aged American passengers did not have to walk 100 metres to their tour bus or the nearest bar. The other boats all moved. When they looked like demanding the same of us I demanded proof that a) they had the right to be here at all and b) that they had a particular place reserved for them by the town. They could not produce proof, just bluster, nor did they offer to assist the other boat owners despite having half a dozen young crew members doing nothing. To make matters worse, the hotel boat subsequently arrived and its helmsman, while hanging in the centre of the channel constantly applied power, creating wash and suction, bodily thrusting the moving and untethered boats out into the canal - unnecessarily. This is just a case of arrogant bastardisation which experienced owners will not countenance but inexperienced people acquiesce to.
We have all had experiences with hotel boat crews demanding other boats leave or move since they insist they have precedence. Most times they have no such rights but they work on the gullibility of the hire boat users and part time privateers. We have developed a technique to handle them which consists of politely agreeing to move - after they furnish written proof of their authority, from the Mairie concerned. If they cannot do so, we don’t move. They learn eventually that they are not the owners and rulers of all they survey. In places where there is such priority, signs are displayed with schedules attached, showing which hotel boats are expected and when. We are all happy to accept such provisions.
Many first time travellers to France are convinced they will be confronted by similar arrogant and unhelpful Frenchman. While I’m sure these fabled ogres do exist (and have actually encountered one or two, mostly in not very good restaurants), they are very rare and are greatly outnumbered by the rest of the population, many of whom go out of their way to be helpful and friendly. We were stopped at a lock when approached by a young man who had been explaining the operations of the mechanisms to his two young children. He enquired shyly whether we were Australian, having seen the flag, and chatted about his son’s (his ?) fascination with boats. He was originally from the area and was on holiday with his family. He pointed out his very pretty wife standing by their Renault vehicle nearby.
"Would we perhaps consider taking them on board for the short trip to the next town ?" he asked, and we readily agreed with the usual warnings about the dangers to young children on big boats.
It was a hot day and we offered cordial and cookies as we departed the lock en route to Briennon. The kids crawled over the hot decks and the young father quietly kept them well under control as we slowly meandered through the countryside. Around the final turn the next town and its port lay ahead. I advised the father that we would stop at the port to let them off and then continue to our preferred mooring just around the next corner. While we were tied up he explained he was now living near Bordeaux at the great wine town of St Emilion and if we were ever near we should contact him. He was, he explained, a clarinetist with the Bordeaux Opera and he would love to reciprocate our hospitality by arranging a concert or a visit to the opera. We delightedly exchanged names and addresses with promises to contact them. A small exchange leading to an opportunity to experience the real life of France. Opportunities like that happened often to us and to others. One couple who moored canal side in front of a house were even asked if they would like to stay at the house during the heat of summer as it was air conditioned and the family were off for a week’s holiday the next day. They were given the key to the family house having known the owners for just two days !
We were now on the home stretch for St Jean de Losne, our jumping off place for the next big adventure, the trip down the mighty Rhone River to the Canal du Midi. First, we had to get to St Jean, service the engine and catch up with 4 months of accumulated business mail and other bits and pieces, plus the social life that flavours our lifestyle there. To do so meant travelling through Chagny, on to Chalon sur Saone and then the 60km trip to St Jean.
Chagny offered a market on the morning after our arrival which we took in and then prepared to depart. As we untied the boat we saw Bill and Betty arriving. We were tempted to do a Sunday lunch with some of the delicious ready-to-eat foods on offer at the market - but resisted and left them to it. We headed off in slightly overcast conditions but had a mostly dry trip to Chalon. On the way we were some times held up for half an hour at a time at unmanned locks that were not programmed for a stream of one way boats. Lock keepers arrived in cars and with long discussions on mobile phones, kept the procession of hire boats and ourselves slowly moving on.
The final lock into Chalon is a monster by comparison to the en-route locks in the canals. This one drops the boat more than10 metres into a dank and humid pit, towered over by the huge guillotine door and chains that raise it above your boat as you pass through the exit to the river. We have been through other, larger locks in Belgium and Holland but this one, after so long away from the big commercial waterways, is one that awes.
We were not keen to go into Chalon and also wanted an early start for the 12 km per hour dash to St Jean on the Saone River the next morning so we asked the eclusier if we could remain overnight at the floating pontoons used by boats waiting for the lock. He agreed and we secured Van Nelle after exiting to the river side. Fortunately only two more sets of boats passed through in our direction before the ecluse closed for the night so we were virtually uninterrupted by the huge amounts of water that exit the locks as it operates. This ecluse is 40metres long and 7 wide with a depth of 10.5m - almost 3,000 cubic metres of water coming our way - is that 3,000 tonnes of water ?
We were up early the next morning and took the short trip out to the river at slow speed to let the Baudouin engine warm up before throttling it up to achieve 12 km/h against the current. Only three locks separate St Jean from Chalon and they are all huge in size but not in depth. They take a while to operate since they measure about 100 metres by 20 with a rise or fall of about 2.5m, but there was little other traffic on the river so we made the distance in 5 hours. As we arrived, so did our friends, Caroline and Matthew, who had been in the UK for a week celebrating birthdays and had just driven down from Dijon where they had left their car while away. A great piece of timing.
That night we had drinks to meet their guests, daughter Sam and boyfriend Ben (another pilot) and to plan the rest of the week. It was to be quite a schedule. Dinner was arranged for 8 people on Van Nelle for Wednesday, water skiing on the river for Thursday - a holiday in France for Assumption - with a visit to town for the fireworks on Thursday night and, a dinner at the local Brasserie, L’Amiral, on Saturday. Other friends were returning to or passing through St Jean during the week so there were more dinners and drinks to be arranged and weathered. By chance, a couple of the people I had taken my barge operators license with were also arriving within days so the pace was guaranteed to be fast and furious.
The next week then was filled with servicing the main engine from the sump of which I scooped out about 10kg of the accumulated sludge of 30 years and into which I poured 40 litres of specialised heavy duty diesel oil. We revarnishing parts of the wheelhouse; stocked up with necessary parts and supplies, there was new cordage to be bought, spliced and applied, and some areas of paintwork to be renewed. We updated the website with new pictures (and these simple musings), and caught up with the business mail and other routine matters, while between, before and after such tasks lay the real jobs of socialising and circulating. Very important stuff.
While we worked and played we thought about our coming journey on the mighty Rhone River of which we had heard so much. The section of the Rhone we were to navigate is about 450 kilometres long with six major locks that retard the flow from the Rhine, the Saone, the Doubs and the Rhone itself - into huge hydro electric systems and thereby tame the ice melt and summer rainfall. These watery inputs can raise the speed of the current to 8 km/h, a speed at which it becomes difficult to stop big boats and dangerous to manoeuvre in when approaching bridges, locks and moorings. It does have the advantage of speeding up the trip however. Add the current (at this time about 4kmh) to Van Nelle’s cruising speed of 12 and we will travel at about 16kmh - we might be able to water ski.
Last night we had Matt and Caro’s crew over for dinner and this morning they arrived to take me out to ski on the river. I learned originally on two skis at the age of 12 and had my next lesson in Acapulco some 18 years later when I achieved the feat of standing on a single ski. I think I had been invited as an object of fun - ‘lets see how the olds can fall off’ sort of thing. Fortunately it went according to my plan not those of the young Turks. I got up on the first run and on the second, shook off the second ski and stayed upright, crossing the towing boat’s wake at speed. Victory was sweet. The crew in the boat, excellent skiers all (including the ski instructor boyfriend of Matthew’s daughter), were full of praise so I guess I scored a point or two. One for the ‘olds’.
So, life was pretty good at that moment, especially since the sun was out, friends abounded and an adventure lay ahead. We can’t wait.
Chapter Seven - Down the Rhone to the Canals Entre Deux Mers
August 18 - September 14
The last week at St Jean de Losne before heading onto and down the River Saone to the Rhone River presented us with some quiet and some raucous times. We had waited at St Jean longer than planned since we expected Helen and Ian McLean, a Canadian couple to return from Strasbourg on their 24m luxemotor barge Mea Vota. I had taken my French barge masters ticket a couple of years earlier in a group that included Helen so we were keen to meet Helen’s husband and their three children. Alister 12, Wendy 8 and Eleanor 6 had previously accompanied their parents for a year on Mea Vota, which the family had just sold. Their return to St Jean was planned for the 24th so we had about a week to finish the small jobs around the boat, varnishing, painting, splicing new lines on fenders, and catching up with friends before meeting up with them. The work periods were quiet but the social occasions were raucous as usual.
Rounds of lunches, dinners and drinks were punctuated by visits to other people’s boats and even some outings to fairs at neighbouring towns, since we had access to our 14 year old Renault 21 voiture (car). August is a period of fairs and religious celebrations and many nearby towns had organised and advertised events. These normally take the shape of a centrally placed market with stalls offering local produce; wines, honey, cheeses, meats and breads; and entertainment in the form of parades, musicians and firework displays. In many cases an outdoor café serves simple but inexpensive meals while the bar does a roaring trade in beer, kir (white wine and cassis) and soft drinks. Entertainment carries on through the evening until 10.30 when the sun finally sets and fuses to the fireworks are lit.
Eventually the revelling ended with a ‘grande feu d’artifice’ (fireworks) over the river at St Jean followed by a long dinner at Gilles restaurant ‘L’Amiral’ and we were off, early on the morning of Saturday 24 August. We had a date to make, to meet our guest, Grace Piccardi, in Avignon on Monday, 2 September, only 9 days away. This meant a journey of some 550 kilometres, some of which was to be current assisted as we were travelling downstream but the first section of the trip was to retrace the passage to Chalon sur Saone through which we had recently passed on our way back from Paris. As we did not want to stay there we made an early start, went straight through and onto the River Saone, travelling all day to reach Tournus by 4.30, after an eight hour cruise. The trip south was first to be on the Petit Saone at St Jean which turns into a long bypass canal taking you to Chalon where it becomes the full River Saone. This channel takes the waters of the north down about 240km to join the Rhone river at Lyon whence the Rhone continues some 250km south to the Mediterranean. Here starts the Canals Entre deux Mers - the Canal du Midi to Toulouse and the Canal Lateral a la Garonne from Toulouse to Castets whence it empties into the Garonne River to allow navigation to Bordeaux and onward to the Atlantic Ocean.
Arriving in Tournus we passed the first mooring, a quai with no services near the bridge that spans the wide river at this ancient city, and drifted downstream to check out the Port de Plaisance. As usual, it was full of small and medium size boats taking up far more room that they needed by leaving over generous space between themselves. Even with extensive movement of a number of small craft we would have been too big so we turned 180 and went back to the old quai. Here too the boats were spread apart (but fewer of them) and after a strongly worded request to ‘please move or have us come alongside’ we caused the necessary action. The only boat that actually needed to move had only to drift up about 4 metres to let us in and provide each of us with sufficient space. This was completed to the muttering of the owner’s wife, who had now lost her piece of shade from the overarching bridge. C’est la guerre !
We took a quick walk through town to get fresh bread and familiarise ourselves with the many attractions listed in the charts. The town is positioned between the coloured roofs of Burgundy and the dun coloured stone and pottery topped buildings of the south and was so strategic the Romans built it up as an important staging and storage centre during their 500 year occupation of the region. Now it is a light industrial base but it owed its development after the Romans to monks who made it an important monastic and religious centre. Then, the French Revolution’s administration summarily took over religious land and buildings and sold them off to bourgeois merchants, so that many remained intact and which can now be visited as museums, while others not attractive to prospective new owners were razed and the building materials used by local peasants for their own abodes.
The next morning we departed early again, eager to make large distances while the weather was pleasant and the river was helping us along without being tempestuous from late summer rain. We received a boost of about 3 - 5 km/h throughout the journey south, allowing us to run the engine at medium power and conserving fuel while still travelling at about 15 km/h. With some 30% of power in reserve we achieved 17 km/h (about 8 knots) at one stage and for long periods cruised at 15 - 16. During the trip we consumed 7 litres of diesel fuel per hour - just under a litre per kilometre, whereas we average just under 5 lph doing 7 km/h on canals and about 10 lph at full revs.
Macon was our staging point for lunch, while we planned to reach Trevoux before shutting down for the night. This would mean that in two days we travelled 170 km in just 16 hours at an average of just over 10 km/h. The lower average speed is explained by the sometimes long waits at the huge locks that punctuate the trip, to allow monster commercial ships to catch up and take precedence.
The monster locks are 195 metres long and 15 metres wide and can accommodate a number of standard 38m peniches, whole fleets of pleasure boats or just one massive inter-country hotel boat. The locks drop Van Nelle in steps of 10 to 20 metres from the higher upstream river level to the lower level downstream. Each ecluse along the Rhone is accompanied by a hydro electric power station that both harnesses the power of the river and provides free electricity. The great benefit to boaties is the reduced current during times of ‘crue’ or flood, caused by rain or snow melt. Despite these barriers, the flow can get up to 7kmh making it treacherous for underpowered boats to stop at locks and to navigate bridges. Despite huge floods in eastern Europe (Austria, Hungary) at this time, we were unaffected, since those flood waters fed rivers that flowed east from the mountains that border France and not into the centre of France and the Rhone.
Macon is a very impressive city and a centre of wine production for Cotes de Rhone and Burgundy vintages. Indeed, it is famous for it’s Macon varieties and the huge national wine fair held each year. Founded in the 11th century, Macon was an independent state until bought by Saint Louis (King Louis 9) in the mid 1200s after a bloody fight with rival city, Dijon. Several changes of management followed as Burgundian lords fought Northern kings for power and prestige but it finally acquiesced in 1455 and as part of France, got on with improving it’s wines. We took a quick walk through the town to discover it’s ancient wooden houses with carved panels decorating and completing the external walls, and even received the bonus of some brilliant organ music as we visited the cathedral during the late morning service, enhanced by masterfully rendered Bach toccatas and fugues. We departed Macon, determined to spend more time here on our trip back up the river next year, and headed off to meet up with friends in Trevoux.
Our English mates from St Jean’s previous winter, John and Jan, met us in Trevoux and helped us with our lines at the stone quai, as again, the port was full of small boats. We don’t mind being excluded from these ports if there is a safe alternative elsewhere since we carry sufficient water and a generator to provide power if we are not cruising. In this case we stopped at the quai which has a sign at the extreme other end (it is about 150m long) warning of the precedence reserved for hotel boats. There were none at the time so we happily tied up and visited the nearby boules competition that was in swing at the time. I was fascinated by the extreme concentration of the hundreds of four person teams - all trying to win through to the finals to take away what looked like pretty ordinary plastic trophies. The women’s teams were just as focussed and aggressive as the men and provided great studies for close up photos.
That night we enjoyed a long dinner on board with our friends and the next day explored this fascinating small town that is overshadowed by an extremely old fort. Partly in ruins, the fort still has a couple of towers that when scaled, offer wonderful views of the surrounding country side and the winding river from which it rises. The Saone river, on which we travel from Chalon to Lyon, is huge and the Rhone, from Lyon to the Mediterranean Ocean is even more impressive as it opens out into straight stretches 10 km long and 500 - 700 metres wide.
We were now close to the Rhone which is just 31 kilometres south of Trevoux and we were made aware of the fact when, the next afternoon, we noticed a couple of big carts of linen (sheets, towels, mats) were brought out of a truck and rolled to a concrete ramp very near our wheelhouse. I took this as a clue and looking back realised the port was now nearly vacant in preparation for an arrival and so we moved the boat. Shortly after, a massive inter-country hotel ship arrived.
Now we are pretty impressive in size at 88' or 27 metres and the hotel boats made from converted commercial peniches (barges) are even more so at 38 metres, but the Rhone River hotel boats are really impressive ships. Measuring 110 metres long, they take up the space of more than 4 of us ! They are not the sort of boat you want nudging up alongside at 3.00am, which is possible if you take one of their moorings since they travel at night to allow their passengers the greatest amount of time ashore during the days.
We explored the balance of the town that sunny afternoon until rain stopped play then retired aboard for another fun filled dinner with Jan and John. During our stay here we also met Bruce and Jane Berriman on their 60' yacht Tiger Moth out of Auckland. Bruce is a member of the America’s Cup Race Committee for New Zealand and he lives and owns property now in Newport, Rhode Island, USA with his American born wife Jane. They were heading south to put their boat in storage so he could fly out to Auckland to sit in judgement of the transgressions of the various competing nations. On board as guests were John and Anne, he the past commodore of the Auckland Yacht Club - hosts to the challenge this year. We were to see them again in Lyon, take a table together at a restaurant and have some pleasant hours chatting over drinks on the back deck of Van Nelle. Bruce of course had met many of the crew members from Australia’s challenges including Scottie McAllister and Chink Longley from our club, the Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club which provided many of the winning Australian crew.
Sad to see our friends John and Jan head the wrong way (north and back to St Jean de Losne), we cast off our lines the next morning and headed for the City of Lyon, second in size to Paris. Despite this boast, Lyon is a manageable size with only 1.2 million inhabitants and it is known as a gastronomic centre with great historical significance. Originally a centre of silk material manufacture, Lyon at one time boasted over 18,000 silk weavers and its buildings were huddled around tiny, narrow alleys through which the finished cloth was carried to the dying factories and the warehouses of the merchants. These narrow alleys, once useful for keeping the silk out of rainy and dirty streets, became pestilent over the ages. In very recent times, and thanks to the town council and the Minister for Culture in France, the area has been classified a historical monument and is now being completely refurbished. Houses here are now sought after and very expensive and their passageways opened up to tourists to walk through to discover the charms and vagaries of middle ages architecture.
Overlooking the old city is the Fouviere Basilica, the church of St Jus, built to provide divine protection to its donor during the plague. The church is an amazing wedding cake of a building, highly decorated on the outside and positively amazingly over-sumptuous inside. From its courtyards one gets views for 10s of kilometres, taking in the roofs and spires of the city below.
Nearby (a 10 minute walk), is the ancient Roman theatre and it’s attendant museum of Roman history. This theatre, like many others of it’s kind throughout the south, has been rebuilt to a safe standard and enhanced by modern lighting and sound, to provide today’s theatre groups the chance to perform in front of thousands of modern spectators in an ancient setting. Unfortunately there were no plays or concerts that week since the Lyon Festival had finished a week or two earlier. We spent hours in the museum and walking over the stage before again taking the cable car back down the very steep hill to the ancient city and its modern day bars for a beer.
Drinks on board and dinner in town with Bruce, Jane, John and Anne capped off a great day in Lyon, where you moor right in the centre of town under weeping willow trees.
Eager to get down to Avignon on time we set off the next day after shopping and checking our email. Unfortunately, the international roaming internet program I use has been updated with access only to high speed, local toll free numbers. This does not always suit the slow speed of the mobile phone modem and connection is difficult on the move. I found an internet café where the owner was happy for me to plug into his phone line since it would cost him nothing. That way I was able to do the banking, send and receive emails and check our website using our own portable PC.
We departed at 11.00am and now loose on the might Rhone river having left the comparatively smaller Saone River behind. While there does not appear to be a great difference between the two waterways initially, the reputation of the Rhone, especially when in flood, makes you feel somewhat apprehensive. This day however there was no flood and we slid out into the stream without great effort and faced downstream.
Pushed along by the 4 km/h current we rapidly made Andance, the next town with facilities for boats. We tied up to a slope-sided quai and made use of one of the three boulangeries for fresh bread. This is a really pretty little town that has considerably enhanced its river frontage which is now a row of very attractive refurbished stone warehouse / homes. Having explored and shopped, (just for something completely different), we dined on home made hamburgers that night - McDaniell burgers with the lot!
After a restful night we resumed our cruise early as we planned to stop in and explore Valence as we had read much about it in our guide books and charts. Unfortunately there was nowhere suitable to stop in the town so we continued on to Viviers, arriving at 7.00pm. Travelling at ‘night’ is no real problem as the few locks stay open until 9.00 or 9.30 and it is still light at that time although the days are now getting shorter. We had grown used to the sun coming up at 5.30 and staying that way until 10.30. To have the sun go down now at 9.30 is a little disappointing as it signals the beginning of the decline of summer.
Viviers is a small river town off the main stream by 500 metres with a (very) small port and a large stone quai. The sight of huge steel mooring piles and the knowledge that this was a very attractive and remarkably well kept historic village made us realise that it was also a probable haunt for the huge hotel boats. We sized up a possible mooring inside the steel piles, allowing for a big boat to be outside us but protected from it by the piles. There was one problem however, a recalcitrant boat owner who had parked right in the middle of the only available space. We finally moved him to one end, allowing room for us both, and we closed down for dinner.
The next morning we found the tourist office, gained a walking map of the town and spent a couple of lazy hours in the sun, discovering the many charms of this stone village. It has a cathedral on the top of its hill, since a bishop moved in hundreds of years ago. When we stepped inside we were embraced by the sound of the rich notes of the organ. The organist, a young woman, was practising and we took advantage of the fact to enjoy a private concert. Leaving the church we wandered down the main street to discover a pottery where we were able to acquire a matched set of stone bottles, complete with pourers, for oil and vinegar.
On arrival back at the quai we discovered the other boat had gone but standing nearby were 4 huge tour busses. That could only mean one thing as we were shortly advised by one of the drivers - the imminent arrival of a monster hotel boat. We decided that prudence was the best course of action and after scrubbing the decks clean of the sap from Lyon’s weeping willows, we set off for Port L’Ardoise.
After a lazy few hours cruising south there was some disappointment on arrival as the suitable spots for boats our size had been taken. No problem, there was a concrete loading dock opposite, quiet and secure which we took advantage of as it also offered shade which we used in order to keep the drinks cold. During this period the temperatures were exceeding 30 degrees and humidity was also high. We did not bother to explore Port L’Ardoise as it appeared to be mostly industrial and there were no glowing descriptions of it in the reference material on board. The next morning promised another hot day so we planned to set off early to enjoy the cool of the 14 km/h apparent wind caused by our passage.
We left L’Ardoise on schedule and headed down river for Avignon and after threading our way through the approaches under menacing forts and chateaux, were overcome on our arrival. Avignon is a truly beautiful city. As we turned the corner of the Rhone into the tributary branch that leads back to the centre of town, we were confronted with the ruins of the legendary ‘pont d’Avignon’ the bridge of Avignon made famous by the song. Overlooking this site are the town’s defensive ramparts and beyond them the Palace of the Popes and the cathedral. Spread around the town is a very intact wall, punctuated by guard towers. The sights as they come into view are breathtaking from the uncluttered aspect of the river and we were truly impressed.
We passed the four remaining spans of the original 22 span ‘pont d’Avignon’ humming "sur le pont, d’Avignon, tous les danser, tous les danser" and rounded the spur jetties of the port which we passed in favour of the fully serviced quais just past the marina. Finding a suitable spot just behind an ocean going yacht bearing the stars and stripes, we gently nosed Van Nelle into the quai against the current and Maureen stepped ashore to secure the bow line to the waiting bollards. Quickly a stern line and springs were attached with the help of our neighbours from the boats positioned fore and aft, and we were secure in the dress circle of this fabulous place. Within minutes we had connected to the electricity and water and were raring to get to grips with the town.
Catholic France provided the town of Avignon to the popes fleeing from enemies in Rome but used the river as a strong barrier to stop them breaking out of the town to take over more of La Belle France. Avignon served as the centre of catholic religion from 1304 to 1377 with seven Popes reigning here as they built and extended the palace, the cathedral and the commerce of the city. The famous bridge connected the papacy to France and was guarded at each end by their respective soldiers. The Popes had been forced to flee Rome over squabbles about land and power but their enemies were not long standing and eventually they left France to take up residence again in Rome, leaving a wonderful heritage in the form of magnificent buildings - now museums.
The old walled city can be bicycled around in less than an hour and bisected in 20 minutes. The streets run at crazy angles out from the major boulevarde that runs through the centre, starting near the huge square that stands before the Papal Palace and the Cathedral and flanked by the Mint. This square is the focal point for tour groups and is constantly alive with free concerts given by street musicians eager to sell their professionally produced CDs.
Running off the square, the main boulevarde is full of the famous name shops of Europe and the little streets running away from it, full of tiny restaurants, bars and boutiques. Around every corner is another sight of antiquity and charm. Outside the walls the modern city has expanded with a new TGV (fast train) station that looks like a modern airport and many supermarkets and large specialty shops. Exploring Avignon could take a week and you would still have much to see and do. Every day there is a fresh food market in a square or under the city walls where new fruits and old favourites gleam, fresh from the gardens and ateliers of the region.
As we had our next guest arriving at Avignon in a couple of days, we chose to leave the interiors of the papal palace and cathedral for a tour of discovery with her and turned our attention to the walls, fortifications, streets and markets. We, together with the crews from the boats moored before and behind us, also rode our bicycles in a convoy to a nearby town to experience the fun of that town’s agricultural and cultural fair. While much of the fete was centred around the impressive displays of local produce and its production, the star turn was the arrival in the arena of the parade of antique horse drawn carriages and carts, complete with passengers and their conducteurs in traditional costumes, including a full wedding party and a priest on his donkey.
Three days passed in a flash as we got to know Hayward and Charlotte from North Carolina, the American owners of the large luxury yacht, and Arno and Monika from Germany, owners of a smaller but very useful barge. The Americans had sailed three quarters of the way around the globe, also going extensively from south to north on their way here. They came on board for drinks bearing a bottle of Jacobs Creek Shiraz wine, bought duty free in Darwin after they had sailed there from Queensland and before departing for Indonesia. Monika and Arno were on their annual boating excursion and were due to return to Germany a couple of days later to go back to work in order to finance their next year’s travels.
After a day or so, Bruce and Jane, another New Zealand / Australian / American couple arrived, keen to soak up the town before flying out for the America’s Cup. They also sailed in (not literally as their mast was in storage at the coast) in their beautiful ocean cruising yacht. Bruce emigrated to the US years before where he bought and ran a hotel in Rhode Island and had become a judge in the New York Yacht Club’s America’s Cup team.
A slight hiccup occurred with our next guest’s arrival. Grace Piccardi’s train from Rome to Nice arrived late, missing the connection to Avignon. We received a call from her just after the train she should have been on arrived and departed from Avignon without her but with us standing on the platform wondering where she was and what to do next. We discovered there was a train from Marseilles to Avignon in an hour that took less than 30 minutes to cover the distance so we sat at the station restaurant for refreshments and awaited her arrival. 90 minutes later she was alighting from the train and shortly after we had her ongoing tickets organised and were off to the boat in a taxi. The traditional French Champagne was of course served on her arrival on board and since it was getting late, an early dinner also served that extended until after 1.00am as we caught up on news from Western Australia, whence she had come.
The next day we left the boat for the grand tour of the Papal Palace and more.
Visitors to museums in France are given a hand held guide machine like a tape recorder included in the price of the ticket so that at each point of interest during the 2-3 hour tour, a number on the wall is used to start the commentary of that area. In this way you can take your own time and by using the major and minor numbers offered, learn more or less and take more or less time. The palace is enormous and lavish. Mostly unfurnished (since it has had different purposes over the intervening hundreds of years, including being a gaol and an army barracks), it is rebuilt inside and out so that you can visit it’s entirety and learn what each room was used for and by who. It was not only the Popes that travelled here but also their clerks, managers, army and other bureaucrats. The vast Catholic empire was ruled from here and since in those times the church ruled over many monarchies, it was the centre of the Holy Roman Empire. It is said that Rome is wherever the Pope is and he (they) were at Avignon.
The famous pont d’Avignon was inspired by a peasant named Benezet (later sainted) who was called on by God to build a bridge here. He impressed the local ‘king’ by moving a stone that eight men could not shift and laying it as the foundation stone of the 22 arch bridge. Carried away on numerous occasions by the flooding Rhone River, it was rebuilt time and time again until 1668 when they gave up and built elsewhere. Where the song now says "On the bridge at Avignon, all are dancing all are dancing", it originally was written as "Under the bridge...." (Sous le Pont rather than Sur le Pont), since the path on top was unpaved and dangerously narrow. The famous regional dances that were celebrated here were actually conducted under the first span, safe from weather and the danger of falling off or impeding traffic.
All too soon we had to leave Avignon as time was pressing and we had a number of key towns to pass through on our way to Aigues Mortes, from where we had arranged Grace’s onward travel to Italy. We departed Avignon after our 5 days, vowing to spend more time there on subsequent journeys. We headed south once more, this time to Arles where we stopped on the floating pontoon provided for pleasure craft. This is just across the river from the main part of the old town in which is found a remarkably well preserved Roman Arena (where bull fights are held) and an Amphitheatre (where plays and concerts are held). Electricity and water are provided on the pontoon which leads up to the high town walls and a conveniently located bridge on which one can cycle into town.
The day we arrived the markets were in full swing so we spent time wandering through the antique stalls on our way to the Arena. After buying tickets that last three months and give access to about 7 attractions including three museums, we toured the arena, the theatre, the Arlatan Museum, the Van Gogh espace (there are no Van Gogh paintings in Arles despite his enormous output from here) and the huge and highly decorated church in the main town square.
Seeing the colourful posters advertising the bullfights for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I was convinced I had to see one of these bloodthirsty spectacles while they are still allowed and so bought my ticket. In high demand, almost all of the 12,000 seats were sold. Being a single I managed to get a reasonable seat and went away wondering what it would be like.
The weather was beautiful and we arranged a barbecue on the back deck in order to provide the accompanying food to the bottle of Chateauneuf du Papes which we bought at the Avignon palace. The name means the new castle of the popes and the wine is the most highly regulated in the French industry. Famous for it’s flavour and association with the papacy, Chateauneuf du Papes is a full bodied red, full of power but smooth with it, a perfect accompaniment to grilled or roasted meats.
During the afternoon, a neighbouring yachtie advised that the officers of the port had been around and were concerned that Van Nelle was too big for the pontoon (which I later discovered is reserved for boats up to 12 metres). They showed no signs of returning and as we and the pontoon were perfectly safe we thought no more about it until the next morning.
The next day during breakfast saw the return of two men looking very concerned about our size. They had no alternative to offer and I made it clear that I would stay until a suitable mooring was provided, pointing out the lack of available space at the port area which was exclusively reserved for the monster hotel boats. It was decided to visit the offices of the VNF (who ‘own’ the rivers) in order to discover alternatives. Unfortunately the ‘chef’ was absent until after lunch so a meeting was arranged for 2.00pm. Meanwhile I went over the river to the reserve to check out if Van Nelle could take a space there without hampering the hotel boats. I discovered a suitable place (I thought) and took that information to the meeting.
While I was away from the boat however, a customs launch pulled up on the outside of Van Nelle and her officious officers boarded her, demanding the ship’s papers of Maureen. She obliged and they made it known that while we were registered in Holland our Australian flag was improperly hanging off the stern. They take it seriously that the correct flag should be shown to advise the country of registration and on my return warned of the transgression and possible fines if flag etiquette was not adhered to. It is a common practice here among pleasure craft that the country of origin of the owner is shown rather than the registered port but obviously the customs officers have a job to do. They didn’t comment on the fact that we were wearing the blue Australian flag and not the more correct red ensign !
The meeting with the chief of the VNF was unsatisfactory as they could only offer a place outside three commercials (OK for us but not suitable with a guest of cautious nature), or a place at the base of a 30' ladder up the walls (also unsuitable to us all) and they advised that the depth at the commercial quai was too shallow, a fact I had been unable to determine due to the silt in the water. We were advised however that there was a suitable place at Fourques. This town is some 8 km by river as we had to back track up the Rhone to the beginning of the Petite Rhone and then navigate it for some distance. This brings you to the back of Arles about 1 kilometre from where you started. We wanted to remain close since the bullfight was the next day and the girls wanted more time in the shops, so we set off.
Fourques was entirely unsuitable. The quai indicated no longer exists and the alternative was inaccessible due to the current and besides, was far too small. I reckon I can put Van Nelle in some pretty difficult to navigate spots but this one was not worth the risk. We sailed on to make the village of St Gilles by 6.00pm. While St Gilles is a busy rental boat base and winter harbour, the town is not interesting. As it transpired, none of this turned out to be too bad. We had to go in this direction to make our pre-arranged itinerary and we were now on the canal and off the river system which is protected from floods. The VNF and city officials had suggested floods were on the way which I had felt may have been a ploy to get us to move, but despite this we were actually doing what we wanted to do with only a slight diversion.
The next day at St Gilles, we craned the scooter off the boat to take me into Arles for the bullfights while the girls took the bus to nearby Nimes, another very historic and attractive large regional town with Roman ruins, which is not on the canal.
We are now of course in Provence, the area made famous to many by the books of Peter Mayle - ‘A Year in Provence’ and ‘Toujours Provence’. The overwhelming impressions are: the change of architecture to low, dun coloured stone and tile buildings; royal blue and yellow dominant colours everywhere; Roman ruins; fortress towns, walled cities; extensive renovation and preservation of historic buildings; people in regional costumes and fresh produce. This is the Van Gogh area (Arles was where he was hospitalised and cut off his ear) and where he produced more than 350 paintings in less than a year. Despite this, there are no Van Gogh paintings in the town.
This is also the area of the Camargue, the famous sprawling wilderness of marshes and wild horses. The people here are darker and speak with a harder, more nasal twang. There is a great deal of Spanish and Moorish influence in customs, clothing, architecture and food and there are tourists everywhere ! Even us.
I rode the little Peugeot scooter towards Arles, eventually joining the extension of the auto route (while being rudely honked at by passing lorries) that led into the historic town. Most of the main streets were cordoned off by hordes of Police Municipale and Gendarmes but as they treat scooters like pedestrians I was able to ride directly to the main entrance of the arena. Surrounding the huge Roman gladiatorial centre, large crowds were taking advantage of the sunshine and the many bars and restaurants, to indulge in late lunches of yellow piles of rice, prawn and chicken paella and jugs of sangria, the Spanish spiced wine. A very loud and not too expert brass band played loud bullfight type music in the square outside the main entrance to entertain the crowd as the time approached 5.00pm and the start of the event.
The arena inside was packed with about 12,000 people and the carefully raked sand floor was decorated with two oval shaped white lines and a large W brand in the centre. Shortly after 5.00pm the big (and very professional) band struck up ‘Toreador’ from the opera ‘Carmen’ and the event started with the parade of the combatants. First, two beautifully groomed horses with their equally beautifully clothed riders shepherding the three matadors, followed by nine junior toreros and then the picadors on their heavily armoured horses. Other costumed participants followed in swirls of brightly coloured uniforms and when the parade was complete they all swirled out of the ring or to the protection of the inner fence that is punctuated by covered entries through which the men can escape the rage of the bull in the ring.
A man enters the arena carrying a huge sign indicating the name of the first matador, the size, age and breeder of the first bull and, as he slowly revolves it so the crowd can confirm the first of six fights, the matadors and toreros engage in muscle stretching exercises accompanied by balletic flourishes of their yellow and pink capes. The main man - the matador - uses a red cape but he is preceded into the fray by the toreros or ‘wanna be’ matadors whose job it is to wear off the bull’s initial energy.
Toreador is an English language invention from the Spanish torero or fighter. Matador is actually the name for the bull fighter and killer.
The bull is released into the ring and the crowd now erupts into shouts and whistles. The toreros, some six of them, take it in turns to goad the bull to charge them as they step nimbly out of the ring behind the guarded exits. Now the matador enters and does some initial passes of the bull which is at this stage full of spit and anger.
The marks of a top bullfighter are limited foot movement (to move further from the path of the bull or to position himself back or forward) and the proximity to the bull as it charges. I saw three matadors fight two bulls each and two were experts. One, El Juli, looked to be about 19 years old, the other perhaps 20. El Juli had the crowd on its feet with his encounters with both bulls by getting closer and closer and moving less and less, except to pirouette as the bull charged past. In the end, he stood inches from the head of the bull with its horns almost circling his waist as he passed his cape behind his body so that the bull was swinging his head back and forward across the front of his waist. In each ‘fight’ he executed his bulls with a single lunge that had both bulls drop dead instantly. The crowd erupted to its feet with a huge roar, waving white handkerchiefs and cascading flowers hats and garments into the ring.
Bullfighting is not, in the end, a pretty sight. The bull is weakened by the picadors plunging spears into their necks and toreros sticking short spears into the same spot. The picadors who sit on heavy horses clothed in armoured skirts wait for the bulls to charge their mounts before sticking them with their spears. In most cases the horse is well protected but once during this day a bull got in under the skirt and the horse had extreme difficulty walking out. Blood streams down the bull’s flanks as they charge again and again at the annoying capes and the men behind them. After a short while the matador takes over, enticing the bull to charge again and again until totally exhausted and then, hopefully with great accuracy, he aims his sword at a small area on the bulls neck and drives it between its vertebrae to kill it instantly. Those who do are admired, those who don’t are booed and a handler comes to administer the coup de grace.
As much as you can decry the activity, you have to admire the skill and bravery of the bullfighters and the heart of the bulls, which, handled by great matadors, do not suffer long. I had extremely mixed feelings during the event but in the end I was glad I had been able to witness such an age old, brutal and primitive blood sport before it is banned, as it must eventually be. During the day, attendants were urging the audience to sign petitions to protect the sport. Many did not.
We left St Gilles the next day for Aigues Mortes. This fortress town is described as ‘rising from the plain like a ship, washed up on the Camargue’. One minute you are slowly cruising through seemingly endless, flat plains of reeds and rice paddies surrounded by lakes and salt marshes, the next a perfectly symmetrical walled town, complete in all detail stands before you. It is surprising and stunning. We passed a number of boats tied to the banks of the canal as we approached the town and stopped just short of the commercial harbour for a chance to explore ahead before the option of turning was eliminated. Just as well we did since the port de plaisance was completely full of small rental and private pleasure boats. Not an inch to spare. We untied and entered the port, using it’s space to revolve on our axis before retracing our path to a reasonably flat section of old lock wall, directly opposite a supermarket.
As we tied up and unshipped the bikes for an exploration of the fortress town of Aigues Mortes we exchanged pleasantries with a single woman on board her Dutch Tjalk across the canal. American Kate Hill had been in France 15 years, cruising in her lovely boat 'Julia Hoyt' and conducting cooking classes in her canal-side farmhouse, 'Camont', near Agen. An author and now scriptwriter, she was actively planning a television series about her adventures on the canals and throughout the kitchens of Gascony. Her house featured in Rick Stein’s TV documentary some years later as she allowed him to use her kitchen to demonstrate his art. We exchanged dinners over the next two days with her coming over for a BBQ that night and her reciprocating with a delicious warm salad the next, preceded by a visit to a little oyster restaurant I had found in town for aperitifs and oysters.
The oysters here come from the Etang de Thau, a lake system about 30km from Aigues Mortes - so they are FRESH and they are HUGE. There are of course five different sizes but I ordered two dozen grande and a bottle of the local Rose and we sat sliding the monsters down our throats for an hour or so. Explosions of sea water and soft, subtle flavour. Absolutely wonderfully delicious. The serveur of these magnificent oysters is a pert and very pretty French woman of about 30 years who owns the restaurant and runs it efficiently and warmly with the assistance of an ancient oyster shucker. Outfitted each day with a pair of very short cut off denim shorts, an open sleeveless shirt mostly open at the front and a gorgeous tan, she sells oysters together with the local ‘sand’ wine, lemon and bread and butter. This is a perfect place for aperitif or entre - you cannot get anything else here.
Aigues Mortes means ‘fever death’, so named as King ‘Saint’ Louis of France bought the land to build the fortified harbour town and imported thousands of labourers who died in their droves from malarial mosquitos which festered in the Camargue swamps. The town itself is now almost exclusively turned over to tourism, especially at this time of the year. Inside the walls are rows of very neat houses that have been there since the crusades, since this was just one of the ports used to launch attacks designed to drive out the infidel moors in the Holy Land and then hold the land for France and God.
The streets that separate the houses are narrow and lined in the centre of town with shops of every description, all filled with attractive clothes, artefacts, foodstuffs and tourist friendly articles. Beautiful designer clothes, bags and shoes are made here and art shops also abound. Every second shop is a restaurant and they mostly offer the specialities de terroire. It is not expensive. Our 2 dozen huge oysters, shucked immediately for us were accompanied by bread, butter, lemon and a bottle of Rose for 30 Euros. If you could get anything like these oysters in Perth, they and the wine would cost at least three times the local price.
The wines here are known as the Vins de Sables - wines of the sands, as they are grown on reasonably poor sandy soil. They have the technique pretty right however since the wines are fresh, drink now whites, roses and reds - perfect accompaniment for the local specialities of seafood and terrines.
We retired to Kate’s lovely Tjalk on the second night for the warm salad, accompanied by the queen of French white wines - a Montrachet. The wine the English queen is supposed to prefer, this is the peak of Burgundian Chardonnay production. It exhibits a long, smooth character of intense fruit and rich oak flavour but not a bit like any Australian chardonnay. I’m not going to say it is better than the great Hunter or Margaret River equivalents but it is different, intensely elegant and leaves you crying that you don’t have more of it (till the next buying spree). We also opened a bottle of Chinon, a very specialised wine from south of the Burgundy area, closer to the Mediterranean. Light and soft and very drinkable. The meal finished with an intense, fortified liqueur wine into which one dips chocolate coated biscots - hard biscuit fingers- that is a dessert of a difference.
We are learning that less is more in some cases. An elegant but simple salad made up of small, full leaf lettuce topped with boiled new potatoes, strips of cured fish and chicken, accompanied by goats cheeses and drizzled with a dressing made of home made vinegar and local cold pressed, virgin olive oil and followed by biscot and liqueur. Simple, fresh, filling, fabulous flavours and fine wines to round it off. Wonderful stuff.
With a Canadian couple heading up from Italy to join us in a couple of days, we decided to stay put in Aigues Mortes (which is only 24 kilometres from the airport they are to arrive at) so that they can discover this amazing place with us. I love being delightfully surprised by finding areas that exceed every expectation. While most people think of France being Paris, Champagne and Burgundy, I am starting to learn that there are so many areas that are better than the one you just left, that time here is never going to be long enough. Thank goodness we don’t have a deadline.
We left St Gilles, through the first lock on the way to the Canal du Midi on Friday, the 6th of September for Aigues Mortes. We were not to know that our brief planned stay in Aigues Mortes was to turn out to be more of a marathon, brought about by the worst floods in the region for more than 50 years. Our original plans were to move on after exploring the area for about 2-3 days, but as it turned out, we were destined to stay in this remarkable crusader built town - and at a huge nearby set of flood control gates, for two weeks. But that was after it started raining.
The rain started shortly after our arrival in Aigues Mortes and pretty soon it was deluging down. Strong winds accompanied the rain which tended to push the un-seasonally high tides back up the rivers, accentuating the flash effect. It also pushed the rain into the boat through small cracks in the de-mountable wheelhouse structure, an occurrence that accompanies only the most extreme weather, so we knew that we were in for a pretty serious storm.
Our friend Grace had joined us in Avignon on 2 September, had cruised with us to Aigues Mortes and was booked to depart for Rome on Monday the 9th. As Monday dawned the rain was established. Later that day and the next we noticed we were becoming cut off from the shore as the waters around the boat rose, flooding the canal-side houses, shops and hotels. The main road to town was quickly inundated and dinghies started to appear in the place of cars. The Pompiers (fire and rescue) closed roads, diverted traffic where possible and built dikes to stop the worst ingress into nearby houses. People in these parts had seen things like this before but apparently not as bad as this episode for some 50 years.
However before the flood really arrived, and as luck would have it, our American friend Kate, just across the canal from us, had rented a car to visit a chateau near Nimes, where Grace was to take the train to Italy. It seemed like the ideal plan for Maureen and Grace to accompany Kate to the chateau and then to the station, so the girls set off for a day of exploration, culminating in Grace’s departure.
After driving through driving rain for most of the day they found the chateau and admired its grandeur and adjacent vineyards. It is available for accommodation and functions so Kate negotiated a rate to hire the whole place as the site for one of her annual cooking schools and the group headed on to Nimes railway station. It was here they discovered the worst. The floods had taken their toll and all rail services were now cut. The girls were lucky to get back to the boat as overnight the waters rose, the whole town was surrounded and all main roads were cut. Television and radio news revealed that 16 people lost their lives when flash flooding overcame them in their camping area at night. The area was declared a disaster area and helicopters soon began arriving with supplies, politicians and news crews.
Tuesday saw the floods reach their peak and brought news that no trains were moving and nor were busses leaving Aigues Mortes for any of the exit points such as Marseilles, Avignon or Montpellier. Grace fretted but there was nothing we could do so we settled in to shop and eat. While motor transport was now out of the question we could ride our bikes down the flooded road or through the deep puddles alongside the canal, into town.
At this stage we lowered the dinghy as transport across the swollen canal to Kate’s boat so that she, cut off from the town completely for a day, could also get some social relief. Being in a canal was a benefit as we were subject to only a moderate rise in depth and, as we were tied up to a walled side, we were in no danger of a lack of security. Our only problem was that Grace had to leave and we had friends from Canada expected to arrive on Thursday.
Wednesday came with the heartening realization that the water levels had dropped overnight. Most of the country was still inundated and indeed the road to town from the supermarket we were moored near was still flooded to mid calf level. Kate offered us the use of her car if it would help to get Grace out of town. I made some investigations by bicycle and found there was a network of minor country roads that were open to traffic and the main rail lines were now operating. The girls legged it over the muddy bank-side track to the local station to change Grace’s tickets and we set off in the car for Nimes. We were able to get the car out since the town engineers had moved heavy earth moving equipment in to Kate’s side of the canal to build a dike / roadway re-connecting that area to dry land.
The motorway was barred by gendarmes so in order to get accurate directions we stopped at the roadblock with our map and asked these army policemen to trace the connection of roads to and from Nimes. The officer obliged cheerfully as heavy traffic flowed around his ‘rond point’ in confusion. We now had less than an hour to go more than 60km to Nimes station for Grace’s train, much of it on one lane roads with narrow corners, one lane bridges and slow moving country tractors. After a nail biting drive we emerged from the sodden countryside into the (almost) dry environs of the major city - Nimes. By luck (and the fact that the girls recognised some of the landmarks from the previous trip), we found our way directly to the station, lucked on some free parking and made it to the correct platform with 5 minutes to spare. We were all relieved when the train arrived on time and Grace found her seat for Rome.
Back to the boat and a day of hurried preparations for the arrival (by air) of Randy and Nancy to Montpellier, just a 24km taxi ride to Aigues Mortes. As the waters had now substantially subsided, they arrived on time and settled in. The weather was still overcast with some showers but we put a brave face on it, especially since the flood was now abating quite quickly. We planned a day or two to bring our guests up to speed with the local culture, food and wines and then our departure was planned for a quick cruise to Beziers so that Randy and Nancy could fly back to the UK and then on to Canada.
Back we went to the truly remarkable town ramparts, the towers and the walls of this fabulous medieval town. Back also to the cafes and shops and back to Anne-Sophie’s oyster bar (by now we were well known there). But the best laid plans....! We had planned for the first night’s aperitifs to be taken at the oyster bar with Kate and our guests but found out early that Randy would not eat anything that ‘still had it’s guts’ so we went to plan B, champagne on board followed by some regional cooking and some great French reds. The next day was spent in roughly the same manner with a change of chef - Randy cooking up a storm with bruschetta followed by pasta and salad, Canadian / Italian style. Maple syrup in the salad dressing, chilli and roasted garlic in the pasta sauce, huge reds from the Bordeaux region. Its hard - but someone has to do it !
Saturday dawned, the day of our departure from Aigues Mortes - we had been in town for a week. We cruised up the canal, making a left turn into the main channel that leads to Beziers from the branch canal that takes you to Aigues Mortes and as we did, so the speed of Van Nelle appreciably increased - we were doing over 10kmh with just over idle revs. I should have twigged there may be a problem ahead. The current swiftly propelled us to our first barrier - the huge flood control gates.
The flood gates are like a set of two enormous guillotines that are dropped to stop vessels being swept down stream and out to sea. We noticed with alarm that the gates were down, closing off the canal to the bisecting river it crosses, and was showing an unwelcome double red light - closed - definitivement ! Moored a hundred metres before the gates were a couple of rental boats and immediately against the huge concrete foundations of the gate, a 38 metre commercial barge. As we approached, but quite some distance out, I put Van Nelle into reverse and while we slowed down, we did not stop. Furthermore, as the effect of the reverse thrust took hold, the stern swung (predictably) to port while the opposite occurred to the angle of the bow. We were still moving forward at 6kmh despite more and more revs. This may not sound too quick as you walk quickly at that speed, but with a 60 tonne boat’s momentum together with a 4-6kmh current, this is a potentially disastrous combination against an immoveable object. As the channel narrowed near the gates, the flow increased dramatically.
Full power in reverse accentuated the movement of the stern towards the port side bank as we rapidly approached the commercial barge and the flood control gates. Things were rapidly getting serious.
"This is going pear shaped" I called out to Maureen on the bow, "Get a line on the commercial quickly". She looked at me in alarm at the stress in my voice but resolutely took up the bow line and began to calculate angles. All our experience would be needed for this manoeuvre.
In order to straighten the angle of approach to the side of the commercial I had to apply forward power and put the wheel hard over to port as we were now at a 30 degree angle and approaching crabwise. Forward gear predictably increased our speed but it did get the boat straight and running down the side of the 38m peniche. We were counting on our ability to get a bow line on the peniche to stop our 50 tonne headlong rush towards demolishing the flood gates or Van Nelle’s bow. Maureen quietly and deliberately placed the bow line onto the peniche’s mid section bollard as we rushed past and, using both our forward bollards, applied maximum friction. I applied full reverse power, the propeller churning the brown flood waters into a cappuccino froth. The 20 tonne breaking strain bow line screamed in agony and stretched like a piano wire - but held - and as it did, pulled the bow into the side of the peniche, slowing and then stopping our headlong rush as Maureen expertly paid out some line to avoid the resultant resounding crash of our bow into the commercial. While this was a relief, the next result was not. With too few experienced deck hands, we were too slow to get a stern line from us to the peniche and immediately our stern was taken by the swiftly moving current and swung viciously across the channel towards the opposite bank.
The banks of this stretch of canal were visibly degraded and one could see the peaks of the huge stones that had once formed part of the banks, now just below water level, pointed menacingly at our oncoming stern and exposed propeller. The only control I had on Van Nelle was by using the engine. To smash the propeller would render us useless and jammed across the canal and the current - a disaster just about to happen.
Caution was tempered by necessity now and the only course of action was to put the wheel put hard a’starboard while the gear and throttle lever was shifted full forward to counter the force of the stream. The enormously powerful Baudouin engine now roared and for probably the first time since we had owned it, it went into full power. Slowly the pivot of the hull slowed, stopped and reversed and with the screaming sound of the stretching, 20 tonne breaking strain bow line, Van Nelle laboured against the vicious push of the current to come back against the hull of the commercial.
We could get part way but against the middle part of the current we were still being held out at an angle of 30 degrees, away from the side of the commercial barge to which we were tied and safety. The only course of action was to ease the bow line and get a stern line on to the stern bollards of the commercial as we eased in. As we were preparing to do so, Randy, who had been holding a stern line fell heavily - but managed to hold onto the rope.
On command, Maureen rapidly eased the bow line out to allow Van Nelle freedom of movement forward. Another stern line was taken up by the somewhat surprised skipper of the commercial who had heard a commotion and appeared on the deck, and that made fast to his stern bollard. Randy, our guest, took in our end of the line again, taking out the slack as we pivoted. Van Nelle slowly slid forward to come to rest, flat against the commercial’s side.
I hadn’t had time to feel anxious during this five minutes of frantic action but as we secured with extra bow lines and springs I felt a great deal of relief and went about thanking the crew and the commercial’s skipper for their quick and deliberate work together. This was an object lesson in the power of a current over the opposing power of Van Nelle’s propulsion and the requirement for the helmsman to accurately read the conditions in advance and be able to anticipate the subsequent situation. It is situations like these that can turn into a ‘chain of errors’ that can end in calamity. Fortunately, our experience, luck, teamwork and presence of mind prevailed.
What would have happened had we not managed to secure the bow, if the prop had been damaged on the opposite shore, if we had hit the gates ? I’m not sure. Van Nelle has doubtless had many heavy hits through two world wars and nine decades of commercial rough and tumble so I’m sure we would have survived, but it would have been pretty embarrassing and probably expensive, especially if the prop had come into contact with the stones from the wall and we had become lodged across the current. Boats have been capsized by similar occurrences.
Now we had to rethink our plans. We were isolated some 4km from Aigues Mortes, in a flooded countryside location, with no chance of turning the boat and returning to the town, and therefore no way of cruising anywhere for the next 4 days ! Ah well - Plan B. The road to this location was open and the roads from Aigues Mortes to Grau du Roi also. We opened a bottle or three of nerve restorative and contemplated our options. We soon had a plan and with great good humour (or resignation), spent the next few days cycling quite a few kilometres - into town for supplies - into town for recreation and - into the nearby (12km distance) port of Grau du Roi for its Festival du Mer.
As previously mentioned, the area on which Aigues Mortes was built was bought by King Louis 9 of France as he did not have a port on the Mediterranean and he was keen to prosecute his crusades against the infidel around the Mediterranean’s shores. At the time, the ocean was on Aigues Mortes’ doorstep. Hundreds of years later, the sea has receded some 7km and the port is now at Grau du Roi (The Kings Port). The shore line continues to extend seawards year by year, fuelled by the silt carried down the Rhone and other rivers.
A canal joins the two towns and if your boat’s superstructure is sufficiently low (about 2.0m) you can exit France here into the millpond known as the Med. Mind you, it is not always placid, its just that every time I have seen it over the past 30 years, it looks like the Swan River when there’s been no wind for 3 days. Glassy, oily almost, a heat or sea haze hanging over it so you cannot see more than a couple of kilometres to sea and definitely no waves in sight. Sailing boats move very slowly on the hazy horizon, passed rapidly by the fleets of power boats and jet skis that proliferate this holiday and fishing area.
This weekend, a festival was in full swing with water jousting, bull baiting, street music, parties, picnics and balls. We arrived at waterside to watch the young jousters perched improbably on the backs of strange, purpose built boats with long heavy ladder-like extensions on their sterns on which the players stand, clutching their lances and shields as the boats come together. As the crew of ten row their boat past their opponent’s, one or both jousters are knocked into the water by the other’s lance and another jouster takes his place until the team is vanquished. At this stage (if they are old enough) they head for the nearest bar and get hopelessly drunk on whisky and coke.
We wandered on through the streets, noticing the extra barriers that had been used during the morning to keep the fleeing herd of bulls on the street and away from the shop fronts and tourists, for here as in Pamplona in nearby Spain, they run the bulls through the streets. Each town in this region also has a stadium within which the bulls are fought or taken on in the non blood sport version of bull baiting. Grau du Roi practices the non killing bull baiting attraction where about 12 young men in white clothing enter the ring with the bull and try to take white rosettes from between his horns. The bull meanwhile takes great delight in trying to gore his adversaries. The young men who practise this sport appear to be fearless (or reckless) and are extremely athletic. They flee the bulls charge by leaping the surrounding wall, ending up hanging from rails about 10 feet (3 metres) off the ground just out of reach of the fast following bull.
We spent most of Sunday in Grau du Roi, well you would after having pedalled 12k to get there, and rode the same distance back to the flood gates with a new set of experiences we would not have had if we had been cruising. There you see, there’s always an upside.
More dinners, more wines, more late night games of liar dice and cards followed as we waited for the VNF to decide when they would open the gates. They arrived several times by small boat, taking measurements and sagely surveying the scene. The most we could get them to admit to was that they would make a decision on Monday - or maybe Tuesday. Tuesday was more likely since most everything closes on Mondays, including the VNF offices. We continued our daily rides to explore and enjoy the surrounding countryside and the towns of Grau du Roi and Aigues Mortes.
Tuesday arrived, the day Randy and Nancy had to leave. We had arranged for a taxi to take them to Montpellier where they could get a train to Carcassonne from which they could fly back to the UK on Ryan Air. As it happened, their departure coincided with the time the VNF (canal bureaucrats) decided to open the flood gates. Our cruise plan now was to head back into Aigues Mortes since our son Sean was to arrive in a couple of days. He was originally to drive our car from St Jean de Losne to Beziers, but since our progress had been somewhat curtailed, a quick phone call re-arranged his plans.
12.00 noon arrived and with it the VNF, who after telling us we had to move first, the gates began to open. Not knowing how long it would take for us to get through, turn Van Nelle around and get back, we did not know whether our guests should stay aboard for the quick voyage or wait on-shore for the taxi. They decided for shore and we cast off. In the event, it took us little time to about face and moor again, so we farewelled our friends on-shore properly, just as their taxi arrived.
We waved as Randy and Nancy departed, sorrowful that the weather and events had curtailed their cruise - but - that’s life on the canals. We then cast off and headed back to Aigues Mortes. As we entered the old port we saw Kate’s barge tied up at the water point. With a bit of manoeuvring we tied alongside and began topping up our tanks, as we now had some 5 or 6 loads of washing to do and new guests arriving on the morrow.
The next day, early in the afternoon, Sean and his friend Alisha arrived. Welcomed on board with the traditional champagne, we quickly caught up on the news from home and gratefully accepted a gift of Vegemite and the Sunday Times newspaper. Later we drove into town to take in some oysters and rosé (why not) then returning to Van Nelle for Fish (stew) Provencale and more wine - again the local rosé.
The local Vin de Sables - Wine of the Sands, have pictures of rampaging bulls on their labels - not exactly the demeanour of those who the boys tempted to chase them through swimming pools in Grau du Roi - that’s one of the sports of bull baiting. This area does however breed many of the best bulls used in the south of France and through Spain for bull fighting.
As tourists again we covered old territory, but our new guests were spellbound by the remarkable nature and preservation of this town. We once again wandered the streets of Aigues Mortes and Grau du Roi - unfortunately accompanied by some rain showers - not the best aspect for the placid Mediterranean and a normally bright and colourful fishing village. We began to worry about being caught again by floods and the flood gates and so decided to depart the next day - early.
Finally, we were out of Aigues Mortes and on our way to Carcassonne, via a swim en-route at Frontignan and a crossing of the epic Etang de Thau. The canal travels very close to the sea shore for a couple of days travel, so it is easy to take side trips to the many gritty, grey sand beaches along the way for a cooling dip. The weather improved during our passage of this area so the two younger members took to the bikes and swam at every opportunity.
The actual Canal du Midi begins after, and to the west of, the Etang de Thau, which is a huge lake on which many of France’s oysters are grown. The distance across is about 13 km and with the ever present mist you cannot see your destination’s lighthouse until you are more than half way. Travelling on compass bearings is a good safety factor - we use a GPS. Winds spring up quickly here and since the lake is so shallow (2-3m) it can be pretty uncomfortable for a flat bottom boat so it is worth waiting out any unpleasant weather prior to the trip.
Before our planned crossing we stayed the night and a day in Frontignan, the town before the Etang. It has a bridge that only opens for a short time in the morning and at night and even with our roof folded down we would not fit beneath it so we used this as an excuse to offload the bikes and ride off to the nearby swimming beach where we spent half an hour in the waters of the great Mediterranean.
The next morning we were first through the opened bridge and we cruised on, passing near the gateway town of Sete before leaving the canal for the Etang de Thau. Pushing the revs up we achieved a comfortable 13km/h and made the crossing in less than an hour, leaving a number of hire boats well behind. It was interesting seeing our white wake spreading out behind like that of a liner on an ocean now that we were on a huge, open waterway.
There are a number of fishing villages on the shores of the lake but we chose on this occasion to continue non-stop to make progress towards Carcassonne, a beautifully preserved fortress town dating from the early 1200s. Reaching the other side of the Etang we entered, very slowly, the very narrow channel that is the start of the Canal du Midi. At it’s beginning, its sides are crammed with small sailing boats and canoes as this area is used for water recreation and sail training. 420s, and Optimists are everywhere with flights of Lasers and schools of other, less familiar one and two person sailing boats.
We arrived soon at Agde. This town is famous for its round lock, an ingenious idea that allowed one lock to be used for boats travelling in four directions. A short branch canal heads off at right angles to the main canal here and so they built the round lock to accommodate both directions. It makes tying up a bit hairy for a boat our size as we are too big and too small for the placement of the bollards that favour full size commercial boats or much smaller hire boats. We stayed out of town for a night and then passed through without difficulty, taking on water at the VNF jetty on the other side before continuing our cruise.
It was here at Agde on our overnight stay that Sean and Alisha decided to go night clubbing. They set off at about 9.00pm for a club we had seen during our daytime exploration, unfortunately just as it started to drizzle. Arriving in town they found the advertised nightclub after several abortive searches and were confronted by the advertisement for the evening’s fun.
"50 Euros entry - 100% Gang Bang"
They had a drink at a nearby bar and watched as several much older couples disappeared behind the well fortified front doors and decided that perhaps that wasn’t their scene. We all wondered what happened behind that green door ?
On our way the next morning we approached a rather low looking bridge very slowly to test it’s height and realised that we were not going to fit beneath it. We stopped with the boat halfway through the bridge and reversed out to moor on the banks near a huge fun fair, very much closed. Whether it was the end of the season or a failed venture we did not discover at that time. We did discover however that this was a very good place for a longish stay as power and water were supplied free by the local town in order to attract visitors. The place is Vias, a very popular summer holiday location. We moored. Sean and Alisha made for the nearby beach and on their return we removed the roof sections, folded down the upper walls of the wheelhouse and continued our cruise.
The next couple of days saw us rise early to remove the waterproof canopy we erected at night over the wheelhouse and with the top down, continue through the Canal du Midi. This canal, like the region it travels through, is very beautiful. The plain trees form an unbroken arch over the top of the canal and their roots form the edges of the waterway. The roots also make for secure moorings as they are tough but resilient and allow ropes to be passed around them while they cushion the effect of passing boats.
The canal snakes through quiet pastures and tiny villages and at times doubles back on itself as it follows the contour lines of the countryside. It is quite narrow and the turns in places are very sharp, making life for the helms person very interesting and athletic. As we do not have power steering, turning the wheel of Van Nelle can be a muscle wrenching business, especially when any amount of power is applied. As you travel, suction also affects the boat, slewing the stern in towards the bank at the most inopportune times, sometimes frightening the inexperienced, oncoming, rental boat operators.
The Midi was constructed during the mid 1600s as a way of getting goods from Toulouse to the Mediterranean and vice versa and was constructed as a mostly private venture but with government backing. Several times the government inspectors were narrowly turned from their intention to stop the project as costs mounted but the Pierre-Paul Riquet, the constructor prevailed, also creating income for his family over generations from tolls made on passing boats.
The wind came up as we cruised. There are several main wind patterns in the south of France. The most famous is the Mistral which comes from the north down the Rhone valley. It is cold and blows for 3, 6 or 9 days at 80 - 120 km/h. Where we are, the wind from the north west was the Tremontaigne, off the mountains, also cold, also strong. We were glad for the protection the trees provided in most areas but had to rug up with the top of the wheelhouse down.
The south of France is not a place favoured by most travellers to France or Australia - but it should be. While recognising that most people have limited time and want to see the most famous places like Paris and it’s Louvre, Versailles, Musee d’Orsay, Notre Dame etc - I would counter by saying that a more intimate, inexpensive, rich and delicious area is the area from Marseilles to Bordeaux. The area is rich in history; villages, chateaux, monasteries; food, wine and culture. Hotels are good, plentiful and cheap (2004 prices for 2 star about 40 Euros for 2 including shower and WC), hire cars can be had for about $25 per day, trains are good and run to most important regional towns, there are plenty of cheap flights from Paris or London Stanstead, and there is lots to do. The climate during May - September is also good and sometimes very hot.
Our cruise took in the towns of Beziers, Vias, Colombiers, Port la Robine. Homps, Trebes and finally Carcassonne. We came to know several of these towns very well over the next two years we spent in the south, especially Vias, Trebes and Homps which we visited on several occasions.
Carcassonne is one of my ‘Wonders of the World’. The Cité is a perfectly preserved and inhabited, walled medieval city complete with battlements and a chateau (castle). Classified as a world monument by UNESCO, it avoided being wrecked during the Revolution by the concerted efforts of local business, political and cultural leaders. It has had lots of money and expertise spent on it since and is a wonderful place to see and explore. Turned over to tourism, the hilltop city has narrow cobbled streets running past tiny shops and restaurants and the major hotel is spread over some 5 buildings that make up parts of the ramparts. We spent several days going back up to the Cité to discover more each time, especially on the guided tours that take you into the buildings and behind the scenes.
All the way along the Canal du Midi you are confronted with oval shaped locks, flights of two and three locks joined one to the next and, just outside Beziers, 7 locks in a flight. There are very low bridges, built at the time of the canal’s construction but never raised later and ancient, manual lock mechanisms, still in use. While the wait for these locks can sometimes feel interminable behind inexperienced amateur boaters, the low bridges really slow us down as we must reduce our working height - ‘tirant d’air’ - by taking down the wheelhouse roof and folding it’s side, front and rear panels. As the weather is getting towards winter, we need to get past this area of obstructions quickly and move towards our winter mooring.
This was on my mind as I came up with various schemes to waterproof the boat while being able to see and navigate with the roof off. The first plan was a couple of cross pieces that attached to the decks in front and behind the wheelhouse and to which were attached the long boat hook as the centre piece in a tent-like affair. That worked OK but did not give adequate access to the wheelhouse and below. The later scheme was a series of grey, 1 inch plastic pipes bowed across the wheelhouse to hold up the waterproof cover. This allows one to see and operate the boat and still have access to the companionway and the deck. However, before construction of these arrangements were completed an item of maintenance was necessary.
Our water pump pressure switch began failing. An occasional tap on it’s side cued another short run but deconstruction and rebuilding proved that a component had come loose and its seating had become damaged. Temporary repairs got us to Beziers where I was sure an enterprising local would be able to locate a supplier of a replacement and get it delivered. No Go. We moved on and at arrival in Carcassonne I immediately set off on my bike to locate a replacement mechanism with which to get a reliable source of water. A pump shop was recommended by the local VNF officer. The proprietor showed me that he indeed had two kinds of pressure switch but not the one I wanted. He disappeared into his cubby-hole office and came back with a catalogue from a local pool supply shop. In its pages was exactly the model I sought. With my great thanks expressed I took off by cab to the pool shop and for only 10 Euros had the part I needed. Not only that but they also stocked the water pressure tank I wanted to replace as ours had ruptured its inner membrane and was not working properly. Another 30 Euros and some reconstruction work in the engine room and our water system was rejuvenated.
Arrival at Carcassonne allowed us to catch up on washing and cleaning (all those leaves that blew in through the open roof) and for Sean and Alisha to pack and catch the train for Paris, then on to Phuket before heading back to Perth. Unfortunately Sean’s back went out on the way and he spent the time in Phuket maxing out on pain killers. Perhaps it was all that time at the wheel on these meandering sections of the Midi.
The next couple of days were spent exploring Carcassonne - it is not just the Cité but also the Bastide, the ‘new’ town which is a great tourist and shopping draw, and we also caught a Rugby 13 Test Match between France and New Zealand which France won.
We arranged for the delivery of 500 litres of fuel at our canal side mooring which the truck driver had into our tanks in about 5 minutes flat while also showing his athleticism by climbing up and down the adjacent 5m wall a couple of times. The price was right too at just under 0.80 euro cent per litre - about $ 1.20. On a windy Tuesday then, we departed Carcassonne and headed for Castelnaudary - home of the legendary recipe - Cassoulet.
Cassoulet was apparently first created during a siege of the town of Castelnaudary (the castle no longer exists). After a long siege, the besieged villagers pooled what few rations they had remaining which included some pork, some duck, some white broad beans and sausage, and they cooked it up as a stew. Now you might be forgiven for wondering what might be so wonderful about that but it has grown into a huge industry. You can get it at restaurants, you can get it as a take-away from restaurants and charcuteries, you can get it in supermarkets in tins and jars and you can get it almost everywhere else in this town. It is great ‘comfort’ food and very good winter fare - thick and rich and filling. Not exactly gourmet / nouvelle cuisine but this is the south of France - we are very near and heavily influenced by Spain (which ‘owned’ the area until the middle ages) and it is peasant fare for peasant folk, despite there being a ‘Grand Confrerie de Cassoulet’ with many highly (self) decorated officers of the association.
After passing through one of the most disappointing towns we have seen - Bram - which really had nothing to recommend it, we arrived in Castelnaudary on Wednesday 2 October. This was to be the mooring for Van Nelle and myself for a couple of weeks since Maureen was to join Kate’s crew for a week or so as crew. We had discovered from our regular phone chats with Kate that she was short of a crew member for her impending charter and volunteered our assistance in the form of Maureen. Kate jumped at the offer and Maureen headed off by train to join her near Carcassonne. That left me to start work on the new ‘sports roof’ for our dash to Toulouse and other little jobs such as this journal and articles for my yacht club - Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club in Perth, Western Australia. I also decided that since the TV reception was so poor in most places that we would invest in a satellite digital receiver and dish and so bought a ‘free to air model’ and installed it.
Installing such a device is easy, just unwrap it, connect all the cables, point the dish at the sky and presto - blank screen. You can spend hours trying to locate the damned satellite you want to receive programs from but I had experience in such things and knew there is a better way than by compass and luck. Its called a satellite finder and I had used one with great effect in St Jean when Roger had loaned us their set. I decided to go to Toulouse to buy one after the local installer had called at the boat and took only 5 minutes to check the installation, find the satellite, tune the sets and depart, using his.
The next day I set off by train to Toulouse - the city that’s the heart of Aerospatiale, Airbus Industrie and many other major technology giants. Surely this search would be easy. I asked at the first TV / Satellite sales shop and was pointed in the direction of a specialist shop across the canal (which flows right into the centre of town). It was closed - not just for the day or the holidays - but permanently. Next stop a caravan accessory shop in the suburbs - no they did not have them but they knew who did - an electronics specialty shop across town - Nope they had none either but maybe the Maison du Satellite in the industrial sector. Bingo. Once we got there after a 180- 200km dash on the ring road (Jacques Villeneuve’s brother was obviously my taxi driver), they had three versions and I took the middle one - all of 50 Euros. Back to the centre of town and my Formula One driver took 72 Euros for the pleasure of my company. Happy with my find I took to the streets, determined to see a bit of Toulouse before taking the 30 minute train trip back to Castelnaudary - Castel for short.
I lucked on the amazing, no - fantastic food market in the centre of town at lunch time. Imagine the food hall at Myer (or David Jones in Sydney if you’ve had the pleasure) and then multiply it by about 20. This enormous hall hosts more than half a dozen each of - fish shops - butchers - bakers - charcuteries (delis) - pastry shops - chocolatiers, pasta shops, bars, lunch bars, pizza ovens, vegetable shops, spice shops, Asian speciality shops, middle eastern emporiums, dessert bars and other outlets. It takes 30 minutes just to walk around the exterior aisle quickly without stopping. I decided this was the place to eat lunch and to buy dinner. I took another quick trip around to find what I considered the best food bar near a good looking wine bar and did business with both. A mini seafood pizza preceded a sea salmon fouillette, both washed down by a glass or two of local rosé. These were followed by a wedge of Roquefort cheese. Total cost 9 Euros but for the atmosphere alone, priceless.
Then, the map shop was raided for maps of the area from Marseilles to Bordeaux and a Tabac (newsagent), for the latest Satellite magazine (they contain all the channels and programs) and it was back to the train and home. On arrival I researched the 80 free TV channels available on the first satellite I tuned to and found three channels with Australian programs ! That channel (Astra 1) also has more than 40 radio channels and the reception is crystal clear. In addition, since it is hooked through our Sony home theatre tuner, we get full surround effects with the movies - eerie !
While in Castelnaudary my days are taken up with trips to the Brico (hardware shop) and construction jobs in the boat, some writing and chats to those people who wander past and see the Aussie flag or are just interested in the boat. I had plenty of time for all of this as Maureen was to be away for at least a week. The mooring I had taken was away from the port at a park, opposite a nice wine cave and just down the road from the centre of town, the supermarkets and restaurants, the tourist office and near the industrial centre and it’s attendant technical shops. Heaven on a stick ! And I had the scooter on shore to get quickly to and from all these delights.
There is a fair bit of traffic still flowing past on the canal even at this time of the year. Yachts on their way to and from the sea, canal boats heading home or for their winter moorings further west. We attract some attention and we pay our respects to those who pass. There are even still some people renting the hire boats that are based here in the (other) Grand Bassin. Life flows on pleasantly, especially with the central heating system making the boat cosy while outside the wind blows and the rain spatters the wheelhouse windows. Since we were in one place for a while the full wheelhouse had been re-erected.
I was looking forward to a bit of a change of weather for the better as we had to get to Toulouse to pick up Nick Cowley, a UK banker working in Holland who wanted experience with a barge before making his own decision about buying one. Then by phone, Maureen advised that she will continue on Kate’s boat to help her get to Toulouse and then return for us to move forward again so I was to be ‘batching’ for a second week. There are worse places to take some time out.
Castelnaudary is the world centre of Cassoulet but Kate insists that the best Cassoulet restaurant is outside town - the ‘Cassoulet Imperiale’ at La Bastide and on Saturday she called to ask if I would like to join her party at that restaurant to try their speciality. I agreed of course.
Kate and the 8 seater van arrived at 7.30 complete with four American charterers and her crew, who now had to squeeze into the cramped back row of seats meant for two. We un-tangled ourselves after a ten minute drive to La Bastide and entered a large, barn like room, comfortably furnished with rustic sideboards, tables and chairs and displaying on the walls and horizontal surfaces, wines, local produce and artefacts. Our table was surrounded by hearty groups of locals out to enjoy their Saturday night engagement and birthday parties but the girls serving the tables were quick and solicitous and soon we had ordered platters of local produce (‘charcuterie’) and several large Cassoulets to follow. A range of local wines were brought and uncorked and we began a meal of discovery.
The charcuterie - meats, pickled vegetables, onions and olives - were fresh and piquant and well set off by the local white and red wines - Minervois, Gaillac and Rose. The first course was quickly dispatched and the Cassoulet arrived. Large earthen bowls in which the fare had been cooked were red hot and placed delicately on cork protective mats on the already well scarred tables. The ladles went to work and soon we all had steaming mounds of delicate morsels cascading on our plates.
Cassoulet is comfort food for winter nights. Rich and thick it contains a range of flavours from the meats and beans and a smooth texture, especially from the beans and the preserved duck meats (confit). We moved through the main course (plat principale) at a leisurely pace and, after several helpings washed down by another couple of bottles of the local vins, were left contemplating rich dessert menus. The French down south love their desserts made of local apples in pastry, glaces, rich tarts and cakes, all of which are heaped with fresh fruit flavours and thick clotted cream.
We waddled out into the night and drove the crew and guests back to their boat. I took the van back to Van Nelle to return the next day after lunch to provide the guests with their transport to the airport.
Talking of airports - I had noticed a small aero club sign in Castelnaudary and went to investigate. (I should mention that I have a private pilot’s license). I found a flying school / club with a Cessna 152, two seater trainer and so I made tentative arrangements to take a flight with one of their instructors, an Air France 747 captain. The idea was that I would fly the plane and he would handle any radio communications in French - necessary in this land of interlocking controlled airspaces. I pulled the plane out of the hanger, running through a mental checklist and soon realised I would need an English version of the French checklists for the aircraft, so set off for Van Nelle to find my copy - and my log book, licence and medical certificate. Unfortunately it all came to naught since while I was rummaging through the computer trying to find the checklists the phone rang to advise me that Kate still had a mechanical problem with Julia Hoyt and so I had to head off to assist. Oh well, there will be other occasions to fly.
Several days later Maureen’s crew engagement was finished so I arranged to pick her up from Kate’s boat and we set of in Van Nelle the next morning (after arranging with the local police for our car, which I had picked up from Aigues Mortes where we had garaged it, to be parked right outside the police station for security). We still had not arranged our final winter mooring despite my having driven to several likely ports along the canal, so we had some investigating to do. Additionally, we still had a guest booked for an instruction course and had to check the height of the bridges in the area we would use for his week aboard.
Our target was Castelsarrasin, a pretty town with a lovely and quite large bassin marina with all facilities we had inspected and liked. The town is quite large with a lively social scene and several boats in for the winter including one with a New Zealand couple aboard. Unfortunately, since the VNF had planned to drain sections of the canal for repairs and maintenance, Castelsarrasin was not available for us until January when the water was restored. We departed Castelnaudary, travelling straight through Toulouse for our first overnight at Gardouch. We were travelling under canvas until Toulouse since we could not guarantee the height of the bridges ahead and did not want to stop half way into a lock or under a bridge on a corner. Predictably it rained all day but our new canopy, devised by using grey plastic pipe bent into plastic T junctions and covered with plastic tarpaulin, worked well, providing good rain protection while still allowing the helms person to see forward and aft. The air draft was a bit cool however but was somewhat reduced at night by the addition of plastic in the voids in front and behind the wheelhouse.
As we passed through Toulouse we noticed the well appointed marina in the middle of the town and wondered why we had not left enough time to stop here for a day or so. We negotiated the double lock right in front of the main railway station and passed the tunnelling activities of an engineering company contracted to put a subway under the canal on our way out of town. Toulouse looked like a really interesting place to spend more time - if we could later get a mooring at the town port. On we went, making good progress towards our planned overnight stop at Gardouch. Boy were we disappointed when we arrived. Set a kilometre away from a non entity of a town, Gardouch is not a great place to stay - or even stop. The only benefit of this area was that we could now re-rig our proper roof as the Lateral has bridges and locks of sufficient height to allow us unrestricted passage.
Gardouch was left behind as we moved on to Montech. This fortunately is a pretty little port with good facilities and the benefit of water all year round. We made inquiries and tentatively booked for the ‘chomage’, the period of maintenance that was scheduled from 6 November to 19 December during which you cannot move. On from Montech, the next port was Castelsarrasin where discussions with the port captain proved successful regarding January, February and March. Moreover, we had not found any bridges too low so far and so also had a workable first half of the instruction week for our next guest. From this point on we travelled with the roof on.
We moved on to Moissac and found that it was to be drained, so passed on still further to Valence d’Agen where we found a happy band of wintering souls already ensconced. We arranged drinks aboard Van Nelle and became acquainted with the locals and the next couple of month's social programs. Time to turn around and head back to Montech to arrange the final details of our winter months and to finalise our guest’s program.
Our comings and goings had some of the eclusiers (lock keepers) bemused. Why would the crazy Australians be bouncing back and forth along the canal ? We explained patiently to the first eclusier, expecting he would pass on the intelligence to those waiting before and after his lock, only to find that we had to explain again at the next - and the next and again at the next lock. We told them all that not only were we returning on this trip but that they would see us a couple more times before the chomage since we had a student to train for a week - un pilote etudiant -. They still looked surprised a week later when we arrived and several days later returned yet again from the opposite direction.
During our first trip through the area we were several times frustrated with the slow operation of the locks, especially since there were very few other boats moving during this period. On one day I exploded when we arrived at a lock, waited half an hour until almost time for the lunch break (which we wanted to take just before the next lock since it had a historic mill attached) then to be told we had to wait for a restaurant boat to come through before we could be allowed into the unfilled lock. The restaurant boat had other ideas however and did not appear for another two hours.
I told the eclusier what I thought of the delay and he, predictably, reacted badly. I just knew we were in for bad service after that but I was wrong. Not only did the service improve, but the eclusier in question became very friendly, chatting in his VERY strong southern accent (demang - rather than demain, beswang rather than besoin) and at each lock he escorted us through for each of our next three trips.
Lock keepers are far more shy and retiring in the south. It was not until we had seen one jolly chap several times that he tentatively asked if we would like some tomatoes and apples. We jumped at the offer and bought some of each - they were brilliant. The tomatoes were ‘Coeur de boeuf” acid free, huge, sweet and very red. The apples were very yellow, crunchy and perfect for both eating and making pastry encrusted pies for desserts. We tried to get more from him on the next trip but his bushes had given up all their fruit for the year and he could only offer a pumpkin - which made lots of excellent soup and caused an exchange of recipes between his wife and Maureen to her consternation as she cooks by taste and had to invent the recipe for the Madame - in French.
This period of several weeks was the first extended period we had with the luxury of shore power at every port and for very reasonable rates. Typically we pay 3.50 Euros per night here compared to 10 - 15 further north. The winter mooring has been promised for 90 Euros for the three months plus a surcharge of just 12 for the electricity and water. I’m yet to believe it however, since at Montech I am sure the officer quoted me 92 for the two months, only to present me a contract of 92 per month. Even so, 3 Euros per day isn’t bad. The only drawback is that the power outlets are quite restricted in amperage, 6-8 typically, so that you have to use some equipment serially - that is - use the toaster with the heater off, use the battery charger with the toaster and the heater off etc.
Sunday 27 October was the date we expected Nick Cowley, our final guest for the year. Nick, a Brit now working for a bank in Amsterdam, found us on the internet through our website and took us up on the opportunity to learn all about barging while enjoying a cruise, great food and excellent wines.
He had arranged for a week of tuition on our share cost arrangement and had trained down from Amsterdam to Toulouse. I drove into Toulouse on the Sunday morning to pick him up and we headed back to Van Nelle at Montech for lunch and our first day cruising with only a slight detour at Montauban where I missed the turn to our village. Nick was soon on Van Nelle's wheel in the long straight stretches between Montech and Dienpentale where we executed a 180 degree turn and headed back. We had arranged a program of daily cruises of about 15 kilometres that included up to 11 locks on each day, first outward to Valence and then returning to Montech. The first day was in the opposite direction but had the benefit of only one lock on each direction, one ascending and on the return, descending.
Training on the effects of suction caused by the prop, use of power to steer, setting up for entrance to locks and passage under bridges was interspersed with information regarding daily maintenance, rope handling and useful knots, manoeuvring in confined spaces, wild mooring techniques, passing techniques and other arcane but necessary knowledge. Nick picked up the hang of steering this big boat quickly but, predictably, had some problems in lining the boat up to enter the locks in the descent phase. This is because as you approach descent locks your line of sight is higher than their walls therefore difficult to see clearly, whereas ascending, the walls are well above you and you can use them to line the boat up.
When travelling in the direction of the flow of water (downstream), the boat descends through the locks. Departing from Montech towards Bordeaux is with the current (obviously minimal in a canal) and the levels descend at each ecluse. To add to the degree of difficulty, in this canal there is a lot of excess water which bypasses each lock by means of a sluice above and below. The effect of the sluices, located very near and to one side of the lock entrance, is to slew the boat’s bow just as you approach the entrance since it is taking quantities of water away from the entrance at the top and spewing it into the canal at the bottom.
As the helms-person has spent nervous minutes lining up perfectly on the centre line of the lock, having the boat suddenly veer away by the bow and shortly after by the stern, can be a surprising and sometimes nerve racking experience. The immediate reaction is to turn the wheel hard to oppose the movement of the bow that threatens collision with the outer lock wall, but as you do, this swings the stern away from the centre line and fast towards the wall you are trying to avoid. This movement is quickly added to by the pull of the sluice bypass water to the stern now that the bow is through the affected patch. The boat is now threatening to broadside into the sharp corner offered by the external lock wall and, even at the recommended entry speed of 3.5kmh, this can cause very loud noises, extensive denting or scraping of the boat and the loss of considerable amounts of stone or concrete facings on the lock and paint off the boat. Not to mention embarrassment.
What to do ? As Nick discovered under instruction, first aim the boat into the lock from the opposite side of the centre line to the push of escaping water (which requires that you know what side the sluice is on - and it changes from lock to lock). Certainly oppose the swing of the bow but then use power and opposite lock to force the stern away from the lock wall. Boats like Van Nelle steer only by the force of water over the rudder pushing the stern in the opposite direction to the intended direction of the bow. One has to know and use this knowledge and power to control the boat and be several moves in front of the boat's movements, anticipating it's action and reaction. Trying to manoeuvre an 88' (27m) single screw boat without power is useless, these barges have flat bottoms and no keels, only power will guide them.
Nick progressed very well, finding ascending an easier task than descending, except in not being able to easily see the lock walls on exit again by now being higher than them. Narrow bridges and low bridges were the other major challenges, especially the ones placed on bends of the canal. It was fortunate that for the first few days there was no other traffic heading towards us from the other side of the canal's bends.
We enjoyed a varied program of cruising, exploring historic towns, finding and eating in new restaurants and on the boat. By the end of the week of instruction I was ready for a three day fast and three AFDs (alcohol free days), the first we had for a couple of months.
During this cruise we cemented friendships with Rolly and Val the Kiwis in Castelsarrasin, Barry and Judy, Niko and Iana in Valence and several of the genial lock keepers and their families on the way. We returned to Montech on the Saturday having had to spend a full day in Castelsarrasin on our return to Montech as November 1 is one of the five days of the year that the locks are closed. This, and the end of daylight saving were two events that we almost missed recognising. Fortunately we were made aware and planned excursions to cover the day in Castelsarrasin.
On Nick’s last day - Sunday 3 November, we drove into Toulouse for lunch at the food markets and Maureen and I took a look at the Capitole (a fantastic building open to the public - more on it later) and Toulouse's Basilica before heading back to the reality of the next five winter months in this area with definite limits on our canal travels. We quickly headed for a couple of travel shops to check out brochures on Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia and Portugal - all warm contenders for some of our winter time.
The GPS tells me we have done just over 4,000 kilometres since we started in August 2001. Given that there are about 15,000 kilometres of canals and navigable rivers in Europe, and that we have retraced our steps on some of them, we still have something like 12,000km to do. At this rate we therefore have about another 6 years of exploration ahead of us.
In preparation for winter, today I arranged for 500 litres of ‘red’ diesel (about 40 cents per litre versus 84 cents for white - but only for use in heaters and generators) and we have put aboard an electric heater (since electricity is included in our mooring fees) and several sacks of ‘charbon du bois’, (charcoal) for the pot belly stove. Charcoal does not cause the creosote like liquid to dribble from the chimney onto the deck which we get from burning wood and is relatively inexpensive and quite clean to handle. We will experiment with various methods of insulation and heating to get the best combination, although we expect to be somewhat warmer here in the south than we were in St Jean. The noon temperature today was 10 degrees and it is just the beginning of November.
We had arranged for a mooring at Montech for the start of winter and were planning to then move to Castelsarrasin for the balance of the season, however the Directeur du port at the Mairie at Montech made me an offer that I could hardly refuse. He suggested I take over the tourist boat’s mooring which came with upgraded power and a nice jetty. The price was very reasonable and the port, while inhabited only by one other couple, was near the small town and secure with good parking. I accepted and we settled in for the duration.
Montech is a small rural village of about 500 inhabitants with two churches (Catholic), a hotel and restaurant, a small supermarche, some small specialty shops including two boulangeries and a boucherie, a service station and a library. We were quickly recognised on the streets as we walked to the shops daily and met with friendly greetings and a few words of acknowledgement. Some of the townspeople would take walks along the gardens at the marina and check out the new arrivals. We felt welcome and enjoyed the sensation of being in a town where no-one spoke English - and I mean no-one !
Montech is only about 10 minutes from Castelsarrasin and 15 minutes drive from Montauban, a large rural centre with extensive markets, supermarkets and technical support, and only 40 minutes drive from Toulouse, the region capital, a huge city with extensive engineering, manufacturing and technology industry - example - Airbus Industrie. Additionally, there are many towns and chateaux, monasteries, wineries and other places of interest in the region. It is only a hour’s drive from Lourdes and the snow near to that pilgrim town near the Spanish border where allied servicemen were spirited over the Alps into freedom during WWII.
Preparing the boat for winter in these new surrounds and exploring the local attractions took most of the time until Christmas and time for Maureen to depart for her post Christmas trip to Australia as she had decided to visit her parents and our boys during the non cruising winter period. I decided to stay with the boat.
It was going to be a long winter alone in a small town where I had to get up to speed with the language.
Chapter Eight - Winter in Montech
Maureen left on the night train to Paris on Wednesday 15 January for her flight to Perth on the morning of the 16th and so the long (ten week) bachelorhood began. A routine began to emerge as the cold of winter settled around the boat and some evidence of ice forming on the port surface began to appear. Waking later with the sun and doing routine chores on the boat occupied most mornings, while the afternoons were dedicated to writing or exploring local towns.
I joined the local church choir, as much for contact and the chance to practice French as for the singing, which is mostly in unison and all new tunes to me. The choir adopted me after realising that I was capable of holding a tune and reasonably quick to learn the very different hymns and psalms of the French Catholic church. I have not been asked what faith I am and the fact that I do not take the wafer at the Mass does not seem to phase the choir members or the Cure (priest). Maybe they already suspect that I am a lapsed protestant.
My second choir practice was a highlight as the self appointed leader of the choir, a middle aged man with a commanding voice, had taken to directing the practices, much to the frustration of the Cure - who, I suspect, is a bit of a control freak. After telling us to change the phrasing of the start of a particular hymn, the leader was assailed by the Cure in a torrent of virulent French - some pretty fruity phrases being used. There ensued a loud argument which ended with the leader and his wife, departing in a state of ruffled dignity. A subdued discussion followed among the rest of the choir but none were willing to take the Cure on and to point out the very valuable contribution the departed two made to the choir. Some weeks later the two had not re-appeared, so I assume that was the end of the matter.
The choir practice is interesting from another point. The diocese issues the printed order of service pamphlets which include the lessons and hymns but at this church the orders are dramatically changed for the preferences of the local folks. Its no wonder I could not follow the services before I joined the choir, they have almost no commonality to the printed service programs.
The choir is a mixture of elderly men and women with some very good and some very questionable talents. Very little more than the leading of the congregation is undertaken by the choir which I felt had the inherent skills to be able to take on a more solo role at times. One or two of us occasionally broke into harmony, purely to add interest to some of the more well known hymns. The members of the choir were a little reserved with me but at the same time friendly and helpful. The lack of language skills on my part was really the problem as I certainly did not expect them to learn or try to speak English.
Another form of music was required for I felt I could not get through the whole of the five months of winter without some live music. Sensing that in a town the size of Montauban there must be some live music I took my query to the Tourist Office and was directed to ‘Le Barfly’ a bar / restaurant on the perimeter of the central part of town. Here, on Friday and Saturday nights, real musicians play and sing. There is no cover charge and the cost of drinks are only minimally inflated to cover the musicians, so the only real downer of the deal is that inevitably the place is full of the particularly cloying French cigarette smoke which needs to be washed out of one’s clothes the next day. The upside of the deal is that the music is pretty good, varied and the place provides a chance to meet the locals.
It was at Barfly that I met Laurent. A 30 something guy who mistook me for the father of a couple of 20ish year old girls he had his roving eye on. He rapidly lost interest in them when he found out I was Australian and had a boat at Montech.
Laurent spends half of each year in Thailand and Cambodia, picking up latex mouldings of the local statues of Gods which he brings back to his parents farm near Montech to turn into concrete garden ornaments. These he executes with some flair and sells through a number of local jardinieres. He is also a decorator who is used often (when in France) to decorate Exhibition displays, having worked on some major expositions in France, Germany and Spain, including the release of a new Airbus aeroplane a couple of years ago.
Laurent’s parents are supposed to be retired but still operate their timber farm which Laurent is supposed to be assisting with and possibly inheriting under the French inheritance laws. His father, a 60 something, gentle, white haired gent, is more like a university professor of philosophy than a farmer and his mother is of Italian stock, a small bird-like creature who cooks a mean dejeuner - lunch. I found this out since Laurent invited me to lunch with them before he left for his next sojourn in Thailand.
Lunch was for Laurent and his parents, their friend Charles - a banker from Montauban and me. We started with Coquille St Jacques, moved on to soupe a l’ognion, then poisson, some beef on bones - slow roasted on coals in the kitchen fire, tarte du pomme avec creme and café. I took some Australian white and red wine of which they complimented me then provided some local reds and whites from a milk jug that were every bit as good. Later, Laurent took me to the vineyard where for the next three years we bought large quantities of fine, bulk wines.
My other playmates, Val and Rolly the Kiwis and Judy and Barry the Canadian and British couple, have all taken to travelling during this period so we get together at odd times when they return to check their boats. Rolly and Val are based in Castelsarrasin while Barry and Judy are further away in Valence d’Agen. The other couple I have some contact with are Andre and Cathy, the owner / operators of ‘Cathy’ a converted hire boat that is now a tourist day trip boat out of the port of Montech. This is not the one whose mooring Van Nelle is on. That is used by an odious man with a large restaurant boat - the one which kept us waiting on our first trip through the area some months before. His name is Monsieur DuSeau - Mr The Bucket, his boat Pente d’Eau...
The two boats that operate here - Cathy and Pente d’Eau are about to be joined by a fleet of hire boats. My contact at the Mairie, Monsieur Dumas, has informed me that Nichols Hire Boats are moving in here in March with 9 or 10 hire boats. They will take over the operation of the port as well, I am led to believe, but our contact will remain with the Mairie.
So, time rolled on, with me taking on such mundane projects as taking on new batteries, more red fuel (the untaxed version of diesel), shopping for rope and other boat parts, getting pump kits sent from Ireland and visiting the Airbus Industrie plant in Toulouse. Airbus is the constructor of the A310, 330, 340 and 380 aircraft that are now enjoying up to 50% of world demand, since they have consistently taken a more innovative approach to their designs than Boeing. Parts of the planes are manufactured in the various countries that have an interest in the parent company. They include France, the UK, Germany and Spain. A guppy like transport aircraft fleet is used to ferry the parts, including wings, fuselage sections, tail assemblies etc into Toulouse where they are painstakingly assembled to make completed aircraft.
The tour is about 2 ½ hours and is pretty boring as it is all in French and consists of a bus ride through the grounds, a video about the planes, and a narrative while on the fourth floor balcony inside the assembly hangar for the A340. If you are lucky and arrive for your appointment on a special day, you may also be able to visit Concorde 001, now firmly on the ground and the nearby aircraft museum. The days for those visits are definitely not in February. The A380 is now being assembled there as well.
Getting a bit bored with my surroundings after 5 weeks of winter single living, I decided I would take a few, more distant side trips.
I really only meant to check out Bordeaux and Castets and possibly the west coast a bit but ended up a week in and around Bordeaux, Cognac and La Rochelle and then when I got back, the weather was lousy, the car had performed brilliantly during the Bordeaux trip and the weather reports looked better south, so there I went. I meant to only go for a day or so but ended up in Barcelona and a few other little Spanish sea side towns, so stayed away a bit longer. This time of the year, if you can find a hotel open (most are closed till Easter), they are cheap and include breakfast or even for a few extra Euros - full board. That cuts down the costs quite a bit and while I felt a bit guilty spending some money on myself, I overcame the feeling and enjoyed myself.
Bordeaux - big (very big), ugly (since they were renewing the whole of the river front which is the whole of the town), and very unwelcoming for boats like ours, I thought. This was my first impression - later changed when we stayed in the grande bassin for about a month while our generator was repaired.
The river is big, muddy and VERY tidal, and in the centre of town there are a few commercial floating pontoons but nothing for the pleasure boater. However, there is a marina / port which was built for and used by the German submarines during the war where they built a huge concrete bunker which the Allies could not even dent with aerial bombing. This port is accessed only at high tide - so you have to be there and waiting for hours before high tide to get in, and since you have a 5 hour trip from Castets bringing the tide down, I'm not sure how you would be there at the right time. When you get there the port is old, decrepit, full of rubbish and old boats. There are also a few laid up commercial barges in a separate area, right over the other side of the marina, away from the town.
The marina itself is some 2-3 km from the town centre - although where the city centre is exactly, is anyone's guess. The city is the fourth or fifth largest in France and it seems that all the French cars are there. It is impossible to park anywhere except expensive and hard to find parking buildings. The 'attractions' are spread out throughout this big, traffic laden city and therefore hard to access. For my money and on first impressions I thought Bordeaux was a big no-no. The river front is perhaps 5km long and in complete turmoil and will continue to be as they rebuild it in its entirety, until 2006 or so. This screws up the whole traffic for the city as it extends the length of it. I fought the traffic for a day, found the marina, checked out some ship’s chandlers, looked for a tourist friendly area and hotel, thought the better of staying for an extended time and proceeded to the La Rochelle area.
La Rochelle - entirely different. This is a tourist town built around an ancient fortified port, much of which remains and is now home to visiting boats (from the sea with no connection to the canals unfortunately) and to some commercial tour boats. There is a 'new port' and a 'new fishing port' to the north west of the old town so the central area is left tranquil and is now filled with restaurants, bars and hotels. The 2 star cheapies I found were charging as much or more as the three star 'best in town' hotel which boasted a great central location and a lift. I managed a deal based on the number of nights, no bath but a shower and WC and the fact that they were doing renovations (so it was noisy during the day). It ended up being very cheap and very comfortable and it, the hotel Jean d’Arc, was a great base to explore the local area.
Here again, the Germans built submarine pens in La Rochelle, in what is the ‘new’ commercial port and there they remain. I don't know what they will eventually do with them as they appear indestructible and certainly were during WWII. I went up to the new port as the chandlers in town did not sell the ‘big’ ropes I needed and found a substitute to our current mooring lines at a reasonable cost. I spent some days in this area, visiting the local towns and looking for the old canals I had been told about. Driving through the country I finally found a few bits and pieces of waterways - especially at Cognac. The river / canal system is pretty run down as are the hire boats that are lying around waiting for the season to re-commence. Cognac was closed till the first of March and therefore I missed tasting the brandies. I went to 3 of the big names, only to be told that at number one I didn't have an appointment, # 2 was not open at all and # 3 ‘come back on 1st of March with a reservation’. The countryside is quite pretty but no better than around Montech and busier, with trucks going to and from the vineyards to the distilleries and towns.
Back to La Rochelle. Three defensive towers dominate the skyline and remain as they were when the English warships of the 17th century were kept away. You can buy a ticket to visit all three and the German lady guide advised they were good for three days. Each tower should take thirty minutes or so I was told - ‘but I’m sure I will see you back here in 8 minutes’ she said ! She thought this was a great joke and laughed her head off. I thought she should have been a bit more enthusiastic about her employment. Anyway, I took much longer as one had been used as a prison for (mostly) English privateers and had plenty of interest to keep one amused..
In 17th and 18th century England, if you wanted to supply your own ship and work for the government, you could get a 'letter of marque' that qualified you to legally prey on enemy (French) ships as a privateer. However, you had to share the spoils of war with the government. If you didn't want to share your prizes and you had no letter of marque, you were a pirate. Here, captured privateers were held as prisoners of war while pirates were executed.
Many of the prisoners carved their names and pictures of their ships into the stone walls of their tower prison and these have been preserved for the tourists, some of whom have added their own graffiti. The two towers on either side of the tiny harbour entrance had a chain which was pulled up from the bottom of the channel to stop enemy ships getting in to damage or steal French shipping. Now, they let the many British (and other nation’s) yachts in, all to be fleeced (presumably) by the French harbourmaster in retaliation for the many slights inflicted by Nelson and Co.
The hotel (Jean d'Arc) is right on the waterfront, and while my cheapie small room at the back had no view, it is a pretty place to be and fun at nights, as the restaurants and bars fill up with early season tourists and locals who work in the tourist trade. Behind the port is a lovely old town area worth many strolls. Lots of yummy, cheap food to fill up on instead of three course, restaurant meals.
The car performed really well, purring along the country roads as well as the Autoroutes, which gave me a great feeling of security, so I headed into the countryside and off to the Isle de Re. Connected by a causeway to the mainland, the Isle de Re is a tourist island with some farming squeezed in between the camping areas and beaches. It has a couple of VERY pretty little fishing villages (St Martin the principal one). There are still small fishing smacks that go out daily, some for the local restaurants and some to take avid fishermen. The island is some 15km long and in parts just like Rottnest Island on the Western Australian coast and in others like the surrounding farmland. There are forts on the island since it forms an outer defence for La Rochelle, from both sea borne enemies and the sea itself. The sea during the several days I was there was very placid.
The island and other towns north and south of La Rochelle are where people go to swim, since at La Rochelle itself there is only one tiny beach about 150 metres long and right near the entrance to the outer port area at which stands the 'French Sailing School' with its large numbers of small and smaller dinghies. The Marina on the other side of the port, and some 3-4 km by car, houses the fleets of ocean racing yachts and cruisers from all ports of the world. This is a serious sailing centre of the world with an amazing array of powerful ocean racers.
While the weather was infinitely better than at Montech when I left, it was still not hot enough to swim so I didn't see any Bridget Bardot look-alikes sunning their entire bodies, practically naked on the beaches. Mostly, the tourists at this time of the year are the older folks. Its like they empty out the retirement homes onto tour busses and send them off to the country. That's not bad however since if you see where they are staying and follow them there you find good hotels with very good off season deals.
There were of course other people around, including Russell Wilson and his son from Perth, Western Australia. He operates the Fast Ferries from Hillary's Harbour and was over in France to check up on some new engines which he buys from a La Rochelle company. It also gives him a chance to visit France and get the government to foot part of the bill. I don't know how he manages to get away during summer in WA though - I would have thought it would have been better to come in the WA winter. He was however, having a VERY good time tasting the local food and wine. The area is great for seafood and surprisingly - Paella - which with Moules Frites is on just about every menu. Good and cheap food, washed down with flavoursome local wines and beers.
I went back to Montech through Bordeaux to check that I had not been too harsh on that great city but was disappointed again. It’s not a town I would then have recommended, there were too many hassles there and not enough to enjoy - by comparison with the much more accessible enjoyments in the smaller towns and cities east, west, north and south. Later I was to change my mind.
This part of Europe is easy to access, with autoroutes connecting the major areas and good departmental highways linking in the best tourist places. Getting from (say) Montech to Bordeaux (about 200km), takes much less than 2 hours and costs about 20 Euros in tolls. I returned on the auto route and nervously checked everything on the boat, which I had left locked up and with the electric heater warming the engine room and the central heating set on 12 degrees to ensure nothing froze. Since the weather had warmed considerably it was apparent that the heating precautions were not necessary, the boat was still afloat, power was still operating fine and the batteries working to peak performance.
The water pump - always noisy, grew noisier and then stopped. Checking, it was obvious that the problem was terminal and I happily changed it for the spare I had bought from the Shell fuel barge in Maastricht 18 months earlier. The pump noise, which we had endured for 18 months, almost completely disappeared with the new pump, which is far more efficient and has also eliminated the endless clicking sounds as it re-charges the pressure cylinder. Happiness !
Unfortunately, now that the weather has warmed up, my use of fuel has reduced and the 400 litres of red fuel seems to be taking a very long time to be used. As this is in the main fuel tank and I would be fined heavily if found using it to run the engine, I need to finish it off. Hopefully we will not be inspected early in the season as there will likely still be a fair amount of 'red' fuel in the system. This is the untaxed version, not to be used for propulsion.
The day after I arrived back - carefully planned to fit in with choir duties and practices, the weather went south - turning to rain and quite a bit of wind. As I had such a good time travelling I decided, rashly, to venture forth again. This time I thought to see where the roads would take me - perhaps to the border to get my passport stamped in case of driving license problems. (You are supposed to get a French license within a year of entry to the country).
The distances between cities and countries look large on the maps but when you get into the rhythm of driving on the auto route, they shrink quite rapidly, and I soon realised that I could easily make the Spanish border after reaching Narbonne, about an hour and a half after leaving Toulouse. I wanted to get off the big roads and look for Don Quixote's towns so I left the system shortly after arriving in Spain for a small road that pointed towards the coast.
The France Lonely Planet guide (I had not even taken the Western Europe book since I had not thought I would go that far) only extended a small way into the border area of France and Spain so it was not too useful and I found myself on a road filled on both sides with furniture factories and other manufacturing companies. After about an hour however I arrived at Rosas, a HUGE tourist town on the coast. Lots of very large (Surfers Paradise like) hotels grouped together around the bay looking very forbidding and expensive. I kept going and found on the other side of this large bay a smaller centre that was much older in architecture and scale. It boasted 2 star tourist hotels - cheaper than France - and I selected one on the waterfront before venturing out into their Carnivale. It seems that at this time of the year, all the tourist towns (and others) celebrate Carnivale - which I guess must be linked to a religious basis. It meant lots of wildly dressed locals partying with very loud music in the streets. This led to fun in and with the crowds, a few beers, a few Sangrias and - of course - Paella.
Here again are fortified town buildings and in Rosas, the very large fort quite overgrown, with its walls broken down but easily seen and walked over. The main road stretches around the bay, which has a number of big breakwaters and a brownish, gritty sand. There are lots of hotels and restaurants. The place must be a zoo in the summer, especially since their road network was never built to handle it. The road leading out winds precariously along the cliff sided coast for some 40km to Tossa de Mar, a tiny and beautiful sea side village that was only accessible from the sea until the late 1800s when a road was finally established through the mountains behind it. It was a centre of cork production and a trading town with sea routes as far as America. Tossa was also prey to pirates and opposing naval fleets and so was fortified by a canon encrusted fortress on its precipitous cliffs.
Most of the town was closed - even the bars that were open were closed. I wanted to watch the sunset from one and was told 'no drinks - closed' by the shapely but sour femme guarding the bar. She seemed to have changed her mind some 10 minutes later however when 6 young French men came by for a drink. They had no trouble getting them. That didn't unduly worry me however as there was another bar right next door where the man was keen to sell me a jug of sangria. Besides - this is seaside Spain right. Hasta less fasta.
I tried a half dozen hotels in Tossa and finally found the one used by the oldies tour company, a big hotel with very good facilities and with undercover parking (free) and full board for 3 euros more than the room cost. That took care of dinner and breakfast and I got a reduction on the cost since I didn't want lunches. The food was cafeteria style stodge but hey - it was cheap and filling and quick.
There are a few little fishing boats in this charming little town. These are colourful, pretty and obviously a local design, and, after catching enough for the restaurants they use huge land winches to return up the steep, gritty beach. This practice, steeped in tradition, plus the tiny size of the waterfront, the medieval fort and charming sea-side atmosphere, made the place a great find, being equal with La Rochelle and its Ile de Re. Being now only a hundred kilometres from Barcelona, I could hardly not go on to see what everyone finds so entrancing there, so I took a day trip, driving there and back from Tossa. With the ever present auto route, it is easy and quick to get places. When you arrive in the bigger towns however it is often a different thing to find your way around and to be able to stop, park and explore the local sights.
The three major sights of Barcelona for me were the Temple de Familia Sagrada - the rather weird looking cathedral building started in the early 1900s (and still under construction), the port area and its Marina, and La Rambla - the pedestrian mall through the heart of the city.
Exiting the auto route in the city, you can see the towering spires of the Temple and following the one way street system it is not too difficult to get close to. There are a number of small parking stations nearby, so it was not too hard to get to see that attraction. It really is a construction site with; good explanations about the way the design came about, the architect Antonio Goudy (now dead) and the future plans for completion. There are credit card donation machines littered throughout the building which is still very much open to the elements and huge cranes and construction things happening under, over and around the visitors. I had to think that it might just be a big money trap with a few actors pretending to be construction workers. I have no idea when they hope to finish the thing but it is very impressive. Apparently he designed it by tying pieces of string together and hanging them upside down, then copied the curves.
Next, follow the one way streets down to the waterfront and find another parking station near the Marina having circumnavigated the zoo and other large and impressive public buildings. This area is a magnet to all and sundry as it is a bit like Sydney's rebuilt Pyrmont port area behind The Rocks. Big walkways that float on the tidal sea water carry wandering tourists and locals to the shops and restaurants found there. Big, Australian-built car ferries loading and departing for African and other European ports are here mingled with yachts and other boats, all being observed by innumerable tourists and office workers on their lunch break.
Right on the waterfront are the big, old, port buildings, Customs, Bourse, Port Administration, all in fine condition and overlooked by the man (unnamed) on a tall plinth as a memorial to the discovery of America. Vasco da Gama, Magellan, Amerigo Vespucci, whoever. Strangely there appeared to be no name on the plinth - just lots of Spanish declaiming the act of finding the America.
Behind the marina area, across a 6 lane waterfront main road is La Rambla, the wide boulevarde exclusive to the use of pedestrians. This is predictably lined with hotels, restaurants, tourist shops, bars and is thronged with legal and illegal street vendors. Artists doing portraits and selling small watercolours, people acting as statues and men hiding a pea under three match box lids, trying to trick the tourists. One sharp eyed girl kept following one pea game trickster and beating him each time she played. He kept moving on trying to shake her off and she kept following and winning. He gave up when he went broke.
Lots of young backpackers and lots of different languages are in this area. The traffic is more manageable, the sights more accessible and the outlook more serene. However, I felt I had seen enough of Barcelona during the day and wanted to get back to Tossa before heading back to France. The trip back to Montech was uneventful and since it was Thursday I arrived in time for the choir practice that night. Only one annoyance and one little problem with the car. Annoyance - the little plastic mud flap under the right front had come adrift again (and should be fixable with a plastic tie), problem - the passenger window has stopped working. The car used a little oil on the trip (less than a litre) and I guess the local mechanic should be able to fix the window - I'll find out.
In between trips further abroad, a sign indicated that there was to be a Fiesta at St Pierre de la Grave a town near Montech. Worth a look I thought, so off I went to investigate. St Pierre de la Grave is a town steeped in history as it is a place where Richard the Lionheart stayed on his way back to England after one of his crusades. The building in which he made his stay still stands and is now a proud monument to the fact. It was in the shadow of this imposing, tower bedecked building that the Fiesta was in full swing. Many decorated tractors pulled floats of every level of sophistication (and some without any), through the streets of the town. They were hemmed in by the enthusiastic crowd, jostling between the parade and the gaudy side-show alley booths of shooting galleries and food stalls. The crowd were in the act as much as the parade as they wore every imaginable costume and by 3.00 in the afternoon, were well into the lubricating liquids.
The day was overcast and cool so I headed off to the town’s large basketball stadium from where loud music could be heard. A brass band, of the kind that officiates at bull fights, was in full voice, accompanying a group of bored looking female line dancers. This was boot scooting with a difference - French style. The girls, ranging from 12 to 70, carried a scarf in one hand and castanets in the other. They whirled and twirled and beat their rhythms and waved their scarves - all looking entirely somewhere else. The band was into the event in a big way however and the whole atmosphere was loud, energetic and entirely appropriate. On the side of the stadium was a bar which had attracted a large crowd of enthusiastic patrons and, no doubt buoyed up by the singing syrup dispensed there, a couple of brown leotard clad girls danced, arm in arm, becoming more and more enamoured of each other and familiar with each other’s bodies. Very interesting !
Outside the side-show people plied their trade on the onlookers. The usual range of suspects were there. Fairy floss, sugared peanuts, shooting galleries, fishing tanks, ball throwing, crepes, French fries and rides of every description, all in a noisy, fun filled atmosphere. I tried a number of new items - like the deep fried batter cakes then retired to Van Nelle at Montech as the night drew in and the temperature dropped like the barflies.
During choir practices a number of the choir personalities had recommended a trip to Lourdes, only 170 kilometres away and so after church one Sunday I took off for a look. Getting there is easy, down a good departmental road which, at lunch time Sunday, was relatively quiet. A number of interesting towns like Auch and Tarbes are met along the way. Auch is especially historic with a large church and religious buildings imposing itself on the surrounds from a strategic hill. The old town is well preserved for walking through and a slow river meanders through the centre with artists under sun shades making portraits of it.
Less than two hours from Montech and you arrive in Lourdes, city of the 9 apparitions of the Virgin. These appeared before an uneducated young girl in a grotto on the bank of the fast flowing river that bisects the town. Bernadette Soubirous, later Saint Bernadette, saw the visions while a teenager and later, under examination from the Catholic church, convinced them the visitations were real. Since then a number of miraculous cures have been attested to, a practice which seem to have petered out in the 1970s as the church imposed more serious investigations and tests on the claimants. In fact no more miracles occurred after that change - funny that.
St Bernadette found a spring in the grotto (now preserved under armoured glass), the water from which is supposed to have healing powers. You can bathe in it at the 17 baths just next to the grotto, or you can fill water bottles and take it home for later. The many, very tacky tourist souvenir shops lining the roads leading to the grotto sell every conceivable shape and size of receptacle for the water - including very tasteful (?) bottles shaped like the Madonna..... ! Her head twists off to allow the water to flow. They also sell every known variation of postcard, medallion, decoration and trinket, all emblazoned with the Madonna, St Bernadette, the town or pictures of the vision, the grotto and other attractions of Lourdes. If the tourist shops outside the walled, church run enclosure seem too expensive or tacky, you can avail yourself of the church authenticated souvenirs on the inside. They all seemed the same to me.
The town, on the whole, is very commercial and tacky, and difficult to take seriously. There are over 350 hotels in the area of the town, more than in any town outside Paris. There must be that many souvenir shops, even ‘authentic souvenir shops’ inside the grand grotto area. As is pointed out, many people spend life savings to attend this place, walk through the grotto (a small niche in the side of the hill), worship at the many church services in the many chapels and churches, and to take part in torch light processions during the season. Fortunately March is outside the ‘season’ so the place was easy to navigate by car, finding a cheap hotel room was easy and parking right near the grotto was possible. I cannot imagine what it is like in the height of summer.
From various vantage points in the town can be seen the snow covered peaks of the Pyrenees mountain chain that separates France from Spain. The snow fields beckon from a distance of only 30 - 50 kilometres and so after a day and a half investigating the power and religious interest of Lourdes, I struck out for Cauteret, a small village noted for its snow areas. Small was correct, Cauteret is about the size of an Australian Alpine village during the ski season. Pretty, old and still a half hour’s drive to the ski field - without traffic. In the rush hour during the morning I guessed it would take an hour or more to negotiate the steep, winding, mountain road to the parking area and ski lift buildings. Entry to the park was only 2 Euros, which I thought was pretty reasonable.
I bought a ticket for the ski lift - another 4 Euros, still reasonable I thought, and went on the 10 minute ride to the other end. Deposited on the track next to the cable car depot, I found a number of trails leading away into the rather steep looking terrain. The majority of users of this facility were on snow shoes or cross country skis so I surmised that Cauteret is not a great downhill ski field. Walking the various trails I ended up at chair lifts that were not operating and wondered where all the people were whose cars were in the car park outside.
I finally took the trail that led to the ‘Spanish Bridge’, a rather small and un-prepossessing structure that once had led allied servicemen who had dropped behind the lines into Spain and away from the Vichy or later German guards. I stopped for a cup of tea at the restaurant before walking out of the field and back to the car to re-trace my journey to Lourdes and then Montech. Before I went however I had a flash of (divine ?) inspiration and so bought a large water container (complete with printed picture of the Virgin on it’s front) and filled it, plus the two, 2 litre water bottles I kept in the car. The large container I delivered back to the Cure in Montech, the two water bottles I drank from while driving - well, it can’t hurt - can it ?.
The next few days saw me start Van Nelle’s long postponed work detail, cleaning and painting, tidying up cables inside the boat and going through accumulated oddments to find appropriate storage for them. I still had quite a deal of firewood which was taking up space in the wheelhouse and now that the temperatures have risen considerably, I felt I’d better dispose of it. Somehow I managed to store it all in the fireplace, the wood box and under the pot belly. The old, broken toaster finally got the heave ho and the winter insulation has come down. Black ‘boot topping’ paint has been applied to the gunwales and white touch up paint to a few little scratches on the forward decks. The hull needs painting in parts but I need the dinghy in the water to do that and would wait for Maureen’s assistance to achieve that.
Saturday 15 March was the date for the celebration of St Patrick’s day in Montauban and a locally displayed poster indicated a grand Irish dinner and event was to be held that night. Why not, I thought, so I called the number and booked a place for myself.
The Soiree was held in a huge Salle de Fete on the outskirts of the city centre and by 7.50pm the cars already stretched well down both sides of the approach road. Fortunately there was a space not too far from the entrance and I eased the old Renault in and headed for the door. Yes, they had my reservation, were happy to take my money and point out that my seat allocation was on a grand plan inside the hall. It was. I was on ‘Aran’ table, a county of Ireland, and after a false start I found it. Down both sides of this huge ballroom were tables for 25 people, most already occupied. There was space for me between a couple of French girls and a family party. I introduced myself and made for the bar for a 50cl glass of Caffreys - Irish beer. The choice was that or Guinness.
Shortly after I arrived a group of young Irish musicians set themselves up in the centre of the room and proceeded to wow the crowd with a range of upbeat Irish tunes. The twelve members consisted of two violins, two guitars, two drums (Irish hand held version), two flutes, a lute (?) and a banjo plus two squeeze boxes. The musicians were (I guessed) between 14 and 18 years old but were very, very good. They were followed by a pretty ordinary French band playing 60s R&R and eventually they were replaced by Phil Fasan, a local Montauban country and western singer - very good but not a bit Irish. The young band came back on the main stage later to do another hour or so including a couple of Irish ballads and a dance bracket - very Lord of the Dance stuff.
Meanwhile the ‘Irish’ repast was served. First course was smoked salmon, the plat principal - boeuf avec pomme de terre gateaux frit, and the final course a tarte pomme avec custard. Irish ???
Anyway, the food was quite good and the music also of good quality. One of the girls was celebrating a birthday so, after consuming a bottle of Frontonais (local red) that I supplied, we enjoyed a glass of Champagne on her - or should I say - from her.
During the ‘diner’ another young couple had arrived and were mostly into each other until one of the two girls inquired as to who they were. The answer - she was French - from the area - and he, her fiancée, was Australian. Nathan hails from Geraldton WA no less and is a school teacher taking a year to travel. He met Ellen and they soon decided to marry. We chatted about boats and marriage and beautiful girls - Ellen was certainly that - and exchanged addresses and phone numbers for a meeting some time in the future.
I left just after midnight as the music was becoming repetitive and no one wanted to dance since a very large group of local boot scooters had taken over the dance floor. They were also very good but not a bit Irish. Apparently the reason for the soiree was that a number of Irish had settled in the area around Montauban at some time in the past and the connection to Ireland is still quite strong.
Sunday 16 March had me rushing off to sing in the church choir before driving to nearby Castelsarrasin to join New Zealand couple, Rolly and Val, for lunch on a glorious sunny day. Oysters and Oeufs, salads, breads, gateaux and rose and white wines.
I had done a bit of the black boot-topping around the boat at the end of the previous week and settled into a bit more paint repair on Monday before driving off to find a vineyard that I had not been able to re-discover after my French mate Laurent took me there weeks before. I finally found it with the help of the local post office - actually the two men in the queue behind me rather than the post people who had no idea. Getting ‘misplaced’ again on the way there I stopped at a small farm. The lady did not know but her husband jumped into his little van and led me right there - some 8kn away.
The vigneron and he knew each other so a spirited wine tasting followed as I was led through every one of their last three year’s wines - including his amazingly good private bin, which I was unfortunately not able to buy. I did however come away with 18 bottles of a mixture of 1999, 2000 and 2001 wines. Excellent value at Euro 50 the lot - about $ 3 each. They are a mixture of Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz and Sauvignon Blanc and are very good wines, currently under threat by the department’s plan to put an airport right in the middle of the vineyards.
Back in Montech, Monsieur Dumas from the Mairie turned up at 9.00am the next day to decide where I should re-locate Van Nelle for the balance of the month since the boat hire company, Nichols, and the owner of the mooring I am on, both arrive this week. We decided to put the boat on the end of two passarelles at the other end of the port, right next to our friends Andre and Cathy. I will move on Tuesday with the assistance of Andre on shore to take the lines. He and Cathy are invited for dinner with Val and Rolly on Wednesday so it was to be an interesting week. It started as I manoeuvred Van Nelle from the jetty I had wintered at to the ends of the two passarelles (floating walkways) for my final few weeks. Part way through the short trip I was getting no response from the throttle lever - the cable had broken. Fortunately I had almost completed the move and was able to manhandle the boat into position. This breakage necessitated a trip to Castelsarrasin where the boat repair yard was able to supply a replacement plus a spare, one of which I quickly fitted.
During our time on Van Nelle I accumulated a spare of each of the most important items such as cables, pumps - of which we had several kinds, valves and even light globes. 80% Frank had installed a number of different fittings requiring 12v and 24v globes and I had changed a number over to 220v versions to standardise. We therefore needed a range of globes and some were difficult to get at canal-side shops so when we were in or near large towns or cities, I would find the specialist outlets and put aside spares ‘in case’. This method saved us on more than one occasion from delay or inconvenience.
Nichols is a boat hire company which was expanding at that time. They had recruited a couple from the Island of Martinique, who arrived to manage the new franchise in Montech with a fleet of nine rental boats of different sizes. In addition to the boats, they had huge amounts of spares; linen, bikes, hoses, cables and all the other paraphernalia of the boat rental system. Catherine and her husband Christian had two teenage daughters who were at college in Paris and Dijon so they also needed a house, which they rented in the village. We became friends as I assisted Christian on a number of occasions, doing some SCUBA diving for lost items in the marina and helping carry heavy items to and from the boats and the store.
About this time we were also visited by vandals. I drove the car to the ATM in the village and noticed a strong smell of petrol which I thought came from a young woman’s car which had preceded me there. On return to the marina I noticed a trail of liquid still on the road, starting from where I had been parked overnight. I investigated and found to my surprise there was a round hole about 2-3cm diameter in the rear of the plastic fuel tank of the Renault. I drove down to the garage where the proprietor advised me I was the fifth of the day including one young woman who had been lucky to escape injury as her car burst into flame. He sourced a second hand fuel tank and fitted it for a very reasonable sum and I reported the matter to the police and the Mairie. Unfortunately we did not catch the perpetrators. The upside of the incident was that the director of external operations and development of the Mairie, Mr Dumas, felt the village owed me something and after I left Montech allowed me free parking in their vast warehouse, ensuring the old Renault was not further tampered with.
My first mate (wife Maureen - actually the Captain of Van Nelle) had arrived back from Australia before April 6th - which was her 50th birthday and I had arranged a celebration. I was able to recruit friends Rolly, Val, Judy and Barry for a dinner at the Chapon Fin restaurant in Moissac. We cruised Van Nelle to the town from Montech the day before on the pretence that I would take M to dinner alone. After waking to a Champagne breakfast Maureen was suitably surprised mid afternoon when along the quay strode Rolly playing ‘happy birthday’ on his bagpipes, followed by Val carrying a beautiful present, a wonderful glass plate. Judy and Barry arrived soon after and we spent some hours destroying a large part of our stock of L’Amiable Champagne before tottering off to the restaurant. I had also arranged for the patisserie to make a special cake and had it delivered to the Chapon Fin for our dessert. Dinner included chevre, saumon, tarte du canard, poisson roti, tarte du pomme et glace nougat - plus the gateau. All this was washed down with Tariquet Chardonnay and at the repast I read the five pages of emails I had received from friends to help celebrate the occasion.
Chapter Nine - 2003 Cruising the Midi and Lateral a ala Garonne
Our time at Montech had come to an end at the beginning of the summer cruising season. We considered this was essentially from the beginning of April and as we had already moved to Moissac for Maureen’s birthday on the 5th, this signalled our season start.
Now on the move we continued through to Valence d’Agen for a short stay followed by the very short section to Golfech where we had always wanted to visit the atomic power station that sponsors the hot water at the municipal pool. After securing Van Nelle at the tiny port, we rode our bikes to the entrance of the works - some 3 kilometres - to be met by a sign prohibiting entrance. Anti terrorist procedures had put a stop to the tours. We spent a couple of days just relaxing at this fine little canal stopping place before moving on through Agen where we searched out restaurants for future visits and explored the towns brilliant little art gallery.
After a day or two exploring more of Agen we slowly cruised across the very long pont canal (the aqueduct carrying the canal across the broad river bed) to the four locks that descend to the next section of the Canal Lateral a la Garonne, leading to Kate Hill’s home, Camont. Kate teaches Gascon cooking and has a wonderful Dutch Tjalk moored at the base of her canal side home on this canal she calls ‘the long village’. You can look it up on the internet. We had drinks and wandered her herb garden before retiring to rest for a lunch we arranged with Kate and her helper Dally the next day. The subsequent day’s lunch was, as always, marvellous with great food, wine and company.
We moved on to Buzet on Tuesday (Mardi en Francais) to visit the cave / coop to taste and stock up on their wines - both bottled reserve and vrac (bulk), some of which we sampled again that night with roast veal. Further culinary delights were to be had just down the canal where Vetou, one of Kate’s friends and a chef formidable has a creperie alongside the canal. We just had to stop and enjoy the company - and cooking by Vetou and her boisterous family.
At le Mas d’Argonnais where Vetou’s son ran the Crown Blue boat hire business is an ancient church which boasts a Rembrandt painting which is one of three of a triptych, the others well guarded in a German gallery. Further on we encountered Mirabelle, one of Continental Waterways hotel boats. Usually steered by young and often inexperienced skippers as it was on this occasion, this ship did not want to give ground while passing, raising my ire and a few words of advice.
The weather has been so hot and humid for the last three weeks that the thought of spending a few hours chained to the keyboard has not been contemplated. We have now arrived at Castelsarrasin and the temperatures have broken the 35 degree barrier each day. This was to be the beginning of the hottest year on record, a year when 16,000 French died specifically as a result of the heat. It became a national disgrace and raised a political furore.
From March to June, time just flew by. March nearly signalled the end of winter with the leaves on the plane trees lining the canal beginning to show after their branches were stripped bare throughout the frozen months. I had been pretty much on my own from January to March as my first mate (and wife) Maureen was away in Australia visiting and working. Since no-one in Montech spoke English, the time was well spent brushing up my French and getting to know the locals through the choir I joined. But now - Spring had sprung... as the doggerel goes.
We have made a New Year’s resolution to travel slower, stay longer, explore wider and generally get more into France, since in the past we have been known to cover great distances in a few days, only to miss the attractions of the intervening places. Since time is not limited we can afford to stop in or near villages and other landmarks for days or weeks if there are things to do. The Canals Entre Deux Mers, which we have chosen to spend 2003 on, run from near Marseille almost to Bordeaux and include the Canal Lateral a la Garonne on the west of Toulouse and the Canal du Midi on the east.
The Lateral has higher bridges having been built 100 years later than the Midi, which was completed in the mid 1600s, so we don’t have to take our roof off as we do on the smaller and lower Midi. For that reason alone we have chosen to cruise this side of the divide and to really get to know the area for the benefit of our guests. During this year we had quite a few guests booked including Michael Kiernan who enjoyed three days of cruising through snow in January, Dick and Anne Simpson came in the drizzly month of April, Peter and Jane Farrand from the UK in May, Adriaan and Robyn Schipper in June, Gary and Dianne Prattley in July plus Paul and Sue Scott with two friends in September. We had bookings from a number of Americans during July and August but the Gulf war, terrorism and SARS caused them to cancel. The hire and hotel boat business plus hotels, restaurants and tour companies have been as badly affected for those reasons as have the international airlines. Whole ports lie full of boats while the canals are almost empty - but fortunately not of water !
The Canal Lateral is 193 km long from Toulouse to Castets en Dorthe, the town with the two locks that put you onto the Garonne River for the final 54 km by tidal river to Bordeaux. Since the Garonne is a big and sometimes quite wild, tidal river, and since I had an unfavourable view of the port when I visited there during winter, we took a decision not to take the boat to the city, planning instead to stop at Castets and take the train to explore the nearby wine region. As it happened we later amended that decision to taking the car, stayed in a hotel and explored by foot in mid June. That trip to a large extent changed my mind about the city.
On its length, the Canal Lateral a la Garonne has about 20 small and large towns and quite a few other attractions. Departing Toulouse there is a rather uninteresting 43 kilometres to Montech though some industrial and scrubby farming areas. Two small towns are on the way but neither have port facilities and since the main train tracks run parallel and very close to the canal it can be noisy. The trip is not recommended except to access the Lateral from Toulouse or to leave it for the Midi. I have written at length about Montech which has an attractive port, then managed by Catherine and Christian who also manage the Nichols boat hire franchise there. Two ‘croisiers’ - tourist boats, are also stationed there to take visitors through the ‘Pente d’Eau’, a connected, two tractor bull-dozer device that pushes water containing your boat up an inclined concrete channel to the summit, thereby by-passing the normal five ecluses. This anachronistic device has been listed by UNESCO as a national asset and therefore has to be maintained in working order by the VNF who administer the inland waterways. Montech is also linked to Montauban by a side canal which in 2003 was under renovation for re-use.
From Montech you cruise under interlocking plane trees, originally grown to provide shelter to the horses, women and children that pulled their family’s barge along the canal and you arrive at Castelsarrasin, some 13 km and 7 locks (ecluses) later. Castel won the 2002 competition for ‘Best Inland Port’ since it is a very attractive, landscaped bassin bordered by trees and a handsome Tourist Office and Capitainerie. On the banks here are located a number of annual festivals including wine and jazz. Castel also has a boat repair workshop and a very good weekly market and even has occasional English language movies. We booked here for our winter stay in 2003/04.
Just 8 km and another 7 ecluses further west brings you over a small ‘pont canal’, the aqueduct carrying the canal over the river Tarn, into Moissac, famous for its monastery, museum and cloister. Although part of the buildings were demolished for a new railway line, much of the monastery, the whole church and the cloister survived and have been restored, including the remarkable hand painted patterns adorning the huge church’s interior walls, appearing to be like wallpaper. The cloister has the greatest number of individually decorated pillars, remarkably intact after some 8 centuries.
This area of France has a great concentration of abbeys and monasteries as it was the centre of the Cistercian monks who entertained nobility and royalty on their way to the crusades and on pilgrimages to Campostella in Spain. This made them the first chain of premium hotels in the world as they had - and offered - quality accommodation, food and wine. This area was also the site of the 100 years war for religious supremacy between the English, supporting Protestants under the Black Prince while the Pope and French king supported Catholicism. The Cathars also played a role here as a break-away fundamental Catholic group that denied the supremacy of the church of Rome. They were massacred like the Protestants, who in their time had committed the same zealous actions against the Catholics. After all that mayhem, along came the Revolution, the period in which church properties were confiscated, religious orders banned, their people banished and the vast lands and assets sold to wealthy bourgeois or torn down by locals for the materials then used to build their own homes and barns.
We used to enjoy the port at Moissac despite its management by the very unfriendly Monsieur Duseau, until he put the price up from 4 Euros to 10 per night with no additional facilities (such as water or electricity offered. While I had tried for months to engage him with courtesy and friendliness, this action and his overheard remark that ‘foreigners should not be allowed in France’ rather changed our minds. While many people repeat the oft said reputation that the French are arrogant, we have found it to be the exception - except in the case of Duseau - otherwise known as Captain Grumpy.
17 km after Moissac comes Valence d’Agen which has a sleepy port at the base of a small rise to the town, which is dominated by its open squares (places), market and church - in which wonderful concerts are held regularly. Valence also boasts a ‘spectacular’ each year in August called ‘Au Fil de l’Eau’, an acted history of the town and the canal by the people of the town in costume, using the canal and a sage set on it’s opposite bank as the backdrop. Quite a few towns throughout France are doing similar things, creating historical pageants acted out by locals, thereby attracting thousands of visitors each year.
Near to Valence is one of France’s atomic power plants and with it a free port with electricity and water provided, at Golfech, home of the ‘Goldfish Restaurant’. This is a restaurant famous for almost Michelin quality food and service but at remarkably affordable prices - with a guarantee that you will not glow in the dark afterwards.
The main city on the Canal Lateral is Agen, some 26 km after Valence. This is a big town with many attractions including a very good Art Gallery and Museum, a wonderful theatre with a strong program, good markets and for boating people, a hire boat port and a 200 metre long Pont Canal over the Garonne river, leading to the 4 locks that take you out of the city to the west. We choose to stay in the canal just before the first big bassin as we do not need electricity and water often and this area is shady and quiet. We discovered one of the town’s best restaurants (so certificated by Kate Hill - gourmet chef of the area) and have had some wonderful traditional French meals there.
Just past Agen, in the rural surrounds, is Kate Hill’s house 'Camont' and lying beside it on the canal, her Dutch Tjalk barge ‘Julia Hoyt’. While she has quit taking cruise charters, her core business of teaching people Gascon cooking continues, based around the house. This year she has suffered cancellations from the fallout of the Gulf war and SARS but despite her American market dwindling in the short term she continued to prepare a new book and had a TV documentary under development.
Serignac is a gorgeous and very friendly small town just 12 km from Agen. It has a small canal side quai with power and water free and a large ‘boularama’ on the canal side of the town in which there are always players of the French game of Petanque (or Boules). We have played there on a number of occasions and attracted the local experts to advise us on the fine points of the game or just to ask questions about who we are and where we are from and about the boat. These inquiries were always accompanied by an invitation to join the locals at their club house bar for a drink. And just to be different, their church here has a corkscrew steeple - unique in our experience.
After Serignac comes Buzet, a famous wine growing area that has a large co-op that produces and markets the wines of the various estates of the region. Unlike Australia, you can come and go as often as you like, try as many and as much of the wines - including their Grande Reserve - and buy or not, at prices below that of the retail shops selling the product. This has made the co-op the most visited attraction of the district and has helped to cement the sales and reputation of the wines. A far cry from the parsimonious and expensive methods in place at Western Australian vineyards where you can taste some free but expect to pay more than at the local liquor store for bottles. Buzet boasts a number of very good restaurants and has a hire boat base from which you can explore the canal Lateral and also the rivers Baise and Lot which branch off the canal from here.
The Grande Reserve red wine at Buzet comes in at 18.50 Euros per bottle while the more regular products range around the 4.00 mark. However, you can buy vrac into your own containers at about 1.50 per litre for essentially the same wine. Given that you can taste the product, good choices can be made for 5 litre containers to offset the higher cost of bottled wine. Our guests agree that our choices of bulk wines are better than many of the considerably higher priced named wines.
A number of small towns crowd the waterway from Buzet to Le Mas d’Agenais including Damazan, Villeton and Le Gruyere where Madame Vetou, Kate Hill’s ex-second chef and crew person, runs a Creperie with her daughter and son - who also runs the Crown Blue hire boat base at Le Mas. We met Vetou when Kate needed a crew member for a charter last year and Maureen stepped into the breach. The charterers had just completed the sale of their technology company to Hewlett Packard and were spending a small part of the fortune this had brought them.
Pont de Sables is at Kilometre 164 (from Toulouse) and is just 5 km from Marmande, another large regional town with railway station and motorway connections. It has a hire boat base and a high wall which scares other smaller boats away so that we invariably have it to attach to. The nearby restaurant enjoys a good reputation and there is a small ‘epicerie’ (grocery) down the main road about 100 metres, for small items. It was here that in April we took Dick and Anne Simpson aboard, cruising for five days to Buzet, Agen and the terrific restaurant Le Margoton, which served oysters in a cream sauce among other delicacies. We went on to Gruyere, retracing our steps to Pont de Sables to deliver the Simpsons back to their car.
Near Pont de Sables is Meilhan, a favourite place of ours for two main reasons. It has a port which charges only 1.20 Euros for electricity per night - water and accostage free - and it boasts the most famous regional butcher (Boucherie). The meat here is superb and the boucher will cut and prepare any variation you want, advise on cooking times and methods and replace items that were not up to standard. There are also a couple of very good restaurants and a couple of pleasant bars and cafes. A small supermarket and a bank add to the facilities that make this a place to stay for a reasonable period.
7 km on is a round shaped bassin at Fontet about 200 metres in diameter in which is located a small port and playground. A popular place for smaller boats but not one that we are attracted to - as much for the fact of the kids as for the navigational difficulties getting in and out of the very narrow entrance and the danger of going aground while in, as it has some very shallow parts.
At Kilometre 193 and through 2 locks you arrive at Castets - the end of the line on the canal Lateral and the start of the River Garonne for the final 54 km to Bordeaux. Castets is a pretty town but at the time we frequented the canal the port had been taken over by a young couple who have lifted the price to 12 Euros per day - exorbitant for us if looked at on a monthly basis - 360 Euros or so. While they argue that their long term rates are lower, we stay only a few days or a week at most and so do not qualify for long term rates and if we had to pay 12 per night everywhere - we would not have the money for the Vrac (bulk) wine from Buzet. Fortunately there are permanent barges moored here to which we can attach for the occasional night and the opposite bank is always an alternative.
Since we have free parking for the car at Montech, we stop at other towns and offload the scooter, use it to collect the car which we then use to drive into Toulouse or Bordeaux. We have also used the scooter at times to visit beautiful medieval towns seen from the waterways but too far up hills for bicycle rides. In this way we have extended our reach considerably and now, after having navigated up and back to Meilhan and Castets three times, we are beginning to get to know the area.
On our way back to Valence d’Agen we were stopped at the second of the four locks in the flight that leads up to the pont canal that carries boats across the river to the city. It was ne marche pas - not working. We let Van Nelle drift to the bank inside the inter-lock bassin and rested for a couple of hours before the eclusiers were able to get the system restored. Once fixed we were off again, reaching Valence in the late afternoon but with time to do some washing and have drinks with our mates Barry and Judy who were camped there on their lovely Tjalk.
The weekend over, we were off again for a leisurely cruise back to Montech in order to use the car to pick up my cousin Jacquie Sprogoe for a short cruise. There was some discussion about the 1st of May, traditionally a holiday for workers in France. The VNF had decided to allow boats to continue to move but in order to do that they needed the eclusiers to work. At first the eclusiers were going to strike for their holiday but realising their new contract had penalty provisions they said they would work but the locks probably wouldn’t. We were told by our friendly Castelsarrasin lock supervisor (with a wink) and took the hint that we would not be going anywhere on the Thursday, so planned accordingly.
Jacquie arrived and we took the day to visit Moissac and tour the cathedral, cloister, galleries and have lunch at the delightful Restaurant a l’Abbaye just at the doors of the church. Pink lamb, omelettes, rose, salad - magnifique. The locks again open, Friday saw us negotiate the 8 or so locks that allowed us through to Valence where we took our guest to the very large markets and on a tour of the three lavoirs still in existence here. Lavoirs were the town clothes washing places, sited to enjoy the flow of a stream or river water and furnished with pools to soap, bash, clean and rinse clothes and linens in days gone by.
Saturday had us into Agen on a walking tour of the museum, the pont canal and the many shops offering a wide range of products incorporating prunes, a specialty of the region. It also meant we were near the railway station so Jacquie could walk there with our assistance the next day for her departure, but before leaving we had to re-visit La Margoton, the restaurant run by the then very pregnant wife of the owner and chef.
We had volunteered to help Kate at her house Camont for a couple of days so we travelled back through the four locks to moor at the bottom of her garden. For the next couple of days we spent in good company, doing jobs and throwing sticks for Dupont her dog. It was Vetou’s birthday the next day so we were off to celebrate but on arrival - no Vetou, Happily she re-appeared the next day and we celebrated, just a day late. She had been taken off to her family’s home some distance away on her birthday so we had no argument with that and she got to have two birthdays. We stayed near Vetou’s creperie, plugged in to her electricity supply but mooring away from her little jetty to allow passing boats to stop and enjoy her wares. We spent the time chipping rust, touching up some areas of the boat and generally attending to minor maintenance. We also rode our bikes into Tonniens, the largest local town which boasts an interesting canal museum and many good shops including a chocolatier.
The museum has a display that shows barges moored mid river as waterwheel powered mills for the wheat which was harvested locally and delivered by boat for milling into flour. A very ingenious solution in the pre engine and electric mill days. It was also explained that they grew tobacco here and made rope from the flax also grown in the region. Sadly those industries declined and disappeared but the town has continued, now reinforced by tourists, attracted to the wide river.
Riding back, Maureen slewed off the path and caused herself a minor injury which we quickly patched when we arrived back at Van Nelle. Her jeans however showed the scar for a longer time.
We had some time to ourselves so we used the scooter to travel to and explore some other attractive villages in the region such as Colonges, Clairac and St Leger. While attractive to visit and wander through, these had no unusual features or attractions. We moved on to Serignac where we enjoyed some late afternoon boules in temperatures now hitting the high thirties and forties. It was now the middle of May and we were about to be visited by an English couple who wanted to learn the ropes in order to move onto a barge themselves.
He was a 70 year old ex merchant marine officer now apparently teaching maritime skills at a college in Britain. His partner was about the same age and described herself as fit and keen with a sailing background. He didn’t mention that he smoked constantly or she that she preferred to sit all day and actually was not all that ambulatory. They had booked for a week but booked their air travel for two weeks and so on arrival announced they wanted to extend their stay.
He had no aptitude at the wheel and she didn’t want to learn. Despite my best efforts there was nothing I could find to praise as each day we set about trying to get them working as a team. If they were to run a boat and actually go anywhere, one of them would have to steer and control the boat into locks and moorings while the other would have to be able to get on and off and manage the ropes. She wouldn’t steer, he didn’t want her to and she definitely would not be able to handle the jumping ashore routine. I despaired. After some days when I tried to get her onto the wide decks she exclaimed that she had not yet ‘got her sea legs’ - the canal of course was a mill pond !
At Castets, the turn-around point for this teaching cruise, we were practising 360 degree turns when the steering cable broke - it was probably as old as the boat as I’m sure 80% Frank had never replaced it. As it happened, I was able to manoeuvre Van Nelle to the side of an ex commercial barge and after securing her I went to the nearest service station to find some stainless woven wire. A tall order you think ? Not really. While they had some it was the wrong diameter but they pointed out that they bought their’s from the nearest town, to which I was able to make smartly in a taxi. The breakage occurred at about 9.30am and by 2.00pm we were on our way with a completely new set of steering cables. This was an example to our students of the happenings and restorative actions that occurred afloat.
Eventually the situation between us came to tears and we arranged for them to leave us early for a trip to look at boats. During this time, as we were passing Valence where Barry and Judy were, we introduced them as their lovely Tjalk was for sale - but at a much higher price than our couple had to spend. After the inspection the couple left us and we heaved a sigh of relief. Leaving them at Agen we moved on to Serignac to recover and do the washing before heading to Castelsarrasin after a few meals and drinks on the way with friends at Valence.
Our car was in the marina car park when it was broken into. I had left the passenger window down a fraction, enough for the perpetrators to bend the frame outwards in order to get into the glove box and steal the car’s papers. As these contain the details of the recent ‘Controle Technique’ which is required each two years, thieves can doctor their own papers with ours to avoid having inspections done on dodgy cars. Apart from the minor inconvenience of having to straighten the frame I had to get duplicate copies of the documents from the Department offices in Dijon - a pain as well as to report the matter and go through the police rigamarole.
The weekend promised some fun as there was to be a ceremony to open the recently renovated trunk canal from Montech to Montauban, an event organised by the French Boating Club. We went along for the fun, which included a dinner under the trees in the park alongside the newly renovated lock - which we all had to traverse and return through in order to later be able to return to Montech. It was a fun occasion with many expats and locals joining together to consume large quantities of food and wine. The Sunday following was also a highlight as there was a concert at a nearby chateau which we heard about, bought tickets for and thoroughly enjoyed. We now had a week or so before our next guests.
18 June - 7 July
2003 was incredibly hot. Months of 30-40 degree days that just sucked the life out of everyone - including the 16,000 French people who died of the heat. We cruised through it all but looked for shady areas to moor under and used quantities of water sprayed through our fine mister to cool people down. Our next visitors during this time were West Australians Robin and Adriaan Schipper. The Lateral was a good place for their visit as it is calm, has good towns and restaurants, food and wines and has much to see with few rental boats to slow you down. We enjoyed their company and spent some hilarious times spraying each other with cooling water from the hose during the midday lunches and evening dinners on the back deck.
The engine room during those hot days sometimes held in temperatures of 50 + degrees when the generator had to be run to re-charge the batteries which ran the refrigerator, lights and pumps and started the engine. It was no wonder therefore that at some time something in the system would be affected. The worst case was that of the main electrical generator failing by degrees - literally. It declined as some components melted - so we needed to get it repaired - but we still had guest obligations to carry through.
With Robyn and Adriaan Schipper having departed for the south coast at our stop in Agen, we made our way back to Castelsarrasin in preparation for another couple of guests, and also to head in the direction of Bordeaux, in order to have the generator repaired. We had really enjoyed having the Schippers on board, especially following the earlier, less than wonderful 10 days with the UK couple - the only pair we ever had a problem with. I cannot quite get to grips with those Brits that seem to have nothing but negative things to say .
Castelsarrasin is a lovely port on the canal a la Garonne, despite its lack of shade on hot days. It is also a good meeting place as it provides facilities and space for a good number of different sized boats. It was therefore not too much of a surprise but a great delight that old friends Roger and Lindy from St Jean de Losne should arrive on a catamaran owned by their friends to spend some time giving and receiving news and quantities of the local wines and produce. It was also not a surprise that while there, we met a number of new friends, including Bob and Maureen (a couple of positive Brits), Bengt and Ilsa from Sweden and Roy, a Dutchman who claims American citizenship these days. A number of meetings were therefore speedily arranged for ‘aperitifs’, meals and outings.
As we had Gary and Dianne Prattley arriving soon for a short voyage we decided to stay in Castelsarrasin in the interim to explore a bit more of its surroundings by car. The weather at this time was really hot. Day followed day of over 40 degrees and nights little cooler, so there was no respite from the somewhat humid blanket of heat that enveloped the south of France, centring, it seemed, on us. Our electric fans and external shade cloths were in constant use and we cursed the town council for having the municipal pool closed until the beginning of July.
Being only 16km from the garage at Montech (where our car is kept), meant having access to many of the small ‘Bastides’ (fortified 12th century towns) that dot the map of this area and to the regular ‘vide greniers’ (literally ‘empty the attic’ days), held regularly in small towns where locals set up stalls and try to sell off all their unwanted junk to their neighbours. These provide interesting hours wandering, inspecting and reflecting on the eclectic tastes of the rural French. Upmarket versions of these ‘manifestations’ are called ‘Brocantes’, where professional second hand and antique dealers set up stalls in a town and display their wares. At these you can pick up treasures that can then occupy space in your shed until you offer them back to the world at a ‘vide grenier’ in your village. It is at such meetings that I occasionally find another wine glass or two to add to my collection of 19th century crystal goblets. One needs a hobby when cruising permanently and mine was to collect antique French wine glasses and silver cutlery. When we started I could find and buy beautiful crystal glasses at 10 -15 Euros. By the time we left France the only good ones to be had were in the antique shops of Paris and Toulouse at 50 Euros each.
Looking for some cool respite, our Norwegian friends Bengt and Ilsa and English couple Bob and Maureen and we two set off for a picnic to a pool advertised in a local town guide - only to find it - like the one at Castelsarrasin, resolutely closed and the nearby river looking too polluted to swim in. Finding a suitable ‘aire de picque nic’ we suffered the still, hot, humid environment as we perspired over our baguette sandwiches and watched bemused as French families fought for hours with portable barbecues and fuel that was obviously well past its ‘ignite by’ date. When we left the site after 3.00pm, several families were still trying to fire up their burners to grill their limp, pink ‘saucisses’.
During this period at Castel, I began a ‘contre temps’ with the gangs of young men who would arrive at 10.00 or 11.00pm at the port, turn the Arab rap music up to 200 decibels on their car stereos and sit around until 1.00 or 2,00 am, breaking beer bottles on the road (or your car, which ever was closer). A couple of times I put our stereo speakers on the roof and literally blasted them with Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries’. That worked occasionally but one group who obstinately refused to be quiet, even after we called the Gendarmes, decided I was to be taught a lesson.
One Saturday after midnight, having been to a concert in Castel’s jazz music festival, we arrived back at the port to find Van Nelle cast off from the quay and slowly drifting into the centre of the bassin. Fortunately it was a calm night and we were close enough to get a line and re-secure the boat, now turned 180 degrees. (I have since taken care to chain the boat to the bollards). While their trick was not repeated there was a definite upside to it. I had completed chipping rust spots and had completed the re-painting of the side against the quay a couple of days earlier, so, with the boat now reversed, I was able to do the other side !
During their visit, Robin and Adriaan Schipper had introduced us to Tim and Carol Holmes (also from Perth), who share ownership of a charming house in La Chappelle, a beautiful, tiny village on a hill near Valence d’Agen. We had enjoyed their company at a barbecue on Van Nelle in Valence and they had reciprocated with lunch accompanied by a Rugby test match on satellite TV at their house a day or so later. The day was hot, their pool was cool and the wines and food marvellous. So, after departing Castelsarrasin for a small ‘halte nautique’ at Golfech near Valence, we decided to visit them again. Golfech has a small quay which is serviced with free electricity and water, sponsored by the nearby nuclear power station which also supplies the heat for the town’s indoor pool. The halte is convenient to the road to La Chappelle and has regular shaped banks, making it possible for us to launch our occasional transport.
Swinging the Peugeot scooter off the boat onto the canal side we donned helmets and jackets and rode the 18km to La Chappelle on a glorious sunny day. Once again the ever generous Tim and Carol insisted we stay for lunch. As we ate we arranged for them and their visitors to join us for a picnic and cruise on Van Nelle a couple of days later. Eleven people (nine of them and two of us), made huge plates of chicken, salads, breads, cheeses and fruits, and with gin and tonics to start, soon emptied an impressive number of bottles of white wine as we slowly cruised up the canal to a turning point and returned in the mid afternoon to Golfech. All too soon, the Holmes gang remounted their scooters and car and disappeared into the afternoon. We continued to Valence to turn the boat so we could later continue in the direction of Bordeaux, and on the way, stop at Agen to pick up our next guests, Diane and Gary Prattley.
About five years ago, we arranged a hire boat on the Nivernais Canal with David and Judith Reed and Gary and Diane Prattley. We had a fantastic time on the trip, spending four days in Paris before 10 days on the boat and then 4 days in Tuscany and Rome. Following our move to France, Gary and Diane had joined us for a couple of days in 2002 while we were on our way to Paris and David and Judith also had visited for a chilly cruise in February 2002 from St Jean to Dole. It therefore had been some time since we had seen them and so we were looking forward to renewing our friendship on their second visit.
We arrived in Agen a day before our guests and by mobile phone managed to effect a faultless rendezvous the next day, securely parking their hire car by the canal and departing at 9.00am the next day for Buzet for a rendezvous with the famous wine co-op. Having passed over the 500m long ‘pont canal’, an aqueduct across the Garonne River, we passed through the four locks that take you out of Agen. Stopping at Kate Hill’s house for morning tea, we took time to let Gary and Diane tour her house and herb gardens and her lovely barge ‘Julia Hoyt’, before continuing on to Ecluse 38 where everything came to a dead stop.
For reasons not explained, the wall of the canal between Ecluse 38 and 39 was somehow breached, the water therefore draining out, flooding the surrounding neighbourhood. This can occur if a small leak is allowed to develop, the escaping water thereby quickly creating a major breach. It had happened after we had passed the locks at Agen so that we could not be warned. We arrived at ecluse 38 and as we are 10 to 15 metres longer than the width of the canal - and therefore unable to turn - we were stuck until the wall could be repaired and the water allowed to refill that canal section. This took 3 days - the whole time our guests had with us. (Note: This section of canal is 15km long and on average 15 metres wide by 1.8 metres deep. You can calculate therefore the volume of water required to fill it).
So - Plan B. A quick confab with the eclusiers informed us that we could not get them to take one of us back to Agen but they arranged a taxi so that we could collect Gary’s car. That, and a supply of electricity for the boat was all we needed to ensure that while marooned, we had a secure environment from which we could use Gary and Diane’s hire car to explore the surroundings, including Buzet’s wine co-op. Over the next two days we ranged far and wide, taking in fabulous medieval villages such as Pujols - all of 350 metres long - perched high on a hilltop, completely restored by the current inhabitants. The old town is now almost completely a tourist attraction, featuring antique shops and artisans making and repairing things such as antique clocks.
We also visited Buzet, returning to the boat with the inevitable couple of cases of white and red wines, including a 5 litre container of the very drinkable ‘vin de table’ in ‘vrac’ - bulk. All too quickly the time passed for our friends to depart on their drive to Cherbourg and the ferry to the UK.
Fortunately, a real disaster was narrowly averted.
Gary and Diane had around the world tickets in Business Class with Qantas / British Airlines including the leg from Rome to London which they had ignored in order to take a hire car to drive to us, then onto Cherbourg to take the ferry to the UK. They then planned to pick up their interrupted flight plan in London to travel onto the US on their scheduled date. Just before the scheduled date for the Rome /London leg, Gary called in to cancel the sector, only to be told that if they did not take the flight (which was now clearly impossible), that the whole ticket would be cancelled ! Some very fast talking and the fact that Gary was the Director of Planning for the NSW government while Dianne is a Platinum Frequent Flier, had the ticket re-arranged by Qantas in Australia. Moral - Beware the small print on restricted, advance purchase tickets !!!!!
Disaster is losing your only means of getting cash. An ATM (auto teller machine) also known in France as a ‘distributeur’, ate my card while I was visiting Le Mas d’Argennais. In many cases when this occurs you can prevail on the bank workers to retrieve it but in the worst case they can insist on sending it back to your bank. As this was my Australian ANZ bankcard that was not a great idea. As it happened they explained they did not have a person capable of opening the machine but would in a day or so - would I please come back - you bet I would, I did, and eventually I was reunited with the offending piece of plastic. Just as with essential boat equipment I keep a spare card which I then reverted to using since it was in better shape (literally) than the former.
Our 9 kVa generator, a much needed piece of equipment that gives us independence from shore power and allows us to use equipment such as our clothes dryer, had shut down several times, indicating an over-heat problem in its alternator. Before meeting with Gary and Diane, we had driven to Bordeaux to talk with the management of an electronics company to fix the generator and to arrange for them to visit us at Meilhan, a village on the canal some 60km short of Bordeaux. It should have been easy for them to drive to Meilhan in less than an hour, making it possible for us to avoid navigating the Garonne River the 54km to Bordeaux and having to hole up in the rather forbidding Bassin a Flot (under the huge German WWII submarine pens). The more we thought about it however (as they started to change the arrangements and dates by phone), we decided to hell with it - we would take the boat down to Garonne River to Bordeaux.
We arrived in Castets, the last canal stop before the river, at 1130 am on Monday the 7th of July to find that the best time to leave there was at 3.00pm that day - so that was what we decided to do. At 3.30pm we departed for the two ecluses that take you onto the Garonne as the tide ebbs towards Bordeaux. At 4.00pm we were on the river and at just a bit over half revs on the engine, we were soon doing better than 20kmh downstream. The 54 km took only 3 hours to navigate as we were swept into the huge Port de la Lune at Bordeaux under the famous Pont Pierre through café latté coloured water. Sweeping past the vast Bordeaux waterfront we spied a floating pontoon just near the entrance to the ecluse of the Bassin a Flot - our resting place in Bordeaux. We turned mid-stream and pushed into the ebb to tie up securely for the night as we had to wait for the next high tide to enter the bassin.
7 July - 15 July
Arriving at Bordeaux, you have to be impressed by the fabulous architecture of the massive public and private buildings that stretch along the 5 km waterfront. Unfortunately, the city is completely renewing the waterfront area, so long a major port, and installing many kilometres of new tram lines. As a result of all the public works the traffic is a mess, but once back a street from the waterfront you are in a maze of pedestrian malls and amongst some very beautiful areas, buildings, churches, museums, parks and boulevards. Our destination was the Bassin a Flot, a commercial and pleasure harbour, protected from the 5 metre tides by a vast double ecluse (lock) built by the German engineering firm of Krupp during WWII.
You can only enter and leave the Bassin a Flot at high tide (5 metres high to low) and as we had arrived with the ebb we would have to wait till the next day at 2.00pm to get in. Meanwhile we had to arrange where we were to stay once in the Bassin. A quick ride on the bike and a recce with Eric from Cap Ver - the generator repair company - and we had located a likely mooring and agreed it with the ‘captain’ of the port by VHF radio. We waited for the appointed opening time and almost submarine like, just like the slinking tubes of death 60 years ago, we slid into the ecluse that took us through the two swing bridges into the Bassin for our approach towards the huge, cavernous, concrete sub pens. Turning right just before the second swing bridge we turned bows out and reversed in between two other barges to moor up, stern on to the quay, bow held out by a floating buoy in the commercial sector.
The submarine pens are awesome. Almost black with the grime of age, they comprise 12 bays let into a vast concrete monolith, topped by curious semi circular roof sections - obviously designed to divert the shock of bombs. If they were ever bombed by the allies there are no signs of damage except for one small chip in the centre of the outside roof. I managed to get inside one day and was overawed by the cavernous interior with its interconnecting pens that would have taken two or four submarines in each of the 12 bays. All pens are still equipped with double overhead cranes and vast repair shops at the opposite end to the water filled entrances, while each pen could be dried out to work under and over the shark like U-Boats. The pens are now filled with a mixture of barges, yachts, jet skis and other craft either stored or being worked on or, available for demonstration. Part of the building is an expo centre for tourists and a theatre also exists within its walls. The greater part of some three bays are occupied by a metal fabrication company whose exotic sculptures and large metal parts are made and tower over onlookers. It looks like the monolith will last forever !
Of course our main aim in being here was to get the generator fixed and as I wrote this, having been here for nearly two weeks, we were no further on than when we arrived. Two whole new sets of parts have arrived and been fitted - including the electronic control packages, the rotor and the wiring windings - and no power emits from the set while the auto shut off cuts in after a few minutes. And so far the cost has mounted to over 2500 Euros. We wait in hope - or despair.
The repair company was run by a young man who employed one other mechanic. They were in contact with the company agent in Antibes on the south coast. All the tests had been run and the parts appeared faulty so they were changed but the results were still negative. Pierre - the French speaking owner, is nonplussed, while Eric (who speaks good English), toils away cheerfully in the heat of the engine room, assisted by me. I have been very useful (I have to add), having been able to remove parts and fix others while they have not. I have decided that if their final part replacement does not fix the system I will call in another company.
Eric is pleasant and his wife Miriam is eight months pregnant with their first daughter. They invited us to drinks on their boat and we reciprocated with a barbecue on Van Nelle. Fortunately Miriam was away on the night of the BBQ as it was also the night of THE STORM.
The air was growing hazy during the late afternoon and we were on the back deck in the low comfortable chairs, sipping cool drinks while we waited for Eric to arrive for dinner and looking forward to a cooling off as the temperature had constantly hovered around 38 and into the 40s. Eric arrived, accepted a gin and tonic and I lit the barbecue. The sky darkened.
From a hazy blue, the sky changed to grey, then black and finally to a viscous, pungent green. This took place in 10 minutes and then, with almost no warning the storm hit. First it was sand and wind, driving in horizontally over 100 km/h, the grit and sand blasting skin and varnished wood, then the rain hit. Driven rain, arriving almost parallel to the surface, it blasted its way into the cabin through cracks that had never been breached before. Rivulets were soon running into the boat from firmly closed and dogged skylights, windows and ports. The wind screamed and we watched as the dinghy spun 90 degrees on the deck and then hung half over the port side of the boat together with the wind surfer. The two were held there only by the fact that we had been blown alongside the next barge which was secured by two heavy buoys at its bow. Ours had been swept sideways towards these others.
The roof of the wheelhouse on the boat next to us suddenly reared up and was gone in an instant into the maelstrom. We could see only 20 metres around us - just to the bow of Van Nelle and to the sides of the boats on either side of us. We had no idea of what was possibly flying towards us in the mash of wind and rain and grit and fury outside the wheelhouse. The surface of the water of the bassin was now whipped into full size waves with curling white tops - amazing in such an enclosed space. 5 metre, iron sections of cargo cover were ripped, one by one off the next door barge, which fortunately for us was on our down-wind side. These sections of steel weigh 80 kgm each and are 5 metres long by a metre wide. They would cut a body in half without stopping and they disappeared behind our boats to where the fence and road were only 15 metres away.
Our own roof locks began to vibrate open with the shock and rattle of the wind and rain. We grabbed and re-locked them just before our own roof ripped off.
“A hurricane” shouted Eric above the roar of the wind, “the last was in 1986".
At this stage the lightning started, ripping apart the gloom and lighting up the sky, which at this time (about 9.00pm) was normally bright daylight but now was dark as the pitch on our hull. Huge bolts of lightning jagged sideways across the sky, low down to the surface, not more than 100 feet high but hundreds of metres long, stabbing light poles and yacht masts every few seconds.
I had switched the VHF ship’s radio on in case of emergency and selected the emergency channel.
“Tugs, we need tugs” shouted a voice over the radio. “This is the cruise liner Sol de Mer, we are being pushed away from the quai. Our lines are snapping, we have lost 8 or ten. This is an emergency - we need tugs”. This from a cruise liner in the port. A huge ship, its slab sides were acting as huge sails and the great wind was just mercilessly shoving it across the channel to the mud flats on the other side.
“We are coming” radioed the port emergency tugs. “Push, push push” from the ship. We are pushing. Are your engines working ?” Yes our engines and thrusters are on full power. Push push”.
Eventually the ship was secured and the storm abated. This was the most amazing storm I have ever witnessed and in less than an hour it was gone, followed by moderate (by comparison) winds and scattered rain showers.
Amazingly, the barbecue lid and burners had stayed on through all of this, sheltered by the wheelhouse, so our barbecue chicken dinner was quickly brought in and demolished with a very good Bordeaux red before Eric rushed off to check his own boat and to help his boss Pierre, who had rung to inform that his chimney had come down causing a hole in his roof.
The next morning we surveyed the damage to the port after rigging a jury roof on the barge next to us and assisting another owner to recover his passarelle which had gone over the side into the 6-7 metre deep harbour. In the yacht bassin the whole of one side of the sheet iron roof on one of the huge dockside warehouses had been blown off. The sheets had flown off at huge speed and demolished yacht masts, car windows, boat rigging and building walls - amazingly no one was injured. One boat had sunk next to the sub pens and three others lay on their sides on the hard standing, including a 16m ketch, now with a broken fore mast. There was millions of Euros of damage spread around the port and neighbouring area.
The rain had gone through the open roof into the warehouse which is used as showrooms for a number of companies, and their exhibits were destroyed and waterlogged. All around were signs of damage and destruction. Trees uprooted, building signs blown out, damaged vehicles, boats and buildings. And through all the wreckage, owners and crews with cameras accompanying port officials inspecting and documenting the damage for the inevitable insurance claims. We could only wander and wonder. There was no damage to us and our boat, but all around - destruction.
You cannot spend time in Bordeaux and ignore the surrounding wine districts of Medoc, Pomerol, St Emilion, Graves and Sauternes (just to name a few), or desist from wine tasting. The whole business of wine making, labelling and marketing of the 850,000,000 bottles produced each year is a huge undertaking that has grown over the past couple of millennium as vines were first planted here in the first century after the birth of Christ by the Romans. Wine has been produced here continuously since then and has enjoyed increasing popularity in England and further a field from the beginning of the second millennium- as Eleanor of Aquitaine married Henry Plantagenet, soon to be the English king, and brought the Gascon area and Bordeaux to the crown as her dowry. The rest of the world followed as export by sea was easier than transport by land until modern times.
This is NOT the area where Cabernet Sauvignon as a varietal wine rules, as I imagined. Indeed it was to my surprise that I learned that five red wine grape varieties are grown and blended here into the major wines of the region. Cabernet Sauvignon is one of the smaller harvests at around 20 - 40% depending on the area. Merlot at 60% - 70% dominates, but Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot also are used for the blends. Only the great Chateau Petrus is made from a single grape type - and that is Merlot. Not only do the Bordelais not produce varietal Cab Sauv, they add sugar to their blends if the sun has not fully ripened the grapes !
There are five producers of red wine picked out as Great First Growths - Chateau Lafite, Latour, Mouton Rothschild, Margaux and Haut Brion. These giants of the industry are followed by over 150 other classified chateaux wines, followed by the rest of the 4,500 producers in the Bordeaux area.
White wines are produced from three grape varieties - Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and Muscadelle and include dry white Bordeaux, Entre Deux Mers and Graves and the fabulous dessert wines of Sauternes and Barsac, sweet wines which are subject to botrytis, ‘the noble rot’, to increase the sugar content.
The wines are produced by a first fermentation where each different grape type and plot from each vineyard are put into separate vats for 5-8 days after de-stalking and light crushing. The whole grapes are included in the vats for colour (red wine) but not at this stage actually pressed. After first fermentation, free run juice is run off and the balance pressed. Secondary fermentation is then started, again in separate vats, after which blending is conducted and the result put in bottles (ordinaire) or oak casks (cru) for a year, after which this higher quality wine is then bottled.
We visited St Emilion, a charming and beautifully restored village on a hill about 20km from Bordeaux city. The town boats the largest monolithic church in Europe, carved into a single stone and currently in the throes of restoration. Its catacombs are fascinating but once back above ground, many wine merchants offer a range of even the most rare (and expensive) wines. Here you can buy and arrange shipping of Petrus (2000 Euros per bottle - at an exchange rate 1.7 $ per Euro that is $A 3400 per bottle !) or the fabulous Latour, Lafite, Mouton Rothschild etc. During the tour, it was interesting to hear the guide extolling the ‘superior’ method of wine labelling in France where by using just the Chateau Name and Region (i.e. Bordeaux or Margaux - Chateau St George or Lafite) one should instantly be able to tell the wine type, grape type, soil type and quality. ?? Oh really - young French people can’t - they rely more on varietals from new growth areas where Australian and US methods are now used to produce quality wines from marginal areas.
I had to take exception, suggesting that to detail the grape type (Cabernet Sauvignon / Shiraz etc) and the area (Margaret River / Napa Valley etc) was a far more transparent and effective method.. I was met by a stony lack of agreement to that, despite the fact that French producers tried to force the French government to get Australia and other countries to stop doing exactly that, as it was more successful that their hard won method. It is interesting to see in supermarkets and wine ‘caves’ the number of French producers now copying Australian, US and other labelling methods - especially Rosemount’s distinctive diamond shape label orientation, bi-colour and layout !
Being in Bordeaux for Bastille Day was almost worth the trip alone. A series of ‘Feu d’Artifice’ (fireworks) displays were run for two days before and culminating on the night of the 14th from the famous Pont Pierre (stone bridge), accompanied by the spirited Latin rhythms of the young and VERY energetic band on the huge foreshore area. Well, if you have to be in France - you may as well enjoy whatever is available. And there are huge amounts of free entertainment during June, July and August. Almost every big town and City tries to outdo it’s nearest neighbours with festivals and even the smaller towns get into the act with festivals of Jazz, Soul, Country, Rock, Blues, plus theatre seasons and art shows. It’s a hard act to follow !
15 July - 30 August
As a result of the storm, some extra parts we have been waiting for, that have been sent by air from Italy, are nowhere to be found. Actually, the warehouse used by Emery Airfreight has been damaged and their records - computer and paper, have been lost. We wait, having replaced the major elements, the rotor and the windings around it. These parts, now replaced, have not had the effect of making the system work and I am starting to plan to bring in some other experts. Meanwhile however we have some time to explore and it is during these few days that I do a wine tasting course and we both explore the smaller museums and city attractions. We also made the mistake of visiting a ‘hypermarket’ where some 40 digital cameras are on display - with the result that we end up with a Nikon with which we can now record 405 pictures without changing media and with no development costs...! Not to be left with nothing to do, I also found the parts I needed to do a service on our Baudouin 6 cylinder main engine. 45 litres of oil and three filters to replace or clean. We are now ready for another 400 hours of motoring.
We found lots of things to do in Bordeaux despite the constant and overwhelming heat. Nearby was a great compound which was the home of a restaurant, bar, barbecue and music venue. Drinks at the end of a hot day were taken here on a number of occasions with some food and music to follow. We also discovered the Musees Douane (customs), du Vin (wine) and Beaux Arts (gallery). We attended an organ concert, the movies and the huge hypermarkets. We found the swimming pool where we swam most days until one day the pool was cleared as the automatic detection system alerted the staff to heightened bacteria levels. We toured the French navy destroyer that is a permanent museum piece in the Port de Lune - so named for its shape being like a quarter moon. We took a charabanc tour of the city in a 1930s Renault bus and bought dinner ingredients at several markets while we waited patiently for parts to arrive. Fortunately the arrangements for our stay included a month in the bassin for the one price.
I also looked out for an electrical engineering company and discovered just what I needed near the port. ETS Semiben, a company which designs, builds and installs electrical systems into boats. I visited and met Monsieur Semiben himself, whose name is actually Souquet, who agreed to visit if I could get no action from my contractor during the week. We had paid for a month’s stay (the minimum time available) but looked like having to extend for a second month the way things were (not) progressing. This would also be a blow to our plans with guests, booked for cruises shortly.
I decided to lower the boom on the company I have been dealing with as we must leave Bordeaux by the end of the week so I have invited Monsieur Souquet from the respected marine electrical engineering company, Semiben, to visit. Voila. Half an hour with the generator circuit diagrams and he has the problem solved. Now all I have to do is pay the 3000 euros (about $A 5,500) and then argue with Schepen Onderling, our brilliant Dutch insurance company, about whether they will reimburse the cost. Dutch ship insurers cover the hull, the engine, generators, the shaft and propeller, personal goods aboard and third party personal liability and they are extremely reasonable in cost and easy to negotiate with. A couple of weeks later they confirmed that they will indeed pay all costs excluding the 500 euro excess. We now made immediate plans to depart Bordeaux.
The next day we headed out of the Bassin to wait overnight for the change of tide to take us back up the river to Castets, the start of the Canal Lateral. The departure from the submarine base was easy and we moored on the outside of a large peniche (barge) that lies unused on the pier in the Bordeaux Port de la Lune. We dined out that night at our favourite riverside café and on the change of tide early next morning, headed upstream for the Pont Pierre and 54km of river. With the current still flowing we made about 9 km/h on approach to the centre of the17 arches of the bridge (one arch for each of the letters in the name ‘Napoleon Bonaparte’) who ruled during it’s construction.
On putting the bow of Van Nelle into the centre arch I realised that the current was very much stronger through the bridge openings and quickly went up to full power. Almost stationary now, Van Nelle was picked up like a weightless twig and shoved sideways at the stone piers with frightening speed as I rapidly rotated the 1 metre 30 diameter wheel (4') and the water barrier between the hull and the stone edge cushioned a ‘kiss’ on the bridge as our ship slowly (now reduced to about 1-2 km/h) inched through to the relative calm on the other side. Given that full revs will normally push Van Nelle forward at 15 km/h, we realise why older hands had suggested we should have waited for up to an hour AFTER the change of tide in order to get the flood assisting us. We had departed at the time the tide was to change but water was still flowing downstream against us at that time. As we progressed further and further up river we noticed our ground speed increasing. On departure at near full revs we managed 10 km/h which increased to 16 km/h at half revs on our approach to Castets as the tide was now fully with us.
En-route we decided to take a break from the 6 hour journey at Cadillac and after mooring, wandered up from the river to this very scenic town and the huge Chateau that served as a women’s prison until recent times. An hour of exploring and it was time to resume our river trip. As it happened we had left Van Nelle on the jetty but had forgotten to take any money with us so we were reduced to wandering the outside of that tourist attraction.
It was as we arrived at the final bend in the river before Castets and could see the lock about one kilometre ahead that we hit the first of several large rocks hidden below the surface. Our momentum and the tide carried us forward despite my instant reaction to engage reverse. After three such impacts that raised Nellie effortlessly and dropped her unceremoniously after contact, we finally went hard a ground (hard a’rock) only 150 metres from the mooring outside the lock. Here we stopped for about 30 minutes as the tide continued to flood, slowly lifting us off the very hard rocks on which we sat. I hate to think of the effect on the paint and antifouling, let alone the propeller.
As we sat aground, Maureen tested the water depth around the boat with our long boat hook. The rocks were just below surface on our starboard but way below water level on port. We had been unlucky. I raised the lock office on the radio and the eclusier advised he had a couple of boats to let out which were about to take the ebb tide to Bordeaux and then we were clear to go through to the calm of the canal.
Once through we decided to head ‘tout de suite’ to Toulouse in order to pick up our next guests, Joan and Bill Tingley - recently retired butchers from Narrogin and relations to our friends the Reeds, who had accompanied us on our first trip to France. Our journey through the Lateral was only punctuated by a brief stop at Serignac to have dinner with Swedish friends, Bengt and Ilsa and another day stop at Castelsarrasin for lunch at a nearby Chateau with Bob and Maureen, our British mates from Castel.
After taking 400 litres of fuel on board at Montech on the way (arranged by phone in advance and delivered by truck to the canal side), we arrived at Toulouse on the 1st of August. The day after, we welcomed Bill and Joan aboard. The Tingleys had only 5 nights to spend with us so we decided to get underway early the next day, having spent a full afternoon admiring the magnificent Capitole Building (the old parliament) and the cathedral of St Sernin in Toulouse.
Set on a magnificent ‘place’ (square), the Capitole completes the fourth side, the other three being a six star hotel, the opera and offices and shops. Signage in the area is controlled in terms of colour (gold only), size and placement. As a result the square has a wonderful symmetry, unspoilt by McDonalds and other garish neon or plastic signs - which are banned. In the centre of the square (which also hosts the weekly markets), is a huge Maltese like cross, inlaid in brass into the stone floor. This is the emblem of Toulouse.
The Capitole building is a surprise find. Built progressively by the Dukes of Toulouse in the 17th and 18th centuries, it was completed by successive local governments. Completely open to the public, this huge two storey building with the top floor an enormous hall, is decorated with the most wonderful frescoes, statues and paintings, collected or completed progressively as well. As such it has medieval to romantic to impressionist art, starting from one end of the great hall and progressing to the other. One of the earlier artists was fond of nudes (aren’t all French painters ?) and painted them as though they were floating above but standing upright. As such, you look up their legs from foot to head and, as they are anatomically correct some are almost pornographic. They are of course beautiful and some on the walls have eyes that follow you as you walk through this rich museum of art. The hall is used for state occasions and weddings and so on a couple of visits we became the guests of these events.
Weddings in France are civil ceremonies, so ordained (?) by the Code Napoleon after the revolution, which separated church from state. In fact it outlawed the church and took on all responsibility for such events. You can have a church service to celebrate a wedding, christening or funeral but you have to have a civil function first to make it a legal union.
The weather continued HOT. 40 degrees every day and, as we headed east of Toulouse we had now taken down the roof of the wheelhouse in order to get under the 15th century arched bridges on the Midi, the oldest working canal in France. From Toulouse to Gardouche, on to Castelnaudary, then on to Alzonne and finally to Carcassonne we gently slid through the silky water of the canal as the plane trees caused a flickering dapple of light and shade over the exposed wheelhouse and decks. The slight breeze of our passage cooled us as we slowed for the impossibly tight corners, sounding our horn well before to warn the ever present rental boat hoons that they should approach carefully.
Many of the amateur boat hiring public are young and use only one speed - flat out. They do not keep a look out and pay no attention to warning horns. As such they become completely panic stricken as they hog corners at speed, only to find a huge, metal monster approaching and taking up most of the space. Slamming their hired plastiques into reverse they find the boat now spinning on its axis as the transverse effect of the propeller takes over. Now completely out of control they hit the side of Van Nelle at speed, spilling their cans of lager and dropping plastic chairs overboard. Abusing us as we slide past, they disappear astern, picking up the pieces. We slowly accelerate to 5 km/h from the 1 or 2 km/h at which we negotiated the corner and slowly smile at each other.
Carcassonne is a jewel of a tourist destination with it’s fully restored ‘Cite’, the complete medieval fortified city on top of the hill overlooking the plains surrounding it. This is a ‘must see’ attraction in the south of France and Ryan Air flies in daily at very low cost from one of the London airports.
We wandered up to the Cite from the canal, through the lovely shopping streets of the ‘new’ city of Carcassonne, over the bridge by the railway station that carries traffic over the canal lock into the town marina and hire boat basin and past the large military and city official’s buildings. As you walk the sight of the Cite comes into view, standing back from other buildings, raised high on the mount it stands on. It is huge and imposing from a distance but very crowded up close with winding narrow streets crammed with shops and tourists. We explored the streets, visited the fortified chateau and it’s ramparts within and found a splendid restaurant to enjoy a leisurely dinner as the sun descended.
Unfortunately it was while we were exploring the Cite, some distance from the port, that the boat was broken into and our laptop computer and Pentax camera taken. You feel so frustrated when this sort of thing happens since apart from having the Gendarmes take a report and gather fingerprints, there is nothing you can do to hit back. Losing the computer was a pain since it is convenient but more importantly, they took with it the data cable that connects the PC to the mobile phone on the new GPRS system that transmits and receives 10 times faster than a normal mobile. This meant that for the next month, until Sagem was able to get us a replacement cable, we were reduced to email only, as checking and using our bank account by internet took over an hour, for a process normally completed in 10 minutes.
Having dropped Joan and Bill at the station in Carcassonne from where they took a train to Bordeaux, we were able to spend a couple of leisurely weeks waiting for the phone / PC cable, first at Trebes and then Homps, before moving to the sea-side village of Vias where we met up with our English friends Barry and Judy, met a year ago in St Jean de Losne. We learned from them that the difficult English couple we had trained some time before had bought their beautiful little Tjalk barge ‘Friso’ after an equally difficult series of negotiations.
Meanwhile, Valerie, the lovely manager of the Trebes tourist office took the responsibility of procuring the data cable for our phone connection and promised to alert me when it arrived. She also provided us with a special mooring, complete with a source of fresh water and a ‘branchement d’electricite from the office which overlooked a tiny, shaded park that we had to ourselves, just short of the town marina.
Trebes and Homps are small towns in the Provence plains, dependant on the annual tourist infusion. Both have hire boat marinas, restaurants, local museums, ateliers for olives and their oils and some local vineyards. Nearby there are medieval villages like Minerve - home of the Minervois wines - some with ramparts re-built in the towns and with siege engines built and located at strategic places outside the towns as a recreated menace - and a memorial to their warlike past. We had lunch overlooking the caverns and canyons that surround Minerve - one of the 100 or so ‘most beautiful villages in France’, a title only allowed to such pretty and historic towns. This one is menaced by one re-created siege catapult, as used to try to storm the town in the days of the Black Prince - Richard the Lionheart’s brother who became King John. Our scooter was extremely useful in these areas as it gave us the mobility to explore further away from the canal than our bikes and tired legs would carry us in the continuing heat of this unusually hot year.
At Trebes we discovered a lovely local Chardonnay, a Vin de Pays (wine of the country), outside the rigorous French AOC systeme. Young winemakers who have travelled and studied in Australia and California have picked up the chilled fermentation processes used to great effect in ‘new world’ wineries and are using them to produce excellent and inexpensive wines from formerly un-economic areas. At $ 10 per bottle these white wines are a blessing as good French whites are either hard to find or extremely expensive and we prefer to serve French in France to visitors rather than the Californian, Australian or Chilean whites available through many supermarkets at very reasonable cost.
During our week in Trebes we also cemented our friendship with the Dutch couple (Cas and Lin, who we had met at Castelsarrasin), when they arrived looking throughout the south for a winter mooring. As the temperatures during this time constantly exceeded 40 degrees we looked for cool ways to spend the days and found them at the local pool and a beautiful nearby lake. Unfortunately Cas could not swim as he had a breathing hole in his trachea, having had cancer earlier. Tragically the cancer was the re-occur a couple of years later, however at this time he and Lin were full of life and we delighted in their company, even having the local restaurant deliver our orders to their boat which was moored right in front of the Pizza Pasta cafe.
Being berthed on our port side also meant being able to take the scooter off the boat and use it to travel further a field. In this way we were able to travel up to 50 km away from the canal to visit the rebuilt windmill near Villeneuve and the small fortified wine towns in the region.
Moving on, at Homps we met Paul and Carol, the owners of a 38 metre peniche ‘Risico’ whose master (Paul) travels the world as a skipper for the rich and famous on their huge luxury yachts. His wife, somewhat crippled by arthritis, minds the barge while he is away and lives on a diet of English soap operas (TV programs) despite her American nationality. As there was a birthday to celebrate, Paul had arranged a large gathering on the canal-side and had bought several large fish to barbecue and serve. We were invited and in the cooler part of the early evening, gathered and met many other local boating personalities.
It was clear the cable was still going to take some time to arrive so we moved on to meet up with out mates John and Jan on their boat ‘Blackbird Fly’ further down the canal at Vias. Vias is a popular holiday resort with numerous beaches nearby, lots of camping villages, seemingly hundreds of restaurants and a huge fun park, right on the canal. The canal-side port is supplied with free power and water and is only a kilometre from the beaches. We stayed for four days, swimming at the crowded beach and enjoying the endless sardine or mussel meals served with Sangria or local wines. Three days is supposed to be the maximum stay (despite some Dutch staying all summer) so we moved on to Agde, famous for its round lock with three entrances and exits.
In order to get to Agde however we had to negotiate the seven lock ‘flight’ at Fonseranne. It was on the third of the seven locks, with Maureen on shore handling ropes and me alone on the boat, that my back decided to slip a disc. I immediately fell to my knees and screamed a lot which brought a very worried look from both the eclusier and Maureen. After a couple of minutes I was able to stand, gingerly, and continue with the other 4 locks, but it was touch and go and very, very painful. The next few days was a bit of a trial with many strong pain killers and ointments being employed. This incident brings to the front of mind the real problems associated with a full-time life on the canals.
Our plans were to continue east past the huge lake known as the Etang de Thau, which is 15 km wide and quite rough in a strong wind, to the section of canal that runs parallel to the Mediterranean (for more swimming) and then to return to Toulouse to pick up our final guests for the season. Paul and Sue Scott.
It was now the first day of September and we can see the season changing. Last night we used a doona for the first time and today the clouds are gathering. Strong wind reports are starting to appear, although fortunately the strong winds are yet to materialise. We hoped to have enough good weather to spend the next three weeks or so wandering in this region before Toulouse, the canal Lateral (again) and finally - Castelsarrasin for the winter. Next year we planned to be north of Paris to tour the WWI battlefields of the Somme, Piccardy and Flanders.
1 - 29 September
The beginning of September found us at Agde on the Canal du Midi. This is unique, not only on Pierre Paul Ricquet’s Canal du Midi but throughout the extent of the canal systems in Europe. The canal was built in the mid 1600s and is the oldest still operating section of the French waterways. In building the canal, Ricquet had to overcome a great number of technical challenges as well as a great deal of political pressure from those who were jealous of the exclusive contract held by him and the great amount of money being poured into the construction by the government. The round lock was the cheap answer to a question of how you provided access to the canal from the river that took it to the east, the canal itself that went to Toulouse in the west and a branch canal that was required to bring goods up from the south. Why build two locks when you can create a round lock with three doors ?
Canals were the answer to the lack of modern and effective transport systems in a country that had muddy, rutted tracks for roads and unsprung carts pulled laboriously by oxen, donkeys or horses. Heavy and delicate loads could not be carried over such impassable tracks so the canals offered a way of supplying far away markets with building materials, wines, crockery, agricultural produce and other manufactured goods. The canals of course were outrun in the 1800s by the advent of railways, which could beat the boats in both speed and capacity. Both systems however were built by entrepreneurs who then charged passage on them. In this way Ricquet's family was to prosper over centuries. There are still members of the family living very well on the proceeds 400 years later.
Agde gave me the opportunity to take a train back to Carcassonne, the site of the burglary on the boat which had robbed us of our lap top computer, Pentax camera and some wine - plus the data cable that made fast internet services possible. We had waited for some 6 weeks for a replacement and it was now available at the tourist office at Trebes. An hour in the train and taxi both ways, 30 euros in fares and we were able to communicate again. We had come to Agde from the extension of the Canal du Midi and were still heading east, now in company with friends John and Jan, who had cruised down from the centre of France for this summer season. With the onset of the heat, they were content to lie close to the Mediterranean, in which we spent many hours cooling down from the infernal 40 degrees, but we had further to go and that meant crossing the Etang de Thau.
The Etang is a large lake, 15km long by 5 wide, on which there are hectares of oyster farms punctuated by three major towns with fishing and pleasure boat harbours. We decided to spend a couple of days exploring the three towns while crossing the lake and so dropped our anchor about 300 metres from the entrance of Marseillan as there were no suitable moorings inside the ancient and tiny port. This allowed John to bring his much smaller boat alongside to take us ashore. These ports are quite small and have limited manoeuvring room inside for boats our size.
It was a hot and breathless day so we spent an hour or so wandering about the town and visiting the famous ‘cave’ (French for cellar) wherein Noilly Prat vermouth is made and distributed. We had to buy some of course and enjoyed it later that day as our aperitif, mixed with Canada Dry ginger ale.
By the time we returned to Van Nelle the wind had increased and the Meteo was issuing a ‘securite’ alert for Beaufort force 7 winds. We pulled up the anchor and cruised to Meze, the next town, thinking we may be able to secure Van Nelle on the outer end of the breakwater inside the harbour, the only place for a boat of our size. Unfortunately, two small boats had grabbed the space and as John took ‘Blackbird Fly’ in to check alternatives, we beat upwind and downwind outside. He returned, advising us by VHF radio that there was really no chance of an overnight mooring out of the danger of 40 knot winds, so we headed off to the canal on the east side of the lake. Just inside the canal there is a loading space for sand and gravel used for the construction of buildings and roads in the district. We suggested an overnight stay there to see if the next day ‘s weather would allow us to further explore the quaint towns within the Etang. John firmly vetoed that idea saying that he did not want his boat to be mistakenly filled with tons of rubble. We moved on to La Maguelone.
La Maguelone is another canal side stop for boats whose crews can take advantage of a tiny tourist train in order to get to the beach about 1.5km distant and to the famous abbey, where a connecting tourist train takes you off to the nearby huge tourist beach town of Palavas. We decided this was just what we needed for the next few days and so settled in to swim, laze on the Mediterranean beaches and explore the abbey and Palavas. We stayed at La Maguelone for three days before moving on to Aigues Mortes.
King Louis the 9th (St Louis) bought this mosquito ridden swamp for a port to take his crusaders to fight the Moslems during the 13th century. St Louis was unfortunately captured by Mohammed the enemy king who held him for ransom. Mohammed also did a great sales job on him, offering him the ‘original crown of thorns and parts of the cross on which Christ was crucified’. Louis fell for it (Mohammed must have been a predecessor to the current day rug salesmen) and after some years of humming and hawing, his courtiers raised the millions required. King Louis returned to Paris to build the fabulous St Chappelle church near the Notre Dame to hold the relics. After his death he was beatified for his piety and great works on behalf of the Catholic church - hence his title Saint Louis. His precious relics however found their way to Rome during a period when war threatened Paris and are now secreted somewhere in the Vatican museums.
We spent a couple of weeks at Aigues Mortes in the previous year since we were caught in a huge flood in which some 16 people lost their lives nearby. We therefore knew the town quite well, including the great oyster bar which we frequented for aperitifs, or the entrée course of a progressive dinner. More of that later. Our friends John and Jan had arranged to spend their coming winter at the port of Grau du Roi (‘Port of the King), which was built after Aigues Mortes on the mouth of the river as silt moved the coats progressively seaward. This is now a picturesque seaside fishing village highly dependent on tourism for 4-5 months of the year and which virtually closes down for the other 7. We took the little train from Aigues Mortes to Grau for the water festival and the running of the bulls before witnessing the free ‘bulls in a swimming pool’ concept they have to entertain the young men of the town.
The idea is that 10 or 15 young men inhabit the arena into which is let a young and very annoyed bull. In the centre of the arena is a plastic, blow up swimming pool. Any of the boys who are silly enough stand near the pool and goad the bull into charging them - which it does with evident pleasure. The idea for the boys then is to escape injury by jumping into the pool and lying close to one of the edges. The bull is then supposed to leap through the pool over the prostrate youth. It sometimes works and other times he gets stepped on or slightly bounced around on a set of rather sharp looking horns. One human participant was helped out of the arena to the first aid post while the bulls all left unscathed but wet !
Down both sides of Grau’s colourful and picturesque river channel to the sea are the moorings of the professional fishing boats which sell their catch direct on the quay-side each day. Close by on the quays are the restaurants, serving the fresh catch immediately after it is landed. Delicious and not too expensive. In the streets behind the waterfront are large numbers of tourist shops, stocked with the lavender and yellow coloured materials and ceramics of the region. On the sea-front are the many hotels that tourists inhabit during the summer and on the beaches, the signs of sandcastles made by children and engineering students alike.
It was at Aigues Mortes that I exercised my fledgling carpentry skills again, constructing a security door to isolate the wheelhouse from the interior of the boat. This, together with an alarm system, are my defences against further burglaries. An ingenious removable contraption, it hinged at the top and swung into place on the stairway. Secured by several large slide bolts and padlocks, it was also securable from the inside if required. While useful when the boat was left by itself, it was particularly useful on the Midi as we had to keep the roof off the boat in order to be able to rapidly reduce our height when approaching and passing under bridges. The whole was overlooked by a motion sensor attached to a very noisy alarm siren. It must have worked since we suffered no further intrusions.
We stayed at Aigues Mortes for a week enjoying the tourist scene before enjoying a farewell dinner with John and Jan. Starting Van Nelle’s huge Baudouin engine again we headed back westwards to rendezvous with our visitors. However, since we had nearly three weeks before the Scotts and the Hodders arrived at Toulouse, we took the trip rather slowly, stopping at all the best spots for more beach time and visits to friends, wine caves, tourist attractions and towns.
First we had three very hot days at Vias and its beaches. The beaches here are crowded with people of all ages and shapes as it is a popular holiday area. The sand is coarse and discoloured, the water slightly cloudy so that you cannot see your knees if you are waist deep and all along the coast are groynes to keep the sand in place from currents. Mostly, the sea is quite calm with only small shore break waves to provide fun for kids. Most of the women (of all shapes and sizes) go nearly naked but as this is not the Riviera there are not a lot of skinny, blonde models showing off their bodies, more like lots of middle class families with kids, blow up water toys and picnic baskets.
Restaurants and bars in the area work to formulas - buy a ‘plat du jour’ (daily special) or a pizza and get a quarter litre of local wine included, plus coffee - in the price. The other ‘formula’ in this region is the ‘endless plate’ concept. At a waterside restaurant you select an unoccupied table which is furnished with a big bowl for empty shells, a roll of paper towels and wine glasses - no cutlery. You then order your wines and pay the waitress for the meal - about 7.50 euros, and take the ticket she gives you to the servery where you can choose either steamed mussels with a variety of sauces or fried sardines. You also get an endless plate of ‘frites’ (French fries) and as many jugs of water as you might want You can stay there all day refilling your plate as often as you like for the one price. When you run out of wine, beer or sangria you just go to the bar for a replacement at cost. Neat idea and a great way to spend an hour or two lazily enjoying the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of the sea-side.
By now the huge fun fair (Europark) that was operating canal side when we first visited early in summer, was closed. This really signals that the season is coming to an end. The weather was however still very kind (with the exception of one or two days when it showered briefly) and it stayed that way right through to the last couple of days in October. This was very fortunate since while voyaging through the Canal du Midi we need to take our wheelhouse roof down in order to get under the fifteenth century bridges still in use ! We then travel with a plastic awning rigged over the space left by the missing roof sections and raise and lower the side walls when necessary.
The next day on our way towards Toulouse we had to negotiate the 7 locks at Foncerannes, the ones I had dislocated my back at on the way down. This time we had to go up the locks, a more difficult and turbulent experience, with Maureen once again off the boat for the 45 minutes and 7 locks in order to secure our lines to the shore bollards. These stop the boat from rushing forward and hitting the lock gates as the water pours into the locks from the next, and higher, lock.
Locks work by gravity feeding water from the higher level into the lower level chambers through panels set into the bottom of the gates. These are opened or closed depending on whether you want to fill or empty a lock and the water pours through them, running to the back of the lock being filled, then being pushed to the surface by the shape of the chamber and rushing back across the top of the stationery water already in the lock. This causes boats to be pushed forward towards the gates, hence the reason your boat has to be secured while in the lock. Many first time renters do not quite grasp this necessity and end up crammed together at the front of the lock or, bouncing off boats like ours that are secured.
We made it though the flight of locks unscathed this time and headed off to explore the nearby museum in honour of Pierre Paul Ricquet, the entrepreneur who created the canal. Arriving at Port Lauragais, site of the museum, we were unable to locate the musee building, having successfully found the Auto route Expo, the Musee du Sport, the Boutique and the Hotel which share the area. There being no other buildings in the area we took our bikes and went to view the hill-top spire in his honour. After a punishing uphill bike ride we found the obelisk inside a formidable walled enclosure - which was locked. We freewheeled down the hill to the boat and headed off, not too pleased.
This section of the Canal features some very tight corners accompanied by narrow canal sections. We slow down to 2kmh before the corners, take them as wide as we can, and use our air horn generously. That does not stop, or even slow down some rental boat operators however. We have, on a number of occasions been half way through a very tight bend, with Maureen on the bow suddenly turning and flashing me the pointed hands upwards signal that alerts me to an oncoming menace. The next thing I see is a rental boat at full speed aiming to T-bone us. Normally, the next part of the sequence is that the driver on the other boat recognises the danger some 30 metres from him, closing at a speed of 14-16kmh (2 of ours and 14 of his). Realising he has to do something, his instinct is to go into reverse. With a light rental boat travelling at speed, reverse tends to make the boat skid as the prop walks the stern one way; sometimes with the help of the rudder - now furiously turned by the hapless helmsman, sometimes against the action of it. This manoeuvre ends in the rental boat ploughing off in an uncontrolled direction or just spinning on the spot, banging into the bank of the canal, Van Nelle or both.
Mind you, this sort of collision does nothing to us except to slightly alter our direction depending on what angle they hit us, but it often leaves an indelible mark on the other party. Shaken, the other helmsman’s normal reaction is to rant and rave at us for being in his way as he makes matters worse by furiously trying to go, at full revs, forward or reverse and finding that all that does is to wipe his plastic chairs off the deck of his rental boat as he careers wildly under overhanging tree branches. (We once saw a boat head off in completely the opposite direction, leaving a chair dangling above the canal on a branch. They went on for some minutes before turning to resume their journey and to rescue the chair).
So, on we go, via Trebes to buy some of their excellent Chardonnay, towards Toulouse. On the last day we had a smaller boat in company and allowed them to follow us into the locks. This slowed us down considerably, having to wait for them at each lock but I figured we had time to spare so I allowed them to continue with us. At the second last lock before Toulouse time was getting short so on exiting I allowed them to go ahead at a slightly faster speed, hoping that they would be tied ready in the lock as we arrived at it. Not only did they arrive, enter and tie up in the lock, they also instructed the lock keeper that we were not coming and he operated the lock, allowing them to get through before we arrived. As it was now 10 minutes before 6.00pm he refused to allow us to go through as we would not complete the action before his ‘knock off’ time. This meant we had to stay overnight before the last lock to Toulouse. I was not well pleased and resolved NOT to make allowances in future for small boats. Arriving at Toulouse the next day we found the little rat in the port and gave him a lecture - in front of his embarrassed wife and children. He hid from us for the next couple of days and I hope he was suitably uncomfortable.
Toulouse is a very big city, home of the Airbus, the French space program and lots of other manufacturing and service industries. To be in the heart of it at the piddling cost of 4 euros per night is a great deal, especially if you have guests arriving. Its an impressive place to start a cruise from, and to spend a day or so bicycling the area and visiting it’s many tourist attractions before departure.
29 September - 30 October
We had several days to spend in the port at Toulouse for a few housekeeping tasks and shopping forays to undertake in readiness for the next cruise with passengers. There is a lovely big Brico (hardware store) in the centre of the city (a chance for me to add more ‘useful tools’). It is also the home of a friend’s brother who has a café right on the Pont Neuf - what could be better. We also had some other friends in residence at the port - David and Mandy Murray on their Dutch Tjalk ‘Freedom’ - so we took the opportunity to enjoy social times with them as well. So well did we enjoy their company that we slept through a burglary in the port enclosure. Thieves climbed the 2 metre fence armed with bolt cutters, cut the chains securing my ‘Giant Boulder’ mountain bike to the port building (leaving Maureen’s to which mine was chained) and took it back over the fence and away.
This was the third burglary of the year for us. What are we doing wrong ? Most other people have had absolutely no trouble of this kind. I guess from now on we put our gear on board every night, secure it with un-cuttable chains and locks and protect the entrances with multiple alarm systems. It feels a bit like a siege mentality but with immigration in France increasing petty crime exponentially, you just have to live with it any way you can.
I decided it was not going to bother me so I set off to the Decathlon sports store some 3 km from the boat on one of our guest bikes to investigate a replacement. Decathlon is a major sports chain with just about everything for the outdoor pleasure enthusiast. They had a range of mountain and racing bikes priced from moderate to extreme and being a miser I leant towards the bottom of the moderate range, walking out with a new, 21 gear, light mountain bike complete with shopping basket, water bottle holder and stand, all for 175 euros. Not too bad but I would have preferred to spend the money on quality wines !
Two days later our guests arrived. Sue and Paul Scott had arranged the trip with their mates Tony and Diane Hodder. Both ex Zimbabwe engineers, Paul and Tony and their wives are now based in Australia. Paul was at the time renovating Indonesian oil rigs in the sea between Australia and Indonesia while Tony was in London building the new shopping hypermarket centre for his employer - Multiplex. Paul had a hankering for years to ‘do the canals’ and had found us while searching the internet where our website describes all aspects of this exotic lifestyle.
They had flown from the UK to Carcassonne where I had arranged for them to stay at the pleasant and inexpensive Hotel Aragon, just outside the gates of the magnificent ‘Cite’ - the MUST SEE tourist site in France. The foursome took in the sights and sounds then enjoyed an early train trip to Toulouse and a quick taxi connection to the port where they met us for the next week on Van Nelle.
We always start with a glass or two of Champagne (the real stuff) before mounting the bicycles for exploration tours of our immediate surrounds. The team and I set off for the magnificent Capitole building, lavishly painted with frescos describing the various centuries of Toulosian life and decorated with magnificent statues, gilt walls, doors and window frames, rich marble and oak furnishings and acres of nudes. Just outside is the huge city square, normally filled with the bustle of a market, while just off the square, in the busy university quarter is the Cathedral St Sernin. The opera theatre and a brace of luxury hotels are also located in this area, just near the Tourism Office de Toulouse. Very handy.
Having bikes in a big city works well in France since they are ‘Velo Aware’ and have bicycle lanes even on the major boulevards within the centre ville area. A short ride away from the port and you are at the wide, gently flowing Garonne River, bordered by lots of restaurants and bars where one can take in a cool drink or a snack under the shade of luxuriant plane trees. On arrival back at the boat some hours later we started the team’s gourmet experience with decanted and aged Bordeaux reds, crisp Burgundian chardonnays and grilled sea salmon.
The next morning we headed off through the very centre of the city on a 54km cruise to Montech. We needed to be ahead of the game on this long day of travel in order to get to Montech by the time the locks closed at 5.30pm. Unfortunately we were delayed by eclusiers insisting we wait for another boat following us some 45 minutes behind in the attempt to conserve water during these days of drought conditions. I am all in favour of water economy but it meant that we ended up, once again, falling one ecluse (lock) short of our targeted destination. Not all was lost though. The team mounted the bikes and headed into Montech, only 3km distance, to explore and hunt for fresh bread - a must have at each meal. They arrived back for drinks on the back deck and dinner of ‘Agneau en croute’ - lamb stuffed and roasted in a pastry case, this time with Burgundian pinot noir reds and south west sauvignon blanc whites. The night was suddenly very quiet after the traffic bustle of Toulouse and everyone slept in the next morning except the skipper. The guests arose as I piloted VN into the small park side water stop at Montech for a brief stay to shop for some necessities. Since we had our car garaged in Montech, I retrieved it to take the team to our favourite local vineyard to taste and buy some of their excellent white and red wines. The team took up the mid morning wine tasting challenge with energy, returning to the boat with several cases of award winning wines.
We lunched on our regular favourites of a mixed platter of French delicacies - foie gras, pate en croute, quiches, jambon fume and a range of fromages, washed down with the local sauvignon and cider from Brittany before moving on to the Pente d’Eau, the double tractor that pushes water, and the boat floating in it, up or down a concrete trench that by-passes 5 normal locks. I had arranged with the VNF (Voies Navigable de France) for us to use this UNESCO heritage listed tourist attraction as a highlight of the canal experience and the operator was waiting for us for the 30 minute trip.
The afternoon cruise was gentle, in dappled sunshine through avenues of over-locking plane trees, planted 100 years earlier to protect the draft horses and family members whose job it was to pull the barges. Just 14 km together with some 8 locks made the trip last some 4 hours, having us in Castelsarrasin by late afternoon, enough time for a wander through this market town to the bar in the town square where panachés were to be consumed. Panache you ask ? A Panache is a shandy, beer and lemonade mixed in different percentages depending on the whim of the barman, but very refreshing on hot days.
There is a lot to be said about having a group on board as they create their own fun and provide great company while enjoying the hospitality of the trip. Sue, Paul, Di and Tony were a great team, full of fun and energy and willing to try anything and everything. Paul was the bike riding explorer, even at one stage riding some 15km to Agen in search of mushrooms. He failed the test, arriving back at the boat with snails !
Each day of the cruise was a travelling day with the towns of Montech, Castelsarrasin, Moissac, Valence, Agen and Serignac the evening stops and with a return to Agen the final destination for the team to take a hire car and head off to explore Provence. En-route we visited the famous abbey church and cloister at Moissac, the market town of Valence, the fantastic ‘Gold Fish’ restaurant at Golfech, played Petanque at Serignac and toured the 27 room museum at Agen. This features a lovely Roman age statue of Diana and a collection of Goya paintings as well as exhibiting scenes of Agen’s well established fame as the centre of the prune industry in France. Brought back by crusaders, the plum and its dried derivative the prune, are used in all sorts of confiture, cuisine and chocolat here.
Food and wine dominated the interest of the evenings with favourites such as coq au vin, boeuf bourguignon, lapin, cassoulet and other plats principale sandwiched by fois gras and tartes au pommes. We also served wines from major regions, from Bordeaux the Medocs, St Emilions, Margaux and Sauternes; from Burgundy the Cotes de Beaune, Fumés, Sancerres; Champagnes of course and from the south-west the Merlots and Sauvignons (these are varietal ‘vins de pays’ not AOC wines). Finally, from the Rhone the Beaujolais, Chateau Neuf du Papes and Cotes du Rhone reds. The team also tasted Armagnac, Pastis, Kir and an assortment of aperitifs at bars and restaurants, but the highlight was a dinner at the ‘Gold Fish’ restaurant at Golfech where the chef is a distinguished Officer de la Legion du Rotisseurs du Langedoc - a gourmet association and his food is sensational.
The Gold Fish restaurant was sublime. Menus were 13, 17, 23 or 28 euros for 2 or 3 courses and up to 38 euros for gourmet menus of 5 courses. We mostly chose the middle price range and were astounded at the range of foods that were then presented including additional plates of hors d’oeuvres and little cleansers between courses. The tastes were subtle and mouth watering, the service was friendly and unpretentious and the dishes were slowly and carefully explained for the non French speaking among us. We have a number of restaurants we especially like in the south west of France, this one has taken the top of the list.
The last town we stopped at before turning back for Agen and the end of the cruise, was Serignac. This is a small village noted for the weird, spiral church steeple and the fact it boasts a free port. A wooden quay about 50 metres long is punctuated by water and electricity stands provided free to pleasure boaters who are encouraged to therefore utilise the town’s commerciants. We have been here a number of times and delight in taking guests to the ‘boulodrome’ for a game of Petanque. Invariably as we begin to play on the deserted pitches during the mid week days, a member of the local club will wander over to chat and give hints about the game. These retired gentlemen stand to the side with Gauloise cigarettes dangling from whiskered mouths, berets rakishly pulled over wispy grey hair and old working clothes showing the labours of the wife’s many patches and repairs. Quietly they will encourage, offer technique and suggest new tactics then quietly and politely take their leave to join their friends for a pastis at the bar. They never fail to invite newcomers to their club. The team loved the game and the town and celebrated that night with rabbit ragout and some of the wines they had searched out as a result of their recent education while cruising. Wonderfully, they would also jump up to do dishes at the end of a meal before we could get to the sink. We left Serignac after lunch on the penultimate day, for the trip some 9km and 4 locks back to the quiet canal mooring we use while in Agen, There barbecuing chicken for dinner, which was washed down with a fine Mersault white wine - among other delights.
Accompanied by a light drizzle, Paul, Tony and I trudged off to the car hire office the next morning to pick up their Renault Scenic wagon, a diesel people mover of moderate proportions with lots of little hidden storage spots in its floor and seat backs - one of the new creative cars by Renault.... Packed and ready, the team assembled back at the boat, put the bags into the car and departed. A great week for us with 4 lovely people whom we were genuinely sorry to see go.
We took a little time off the next morning before starting Van Nelle and heading back toward Castelsarrasin via a stop at Golfech to do washing and cleaning. We were to use the car, garaged at Montech, three days later to drive to Toulouse to pick up another WA couple for a four day cruise, the last of the 2003 season. Neville and Margaret Beebe were our last guests for the year. Neville, treasurer of the St George Bank in Perth was surprised by Margaret’s organisation of a two week trip to France to celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary and, having always wanted to experience the canals, had tried to contact us via our advertised email address. Unfortunately, the email address on our web site had been deluged during the year with junk and spam mail and we eventually had to abandon it. 400 to 800 e-mails advertising everything from cheap Viagra to ink jet cartridges, get rich quick deals and travel jaunts would arrive each week, an impossible pile to sort through for genuine mail, also very expensive to handle via a mobile phone. Fortunately, a friend of Neville’s had realised we had a phone number and called us to alert us to Neville’s request to join us. We made some calls and finally all was arranged.
Picking them up in Toulouse at the sumptuous Grand Opera Hotel on the Capitole square I asked if they had visited the Capitole building. It turned out they had not, passing it as millions do, blind to the amazing beauty lying within. We did a quick visit to gaze at the paintings and sculpture before reclaiming the car from the subterranean car park and heading for Castelsarrasin and the boat.
Neville is a keen cyclist so was happy to jump on the bike at every opportunity, but unlike many of the guys who have travelled with us, was not over keen to drive Van Nelle and both he and Margaret were happy to sit and watch the passing scenery as we visited Moissac and Valence before again arriving at Agen where they were to take the train to Carcassonne and from there to continue up to Paris and home. We arranged train tickets and hotel arrangements for them and relaxed in their company for the four days we had them aboard. Unfortunately for my new bike, on the day we were in Valence we took a ride to the gare (station) to arrange their tickets. On the way back I tried to avoid a large concrete pillar by turning the front wheel sharply and applying emergency brakes. The immediate effect was for the front wheel to deform into a pretzel shape. This rather surprised us all since it had carried Paul Scott over many rough kilometres and my bulk over as many. There was little I could do apart from slightly re-shaping it to return to Van Nelle while the others continued exploring.
We celebrated the final night aboard with a marinated chicken barbecue and some fine wines before seeing Neville and Margaret to the railway station at Agen on their departure day. With them safely entrained we departed Agen for the final time of the season. It took us only two days to return from Agen to Castelsarrasin where we reversed Van Nelle from inside the port to our winter mooring in the mouth of the canal, ‘en face’ to the passarelle that takes train travellers from the town side of the port to the ‘gare’ or railway station.
I felt quite drained after our arrival at Castel and spent a couple of days just ‘vegging’ out before getting back into organisation mode to do the few maintenance tasks that were required. Heavy jobs like chipping the tiny areas of rust and repainting decks and hull can wait for fair, new year weather as can the re-varnishing and repairs to the trim of the roof sections. The ventilation fan in the bathroom had just decided to fuse so a replacement was needed, leading me to buy two, one requiring a rewiring job (so being useless) but I didn’t find that out until destroying the packaging had been made it impossible to return. I figured we needed an early Christmas present and since the local hyper market was offering DVD players at only 100 Euros we invested in one and a few movies to go with it. This machine enabled us to use video hire shops to get new release movies and select English as the language, something you could not do at movie theatres and with VHS video tapes.
After a week in Castelsarrasin, we had dentist and doctors appointments for regular check ups and had scheduled or completed small boat repair jobs and were planning a major trip to see friends in Italy where they are building a theme park for the local Mafia. Some time to spend in Tuscany, a visit to the Chianti region, Pisa, Florence and a couple of days en-route at Marseilles and the Italian Riviera should be fun n’est pas ? Someone has to do it and we were ready and willing to take up the challenge.
Chapter Ten - Winter and Italy
November - The French Riviera and Italy
So we had decided to take three weeks touring the Riviera and Italy in our old Renault 21 (which, in retrospect, stood up to the trip beautifully). We left Castelsarrasin for Marseilles on a cool and overcast day, just right for a long drive (since we don’t have air-conditioning), and travelling at 130kmh on the auto route is non-conducive to having the windows open. We planned to stay in Marseilles for a couple of days to really explore the sights, museums, old town, port, cathedrals etc and to soak up the regional gastronomic specialities. No such luck - we stayed only one night since most tourist attractions were closed and we were not at all impressed with the somewhat watery bouillabaisse that had chunks of un-digestible fish floating in it. While the old harbour and old town were attractive, it was all a bit noisy, smelly and dirty. There was one highlight however, the city boasts a Roman archaeology museum and site right in the centre of town which has parts of an ancient vessel - like a ‘trireme’ as part of its collection. For those who haven’t cruised on one recently, a trireme is a fighting vessel powered by three rows of slave oarsmen, a popular type of boat around the turn of the first millennium. This one had only a single bank of oars - a uni-reme ?
Marseilles is of course a large port - France’s second largest - with main cargo shipping facilities well out of town and international ferry service terminals just outside the Old Port. Pleasure boating is well catered for also as this area of the Mediterranean is a key pleasure boating centre with many boat building and maintenance facilities situated right in it’s centre and the outskirts of this huge city.
There are hundreds of boats in the Marseilles Old Port. The port marina is probably 2 kilometres long and 200 metres wide (it has a ferry service to allow you to get from one side to the other) and on both sides are dozens of finger wharves that hold boats of all shapes and sizes. There are three masted ships and dinghies the size of Optimists, 50 metre motor cruisers and 12 foot rubber duckies plus everything in between including the Coast Guard, police, tourist vessels and floating restaurants. All of these vessels are accommodated right in the heart of the city in the Vieux Port. Our first hotel on the trip was therefore a great choice, taken from one of our travel guides, the Hotel Alize, right on the old port in the restaurant area was comfortable, clean, inexpensive and very well situated, just around the corner from a huge underground car park.
However, with little to keep us here, the next morning, after checking the (very expensive) chandleries and having exhausted the tourist opportunities, we returned to the auto route towards Monte Carlo via Nice. I had worked in Monaco several times for IBM but Maureen had not been there so we headed off to check out the pleasure palaces en-route and to thoroughly spoil ourselves in one of Europe’s most famous star scenes. We visited the tourism office on arrival at Monte Carlo to get their up to date hotel guide, and choosing a centrally located 3 star property, I put in a call to reserve a room. As luck would have it they offered and I accepted a suite overlooking the yacht harbour for the price of a standard room - why not ? We were soon ensconced in this rather sumptuous pleasure palace with three bathrooms and balconies, right near a multi story car park. I bring up the car park angle since it is impossible to find secure parking on the roads which all have different hours available for parking (if at all), are fully saturated all hours of the day and night and are subject to frightening fines if you park illegally.
We were soon out of the suite and onto the tourist trail, eager to take in the Casino, the Café de Paris, the Prince’s Palace, the cathedral, churches, old town and Oceanographic Institute - all equally amazing ! Lunch at the Café de Paris - dinner too since we liked it so much, and aperitifs taken in sunshine looking at the rich and not so beautiful, wending their way to the Casino from the very elegant and hugely expensive Hotels de Paris and l’Hermitage (which were right next to our own hotel- the Balmoral).
The Oceanographic Institute, inaugurated by Prince Ranier’s forebear about 100 years ago, started as his hobby and ended up a world class institute of oceanographic and environmental research. Access to this cliff side museum and science institute is easy as a little tourist train takes you to it’s door from all the other interesting parts of this hillside city. We toured the route of the famous Grand Prix, stopped at the burial place of Princess Grace and watched a not very exciting ‘changing of the guard’ at the palace. All in all we had huge fun being tourists and feeling every bit as privileged as the trillion-aires whose ships (not boats) thickly congested the harbour outside our balcony windows. One of the windows opened up on the view from one of the bathrooms within which was a huge bath with seemingly endless torrents of steaming water. I took the opportunity for a long bath - unfortunately without the champagne to go with it. We later had a couple of drinks in the hotel bar / lounge meeting and chatting with some well heeled locals and their visiting American friends.
After a couple of days and nights we headed off to Pisa, which contains of course the famous leaning tower, which truly is an amazing sight when you get up close and personal. Having parked in a city square guarded by teams of young black men selling trinkets, who for a price promise to guard your car (really ??), we headed off through a maze of narrow streets in the direction other people were coming from and going to. You cannot see the tower or any of the other buildings which accompany it until you emerge from the rabbit warren of overbuilt streets into the large open area that surrounds the complex.
The Tower is accompanied by a cathedral, several museums and another tower, all surrounded by additional buildings of the same era which were originally barracks and military facilities. As I understand it, the tower was originally built to aid in the manufacture of musket and cannon balls which were made by dropping blobs of molten lead down the central shaft. In flight, the blobs would form perfect spheres of the correct size and cool sufficiently so that on impact in the water well at the bottom they would not be deformed. Obviously a tilted tower is useless for that purpose.
We had not planned accommodation ahead for any of our destinations since we did not know where or how long we would stay in any one place. We had seen what we wanted to of Pisa and so headed east towards Firenze (Florence). We had a thought to stay in one of the small towns on the way but as travel was easy we decided just to head for the city and try at the Pensione Pendini which we had used some 3 or 4 years earlier. On arrival in the old town we fortunately saw a sign pointing to a rare undercover car park which we, even more fortunately, found. It turned out to be only a couple of hundred metres from the Piazza Republica in which the Hotel Pendini resides. Yes - they did have accommodation, unfortunately it was a suite - would that suit - Yes, if the price was right. It was and so once again we were regally accommodated at realistic prices. Of course, being November, well after the height of the tourist season, prices are much lower. Even so, central Florence, like other high priority tourist cities can be pretty expensive, so we were pleased to have great rooms at really affordable prices. What prices you ask ? Marseilles 75 Euro, Monaco 140 Euro and Florence 95. We later paid only 75 Euro per night for an excellent room in Venice and so decided to stay several nights. The summer season prices for all the above are at least double and in the case of Monte Carlo, four times the amount we paid. (The exchange rate at the time was about 0.60Euro:$A1)
So, day 4, Florence to re-visit old haunts and find new ones, especially the Piti Palace. We also found a really lovely, tiny Trattoria (about 10 tables) with an amazing menu and great local wines. It was here that we discovered the new craze of the Italian diners, a light and very drinkable white or rose wine with a very slight fizz. Known as frizzante, this style has become widespread in the north east and is really enjoyable along with the range of very light, almost sweetish, red wines. In most areas on this trip we chose to drink local wines from half or full litre jugs rather than bottled wines. It was a really good choice as the wines were wonderfully fresh and light, flavoursome and not too alcoholic.
After wandering across the Ponte Veccio, crowded with its collection of goldsmiths and jewellery shops, we headed for the Piti Palace, which took three hours to scan quickly. Taking it in detail would take days with its collection of highly decorated rooms, furniture, paintings, marble sculptures, costumes, and household goods - all formerly owned by the powerful rulers of the Tuscan lands, the Medici. We spent the morning at the palace and returned to check out of the hotel and head out of town. Having paid the king’s ransom to get the car out of the car park (some 30 euros for overnight parking), we amazingly found our way unerringly to the entry of the main route south to Sienna.
Sienna is famous for its skilled flag throwers and the annual horse races, known as the Palio, held in the central, cruelly angled square, known as the Campo. This cobbled area features fabulous medieval buildings of 5-7 floors, a cathedral and other grand edifices towering over the uneven rectangle (probably a rhomboid or some such other trigonometric detail), around which is a brick paved ‘road’ which runs along the bottom edge against the cathedral, up a steep slope and turning left again across the top of the area, drops precipitously down to the cathedral section again. The horse race is conducted bareback and rules include the right to try to unseat other riders while at full gallop. Bribery is expected and the result is frequently spectacular if not extremely dangerous to horses, competitors and spectators, the latter crowding the central area for hours without any facilities, before the events are completed.
Since the Palio is held in August we were not to witness it but it is enough to wander through this impressive city with its massive buildings and beautifully adorned religious edifices. We entered just a few to marvel at the state of preservation of the relics and adornments. Huge paintings and frescos on all walls and ceilings tower over visitors.
On to Arezzo via the Tuscan wine areas of Chianti and then on to our Canadian friend's apartment in Riccione, on the east coast. On arrival I was laid out with an excruciating pain in the neck and shoulders that came from nowhere. I dragged myself to the emergency ward of the regional hospital the next morning to be confronted with a wall of impenetrable Italian language. Fortunately I was introduced to a lovely young female doctor whose speciality was emergency medicine - not what I was after. She however agreed to translate for me and put me through the initial diagnosis and X ray procedures. This led to an appointment with the Professor of Orthopaedics who, through her, inquired as to how I had broken my neck and whether a road accident had caused the two fractured vertebrae. Since I had not had a close encounter with Italian drivers and had no recollection how it could have occurred it left them and me bemused but none the less debilitated ! Il Professore was surrounded by students who all peered at the patient and the X-rays nodding their heads sagely. Treatment was prescribed, requiring twice daily pain killing injections and a barrage of pain patches and pills, massage and x-rays over a period of a week. Liberal doses of wine with painfully taken meals also helped.
When the pain subsided we were able to drive to San Marino, an independent republic in Italy. On this day, as for others during November, there was a great deal of low cloud, quite thick at about 1,000 feet above the land. Many of the places we explored, such as San Marino, Urbino and San Leo, are hill or mountain top fortress towns and at San Marino we wound our way up the hillside and into the cloud. Some time later, at about 2,000 feet we emerged from the cloud and the city stood above it like a fairy story castle standing on cotton candy clouds. Very spectacular.
Other mountain peaks also poked out of the mists and from the ramparts of the castle towers we were able to take fantastic digital pictures and video of the scenes.
In this area a number of local princes held off armies from the east and south for centuries, increasing their strength and wealth until the Austrians invaded around the 16th or 17th century. They were defeated by Napoleon who rolled on to take over the whole of Italy, enthroning his nephew as King in Venice. More of that later. As a result of all of this history of war and hostility, there are a number of linked fortified towns in various states of repair, among which is Gradara where there is a Romeo and Juliet sound-alike fable. It seems that two ruling princes wanted to combine family forces and fortunes and did so by marrying one’s son to the other’s daughter. Unfortunately the lame and ugly son was away at the time of his marriage and he was ‘stood in for’ by his younger and most handsome brother Paolo who was unfortunately to fall in love with Francesca, his sister in law. They were discovered as lovers by the brother and murdered, a fact now celebrated by a series of theatrical re-enactments during the tourist season. Their house is in remarkable condition, having been kept in the family for hundreds of years and having been missed by the wrath of the second world war as the Allied army fought back the Germans during 1944 and 45.
Our friends Randy and Nancy with whom we stayed for two weeks are building a major theatrical and audio visual attraction for a large and popular theme park in Riccione (including an Imax type large screen format set of theatres). They introduced us to 'slow food', the movement from Italy which has rapidly spread throughout the world. Slow food is the opposite of fast food but is far more than just a style. It involves the discovery and protection of ancient and special regional recipes and the produce that is necessary to re-create them. Bio-diversity and environment are key also to the slow food philosophy which is championed in each country or area by regional coordinators. Perth had one such person in training at Bra, the town in which the Slow Food University is taking shape. Elena Aniere, after a year or so of experience in Bra, will return to Australia to champion the process for our collective benefit.
While in Riccione we visited a slow food restaurant where Giuseppe, the owner, advised us of what we would be eating and drinking before beginning a parade of platters of fabulous food and carafes and bottles of equally delicious wines. While staying in their apartment, our friends Randy and Nancy also arranged for some of their Italian friends to cook amazing theme dinners for us while we had the luck to enjoy such wonderful hospitality - and gastronomy.
Our last side trip from Riccione was to Pesaro, only 25 km south. Unfortunately it was a heavily overcast, cold and drizzly day, one of the only really poor weather days we experienced until heading back to France. We entered the old town and parked then headed off on foot to the centre of town which boasted a couple of good museums. Completing a circuitous route we found the museums but had completely lost track of where we had come from. Having investigated the tourist attractions (closed until 4.00pm) we tried to re-trace our steps to find the car. That took almost an hour and found us near the port. Always interested in things nautical we drove down to the sea side and stared out to sea. Through the wreaths of mist and rain we saw a couple of ghostly shapes flitting and darting across the harbour mouth. As the breeze filled in and the fogs parted we realised the shapes were a couple of duelling 420 yachts. Four young people were out on the Adriatic in impossible conditions practising to beat our sailors at the world championships to come. I felt a strong bond for those young sailors and wished them well. Anyone prepared to push on in those conditions deserves success - perhaps a second to our own fair lasses in Australia.
Reluctantly we left our great friends to travel on to Venice where we found the Guerrini Hotel on the Spina de Espana, just near the Ferrovia (train station) having parked the car at the Marco Polo Airport and taken the water bus across the lagoon to Piazza St Marco via the Lido and Murano islands (home of the famous Venetian Glass). Here we stayed two nights in order to take in all the sights I had not visited while on a whistle-stop trip 20 years earlier. On both nights we dined in a tiny, family run trattoria on the outskirts of the canal system while during the days we took innumerable vaporettos (ferries) to and from Palazzo’s and Piazza St Marco. Even in November there are queues in some of the attractions but since we had great dry weather with temperatures above 10-15 every day, we were as happy as clams.
Venice sits on the lagoon and is split by the Grand Canal which is about 4 kilometres long in an S shape. Our hotel was at the west end and Piazza St Marco near the other end of the Canal to the east and took some finding as it was accessed through tiny arcades off the main street. Since Venice is so compact and has no cars, bikes, skate boards, scooters or any other form of wheeled transport, it is easy to walk through, especially if you are visiting the attractions en-route. The key sights of course are the Piazza St Marco with it’s attendant Palace of the Doge (governor), the Basilica St Marco (the Doge’s chapel), the Museo Correr and the Library, all of which surround the famous square with its attendant cafes. Along the Grand Canal are the Galleria Academia (16th - 18th century art), the Ca Rezzonico (18th century art), the Rialto markets and Ca Pesaro (modern art). There are tens of churches, basilicas and cathedrals, though none more glorious than St Marco with its golden mosaics and the Golden Altar Piece, and many other museums like the Guggenheim collection of modern art.
Along with the historic come the places of rest and recuperation, like Harry’s bar - famous for being the favourite of Hemingway and his cronies - now very expensive but where most people drink the ‘special’, a mix of Prosecco (a favourite sparkling wine of the region) and peach liquor. We chose to order a bottle of Prosecco, a ploy that turned out to be a winner. It was not only less expensive than one glass each of their special cocktail but gave us 3 glasses each, enabling us plenty of time to meet several other visitors and to be told Australia had just lost the rugby World Cup by a kick to England’s young full back in Sydney.
Throughout the city there are also lots of restaurants, bars, panini and pizza places, cafes and hotels and on any day at least a couple of classic music or opera concerts in historic churches or colleges. The Grand Canal is awash with boats of many kinds, the two major kinds of ferries, the gondolas of course and the water taxis, goods barges, garbage barges, repair boats, police and coast guard boats mixed in with private runabouts. The water taxis and ferries work 24 hours per day since that is the only way to get around and a 24 or 72 hour ticket saves time and cost. We spent two days exploring, walking, watching, visiting, looking, catching ferries, getting lost in the labyrinth of tiny streets and enjoying slumping in Harry’s at the end of the day to sip bubbly and watch the tourists, doing pretty much the same as us - touristing.
We were extremely reluctant to leave Venice since we were having such a good time but we were also getting pretty tired of touristing and I especially was all ‘cathedralled out’. We took the No 5 bus from near the Ferrovia at Piazzale Roma to the parking station at the airport and were pleasantly surprised that it was less than half the cost of the car park near the station in Venice at only 23 Euros total.
We drove back through Bra to spend the night in the home of the parents of the CEO of the Slow Food Association. Their two sons are also in the organisation, which has a staff of hundreds, a turn-over of millions and offshoot associations in the US, many European countries, Australia and others. Elena, our friend from Australia and host in Bra, took us to the number one slow food restaurant which not only served a great range of regional foods, it also served its best wines by the glass. That allowed us to try the two best whites, and three reds, Barolos and Valpolicellos.
The next morning we were back in the car for the 550 kilometre trip back to Castelsarrasin via our mates, Jan and John's boat at Grau du Roi on the south coats of France. We arrived at Grau late in the afternoon and watched with growing alarm as winter rains propelled big then bigger, then huge logs from the tributary stream which fed into the port area where Blackbird Fly was moored. Its position made it impossible for this barrage of heavy duty flotsam to miss and many of the trees and logs bashed into their hull, to the growing concern of its owner. We had dinner on board, accompanied by the cacophony of bashing blocks of wood and other floating battering rams and then retired. I slept through the night unconcerned, since Blackie is not my boat. John and Jan however were up all but a hour or two. The next morning we arose to find the boat completely log jammed by a solid web of branches, bamboo, rubbish, reeds and other assorted warp and weft. We worked on clearing it for hours and reduced it to just the thick pad that had built up under the boat, despite our moving it away from the floating pontoons and into the current in an attempt to have the stream take away the worst of it. We left at midday (after the harbourmaster had also started work on the mess), arriving back at Castelsarrasin just about three weeks after our departure on the day of our 31st wedding anniversary - we went to bed early !
December was pretty uneventful with winter descending on the south in a much milder fashion than areas of Europe further north. Having a number of English speaking boaties also living in their craft in Castel helped pass the time and we shared our table with an English and a Dutch couple at Xmas. The new year saw Maureen heading back to Perth and I settled in to wait out the deep freeze.
I rejoined the choir at Montech (where I had wintered last year), as it is just one village east of Castelsarrasin. That led to renewing acquaintances with many of the Montechoise friends of twelve months before and helped with my still very bad French. In Castel I also carried on a guerrilla war with the young boys who attended the school next to the canal. They were in the habit of pulling out the power cords of some of the boats before I liberally smeared them with grease (the cords that is), and set up a video camera to record their exploits. That helped persuade them to desist after a week of surveillance and some grubby hands.
I tried each year to make a feature of Australia Day, inviting all and sundry to a typical Aussie meal. Getting the local butcher, patisserie and charcuterie to assist in the production of the ingredients or elements was always a challenge. I planned a menu of meat pies (specified and ordered from the local charcuterie), lamb chops with peas and mashed potatoes and a Pavlova (with help from the Patisserie which made up the meringue base). The understanding of exactly how these elements should look and taste is always a challenge as the French want to make them gastronomique rather than ordinaire. Six guests, including Dutch, English and Danish, enjoyed Aussie music and yarns and copious quantities of Fosters beer and a number of Aussie white and red wines, the brands of which cannot be found in Australia, being produced specially for export. The effort and the repast was appreciated however and life carried on.
Friends Barry and Judy Robins had sold their 16m Tjalk to a couple of our previous students and had bought a lovely cottage on a hill in a hamlet north of the canal with the proceeds. Barry requested some assistance to tame his garden so I donned gloves and took up a chain saw to fell a couple of large trees before retiring with him to the weekly meeting of Poms at their local boozer for a couple of pressions (draft beers) and then dinner at Chez Robins. During this winter I also did some similar work for Kate, our American gourmet cook and friend at her house on the canal on the other side of Agen. Anything for some exercise, company and a break in the routine.
One of the weeks in my diary has the following comment "nothing of interest occurring". It was at about that time that Granville, an English friend, loaned me a spare satellite digibox receiver, complete with Sky card. Bliss - it gave access to about 25 channels of English language documentaries, movies, news and regular programming, quite a bit more than the four BBC channels our ‘free to air’ box now delivers. I was able to record about 30 movies for later viewing on the canals where we do not get reception of interesting programs. Sounds like a couch potato speaking - but in freezing winters its good to have something to keep you interested in the evenings when the mate is away.
We had snow ! Twice ! The first time it melted before it hit the ground. The second time it lasted as sludge for a few hours. For the rest of the time the weather was mostly clear and cold but calm with some rain appearing intermittently. Temperatures were about freezing overnight to 10 degrees C during the days.
I was on the way to the boulangerie one morning when I noticed a group of people around Jens’s boat. Jens is a Danish mariner of about 76 years. He was noticed wandering the day before and not making much sense. I had also noticed he did not appear to be eating much in the days before. Friends had looked in to find him incoherent and called the doctor who had an emergency to attend to (what was this then ?) and so recommended the ambulance and hospital at Moissac, 16 km away. I followed the ambulance and during the next few hours and days we found that his red cell blood count was at a dangerously low level (2000 over 150,000). He had not been eating regularly or looking after himself so after a few more days in hospital he returned to be looked after by his daughter and ex wife who had come from Denmark. We celebrated with these two vivacious women when Jens was able to join in. He then decided to take his boat back to Denmark and at his last news bulletin was almost there.
Meanwhile, I had sent out letters to the organisations who had bought the Van Nelle company, in order to find out if any of them had any information about the early days of the boat. After a couple of weeks I received a phone call from a Dutch woman who was the grandchild of the second original skipper of Van Nelle. She promised to send me some information and pictures but at the time we left Castel there was no news. I would try again when in Holland in 2005.
Chapter Eleven - 2004 - Back to Burgundy and all points north
The weather started clearing and warming by the middle of March, allowing me to get to work painting and varnishing. The roof, back deck and wheelhouse all came in for some of my somewhat in-expert skill but now looked much improved. I left the front deck, trim and hull for suitable weather conditions while in St Jean later in the year, as that is the direction we will be heading.
I did not, as last year, do much travelling while Maureen was away, but I did take a little sojourn to Gers, an area with many lovely chateaux and rivers, south and west of Castel, just before Maureen returned with her mother. Mary was to travel with us for three weeks as we began our trek eastwards along the Midi to Aigues Mortes where she would catch a flight to Scotland before returning to Australia.
Taking on the first load of 800 litres of white fuel, we set off from Castelsarrasin on April 1st, only to be met by members of the Montech church choir at the first of the five locks leading into Montech. I had advised them that my time in the south was over and that I would be taking Van Nelle north, not to return. By the time we had ascended the flight of 5 locks approaching the town we had practically all the choir on board as they boarded in groups at each stop and at Montech were greeted by the rest - including the Curé. We all enjoyed Champagne (which I had cleverly chilled just in case) and they then gave us presents and sang. We concluded this very emotional farewell with a French and English version of Auld Lang Syne before they tottered off into the gathering dusk. Who said the French are arrogant and unfriendly ?
We continued through the canal Lateral to Toulouse to show Mary the sights, including the unbelievably beautiful Capitole building with its paintings of lush nudes from three centuries adorning its walls and ceilings. We moored in the central and very pleasant Dune Marina, run by an equally pleasant and efficient captain Sylvianne who had been born on a barge and had lost two fingers to the trade. She loved boats and boaters and always made room in our favourite place at the end of the quai for Van Nelle. The second night we walked across the nearby bridge to a Spanish bar and restaurant where Salsa dancing had been advertised. A Latin band, lots of gorgeous gyrating bodies and hours of sensuous dancing, accompanied by seductive cocktails at very reasonable cost, kept three of us entranced for hours, Maureen’s mother Mary having joined us for the outing. Visits to the food market and the cathedral for Palm Sunday services also entertained us in this grand city during the next couple of days.
On we travelled to Castelnaudary where we celebrated Maureen’s birthday at the famous Cassoulet Imperial Restaurant. Fortunately it was a cool evening so the bean, sausage, duck confit and jambon casserole was perfect. Better still, a taxi was easy to book for the trip there and back, right from the boat in the Petite Bassin.
Continuing on we arrived at Carcassonne, site of the fabulous Cité, the largest French renovated medieval walled city, where, during summer, large events are held with horses, battles and maidens in distress. We had been to one previously to marvel at the mixture of elegant costumes, energetic battles and daredevil stunts that made up the evening’s entertainment and so decided to take Mary to this year’s offering. Walking downhill back to the boat, gave us the opportunity to look back at this fantastic sight, fully lit at night and shining as a huge beacon across the countryside.
On one of our walks through the new city of Carcassonne this trip we had come across an English couple we had met in out first year, some two years previous. Maureen at that time had mentioned that she was finding it impossible to acquire a proper mortar and pestle with which to grind fresh herbs. As we departed, Van Nelle slipping past Russel and Jos’s barge on the way out of Carcassonne, we waved to Russell who appeared to be waving us goodbye. I was amused to see him jump off his boat and chase us down the canal on his bike and so slowed down for him to catch up - he obviously wanted to say something. As we slewed in towards the bank he threw a package onto the deck at Maureen’s feet and yelled - “it’s the mortar and pestle we found for you and have carried for two years - enjoy” with which he waved and rode off, back to his boat. These are the little things that warm your heart about the people you meet on the canals.
Further, on the famous Canal du Midi, we travelled with the roof off and canvas stretched over frames to keep out some of the cool air, light breezes and gentle but cool rain. Each day we were compelled to take the cover off and fold down the wheelhouse walls in order to get under 17th century bridges. This was in part a journey of memories as it was to be the last voyage through the canals Entre Deux Mers. We looked forward to each town we had spent time in and had met wonderful people.
We arrived at Trebes to visit Valerie, the chef d’office, and her friendly girls at the Office de Tourism who had helped obtain a special cable for our internet connection and also of course, to buy their terrific Chardonnay. We visited and ate at the bistro pizza restaurant which fronts the town marina and wandered the streets to peer at a wedding being conducted at the local church. Just an easy day’s voyage later we arrived at Homps to stock up on Minervois reds and whites, sold from the cave at the port itself. This edifice doubles as the Capitainerie and tourist office but really only becomes formal during the crowded summer holiday period. At this time of the year it was still waking up from winter and not at all inclined to press for business.
I had been looking forward to our next stop at Ventenac we were to buy 30 litres of their VDC - Vins du Table, an 11 percent alcohol red that sells for 50 cents a litre and is served at the fantastic grill restaurant situated right next door to the ‘cave/coop’ where the wine is made. During the vendage (harvest) the trucks come in from the vineyards that stretch out over the rolling hills of this region, disgorging their cargoes into chutes to the cellars where the grapes are pressed and the juice run into the age old vats for their fermentation. They produce a range of cooperative wines, blended from the grapes of many local growers as well as some individual ‘chateau’ bottled varieties. It was the day of our arrival at Ventenac that Maureen’s mother advised us that our hot water system was not delivering it’s usual blistering product, forcing us all to be faced with cold showers. Maureen quickly rigged up a standby system where a large plastic water bottle’s lid is pierced before it is half filled with hot water from the kettle then topped up with cold. Squeezing it over the head wets the body for soaping and a later application the same way washes the suds off. We had used the method on out ocean going cruiser in Australia when the engine hot water exchange system had cooled down and it worked well here as well.
I rang the boiler’s manufacturers in Holland to locate a local service agent and was diverted to Paris to be told by their representative that I should contact Locaboat - a rental boat operator, as they use the same system. As luck would have it, we had just passed the biggest Locaboat base in the region, one village before Ventenac. As it was lunch time we repaired to the restaurant grill to enjoy a huge meal which our friends Lindy and Roger shared, coming to see us from their apartment near Narbonne. The owner of this famous establishment has rigged a huge grill over an open fire in the centre of his restaurant onto which he places the orders of lamb chops, beef steaks, pork fillets, meat and veg skewers, sausages and ribs, altering the heat by raising or lowering his end of the grill. His staff relay food and orders to him then arrive with huge salvers to take away the mixed grills or stands on which to secure the skewers. Mary (Maureen’s mother) had ordered a skewer as she is a light eater. The stand arrived with a skewer containing about a kilo of meat and capsicum, onion etc together with a plate heaped with frites (French fries) and another of salad. My grill for two could easily have fed four. We feasted.
After lunch, Roger drove me to the Locaboat base where we recruited their technician who, that evening and the next, replaced a bunch of parts I should have done years ago and hey presto - hot water again. Two visits, parts and service - only E 84. He moonlights at this extra job after his work on hire boats is completed for the day, French central heating systems being very similar to our Kabola. Off we went again through the seven lock flight near Beziers where once I had suffered a slipped disc in my back while part way down - much to the amusement of the crowd of onlookers as this is a prime tourist attraction. This time there were no health problems and we emerged at the bottom to very slowly negotiate the right hand corner provocatively placed at the base of the system.
On to Vias, the lovely free port near the beach-side holiday town of Vias Plage. It was here that we first had to take off the roof when we arrived in the south and it was with great relief that we now put in back on, despite being drenched in the process by a thunderstorm. We had arrived under the bridge just as the heavens opened so stayed there and prepared for a dash to the mooring and a quick erection, timed for the next break in the weather. Shortly thereafter the rain stopped and Van Nelle eagerly rushed forward in the open to the mooring. As we arrived the heavens opened again and almost filled the now open wheelhouse as Maureen and I struggled to get the roof back in place, straining under it’s weight while slipping on the slick deck underfoot.
We stayed at Vias for a day and set off for Agde with its uncharacteristic round lock and then straight through to the 15 kilometre long Etang de Thau. A breezy day made the crossing slightly bumpy, but with a 60 tonne, 27 metre boat you don’t notice waves too much. This was fortunate as Mary was prone to motion sickness on boats. Her pressure pads and Van Nelle’s stability prevailed fortunately and we all enjoyed the trip. We tied up in Frontignan that night before the lifting bridge allowed us through to the seaside canal section at La Maguelone where we were to meet up with friends Jan and John on their boat ‘Blackbird Fly’ for a couple of days of eating and drinking. We also thought a day or two at the beach would be pleasant as the weather looked like warming. Unfortunately the weather was not conducive to swimming as it changed it’s mind, blowing hard and dropping to cold from cool so we walked the beach, visited the nearby Abby and ate and drank !
We left La Mag to Jan and John two days later to get to Aigues Mortes - another amazing walled medieval city near which we had enjoyed (or endured) several memorable adventures - a flood and festivals. Today the Mediterranean is 4 kilometres distant from this one time port and receding at something like 100 metres each decade (I think) as the flood waters each winter carry millions of tonnes of silt down to the shore through the famous wilderness called the Camargue. This area has more than beaches, pink salt works, pink flamingos, bulls, the Camargue and ‘sand wine’ - it also has fantastic oysters and a great place to enjoy them. We spent an afternoon in the walled confines of the town wandering the battlements, inspecting the church (where were ushered out for a wedding to take place) gawking at the shops and finally, devouring several dozen huge, rich, salty oysters.
Aigues Mortes is popular as a tourist site and has excellent connections by train and air. Mary made it easily to her flight from Montpellier to Scotland and we departed after taking on some more fuel for the trip up the Rhone and Saone rivers to St Jean de Losne. We arrived at the lock leading on to the Petite Saone just after it closed, allowing us to be first through the next morning.
At La Maguelone I had noticed that a chunk was missing from the propeller. The boat was not vibrating more than normal and it accelerated to its normal cruising speed of 14kmh over the Etang so I was concerned but not overly worried about the 500 kilometres we had to travel in order to get to St Jean and a repair centre. I was more worried that we would not be able to get Van Nelle out of the water in order to get the prop fixed when we did get there, demand for the dry dock far outstripping supply at the slips there. The trip up the major rivers can be harrowing as the area is subject to the famous Mistral wind and currents of 8 - 10 km/h have been known when the river Rhone is in flood from melting snow. As it happened we had the Mistral but the current was negligible at about 2kmh as the weather had not allowed the snow to melt. Indeed it was still snowing on the mountains well into May.
We arrived and stayed overnight at Avignon, allowing us to see the one museum we had not taken in before, the Petite Palace of the Popes. As you may know, as a result of feuds in Rome, the Popes moved the Papal See to Avignon for the duration of 6 Pope’s rule, Avignon having belonged to an Italian prince at the time. They developed a sizeable city containing a huge cathedral, several palaces - also vast - and many other buildings. The local merchants and hierarchy added to the building spree with theatres, houses, workplaces and civic constructions. Most of this is preserved and used as museums and hotels. Doing about 12 km/h at 75% power, despite the 3 days of the Mistral’s 70kmh head winds, we continued up the Rhone through Bollene, Montelimar, Valence, Serrieres (with its Maison des Marroniers - a historial to the great past of barging on this river) and Les Roches de Condrieu to Lyon.
I mentioned the Mistral, this is the famous wind from the north which rips down the Rhone, adding to the downstream boat’s speed and impeding the upstream boats, as we were. It is said it only blows for three days at a time - and if it doesn’t, it only blows for six - and if it doesn’t, it only blows for nine – I’m sure you get the picture.
Lyon was a town made famous originally by its silk manufacture and dyeing. You can take a conducted walking tour through the city following the maze of tight and tiny streets that the manufacturer’s boys would carry the raw and finished materials to the places of manufacture and sale in the process of that industry. You can also visit the amazing wedding cake of a cathedral on top of the hills overlooking the city and the river. Built by a wealthy trader, he had made a pact with God to keep his family free of the plague and when none of them succumbed, he honoured his promise by building this huge white, and green, and blue .... elephant.
Our departure day morning dawned clear and gorgeous - the Mistral had departed - this time only three days! Tearing ourselves away from the great sights and experiences of Lyon we continued onto Trevoux where we were reunited with some Dutch friends from Castelsarrasin and came face to face with a brilliantly restored Luxemotor barge ‘Damsterdiep’ as we tied alongside it for the night. This ship, built just after the turn of the 20th century, is complete with mast, lee boards and a huge, beautifully decorated, single cylinder diesel engine. The current owner who discovered her abandoned in the north of Holland and restored her, has been cleverly able to make the ship look as though she still carries freight by using wooden cargo covers over the complete conversion below decks.
We stopped at the famous wine town of Macon as we had not visited there on the way down two years earlier. We had been told that there were free wine tastings to be had at the Maison du Vin so off we went after enjoying a charcuterie lunch on Van Nelle with New Zealand friends Rolly and Val O’Driscoll who were driving their way south to their boat at Castelsarrasin. Arriving at the Maison we were told that wine tastings were off - I objected as the signs still offered free tastings and we had come all the way from Australia to avail ourselves of the opportunity to ‘degouster and acheter’. They relented and gave us a mini bottle of an unnamed Macon white. We bought a dozen assorted whites and, stacking them into the baskets on our bikes, returned to Van Nelle and then on the river side restaurant ‘Le tete de Lard’ (Pig Headed)... for an interesting pork dinner.
The next morning (April 29) we departed early to pass through Tournus to arrive at Challon sur Saone, just one day from St Jean and after resettling some German boaters whose vessel was moored precariously, walked into town for some searching amongst the antiquities shops for some 19C glasses. Unfortunately none were on offer so back to the boat for a BBQ before retiring in preparation for our final leg to our target, St Jean. Our times in Challon had been spent at the town port inside the small island which housed the city’s hospital. This is a grand place to stay as on one side it has huge hypermarkets, making victualling a breeze and on the town side it has a street of restaurants leading to the bridge that takes you to the centre of the old town. In that quarter you find many antique shops along with other specialty emporiums for food, jewellery, clothing and home wares. There is much to see and do in Challon which is also very close to the main Burgundy wine centre, Beaune.
Unfortunately there are some people who just have to take up all the space on limited quays. Say a quay is 90 metres long, we often arrive to find one boat 10 metres from one end and another 10 from the other leaving a space of 10 in between. Its annoying to have to argue with them to move to the ends to allow us room in between but we do so, initially very pleasantly but increasingly more insistent if they resist. Our final argument is “OK, we will just tie up alongside you”. This always gets them moving but it is always so unnecessary and only happens with Germans or Dutch. This was the case with the previously mentioned Germans, another group whose representatives are sometimes quite difficult.
Finally, after an otherwise uneventful night spent at the port we departed early on the large commercial trunk canal built a decade ago as one of the first stages of a new era of canal based cargo movement. The plan, a cooperative project to open major water routes from the Mediterranean to Holland unfortunately had stalled after the French had spent a fortune straightening and widening canals and building container ports and facilities along them. Along this canal which has 300 metre long locks, you come across one of the huge container ports, all but deserted as no huge barges bring containers here. It is all just a bit silly and an example of the excesses of uncontrolled bureaucrats in the EU capital of Brussels who convinced France to put up the cash to built this section.
We reached the Ancien Ecluse at St Jean at lunch time on the 30th. One month to get through the Canal Lateral 65km, the Midi 240km, the short connection to the Petite Rhone 30km, the Petite and Main Rhone Rivers to Lyon 300km and 240km to St Jean with quite a few rest days and explorations on the way. We used about 900 litres of fuel and Van Nelle, despite the damaged propeller, travelled at her best speeds without undue vibration or degradation of the stern gland.
So, here we were at St Jean de Losne, back in the Ancien Ecluse - a quiet marina some 4km from town. Shortly after settling in, I took the train to Paris and back to Castelsarrasin to pick up the car and a Perth sailing friend John Gaunt, who happened to be travelling in the south and who took the opportunity to join us for a couple of day’s cruise.
While in Paris for a few hours I rushed to the Argenterie, a shop near the Mairie which specialises in old silverware. Silver plate cutlery can be bought by the kilo at a fixed price, you just need to shuffle through their huge baskets of knives, forks and spoons to get matched sets. Solid silver, both newish and antique can be bought by the piece or in sets for very reasonable rates from the absolutely stunning woman who owns and runs the shop. She buys used Christoffle from restaurants (Maxims, La Tour d’Argent) and old pieces from family estates. The shop is amazing and our collection is now very handsome.
Having done my shopping I took the southbound train, collected the car and finally found John. En route back to the boat at St Jean, John and I visited Aigues Mortes and stayed overnight at a hotel in the charming fishing port of Grau du Roi for some seafood and drinks on Blackbird Fly with Jan and John, who also hosted us to breakfast the next day before we drove off to see Avignon on the way ‘home’. We spent a few hours inside the Palace of the Popes before hitting the auto route for St Jean via Dijon.
Once aboard Van Nelle back at the ancien ecluse, John settled in quickly, enjoying Maureen’s French cooking and some of our excellent wines. The next morning we took the boat to Dole - birthplace of Louis Pasteur - where we were to purchase John’s onward ticket to Rome for Thursday night in order for him to meet his son Matthew who was contracting to IBM in London. Unfortunately the rail system was on strike on Wednesday and Thursday so John just had to suffer a couple of extra days with us before wandering the sightseeing attractions of Dijon and taking in a pizza dinner before boarding his overnight train to Rome. After he left us we organised a number of dinners and ‘aperitif’ sessions on board in order to catch up with many of our friends from this lovely marina, some of whom live in St Jean permanently. There is a mixture of expatriates, some who work part of the year, others who live here part time and still others who are permanent. Some cruise their boats and some just live on them all year round while others flee the cold of winter to other accommodation further south - like Australia or closer - Spain and Portugal. And so after a quick trip north and an even quicker cruise for our single visitor, we were back in port and now had time to do the final painting jobs in preparation for our real cruise season. We planned to take a month to get to Paris as we had 4 couples coming to join us en-route - Ian and Anthea Murchison, Clive and Jenny Willis, Sandy and Tony Denham, and Rob and Sue Thomas. From Paris to Rouen, Sandy and Lynn Buchan will come aboard and later Peter Livingstone and then Leslie Wiles will cruise through Picardie with us. After that - who knows ?
Mid May -End June 2004
We broke part of one of the propeller blades off, somewhere on the Canal du Midi. I felt the boat slow as though we were dragging over sand or mud on one occasion then the engine slow to nearly stalling before I knocked it out of gear. Afterwards everything seemed fine, the boat travelling as fast as normal with little vibration, however the inspection of the prop at La Maguelone showed a considerable piece missing. Given the prop is nearly a metre wide, ‘a considerable piece’ measured about 10cm (4 inches) across. We were therefore waiting with some anticipation for Monday the 17th of May to get the boat into the dry dock in St Jean de Losne to have the prop repaired at a cost of 880 Euros. Our investigations had suggested a new replacement to be costed at some 5,500 Euros plus the cost of the dry dock, so the alternative seemed easier to contemplate.
We travelled to the enclosed bassin at St Jean from the Ancien Ecluse on a Sunday afternoon and were up early for the supposed 0830 start into the dry dock. It was more like 0930 when the workers closed the road after opening the sluices in the gate of the dock, flooding it to remove the gate and then the incumbent barge within, leaving it open for us to manoeuvre Van Nelle into the narrow entrance through the main access road of the bassin. We completed this by 1000 and soon after VN was propped up securely by the dock’s boss in his SCUBA gear while the water was let out into the adjoining Gare d’Eau.
Three years of use had left hardly a scratch on the bottom, the anti fouling was still in fine form and none of the anodes had any sign of erosion - except one that was missing - obviously wiped off during a close encounter. The prop was left in place but the damaged section ground into a regular Vee shape for the acceptance of the new piece which was quickly fabricated in the nearby atelier (workshop) from another broken propeller. It was about 3.00pm (1500) when the boss re-appeared to begin brazing the new piece in place and then grinding it into perfect shape. We, meanwhile, were busy with the pitch like paint and a couple of rollers and by the end of a hot day had completely repainted the hull to the water line. By 1700 the jobs were done and the task of getting us out was quickly effected, allowing us to return to our mooring at the ancien ecluse that evening before the lock closed at 1800. Very efficient.
During this time I also serviced the engines. The first task is to acquire a 60 litre drum and 30 extra litres of the same engine oil and transfer the contents into 20 litre containers so it can be transferred to the engine and gearbox, each of which take 45 litres. The second task is to empty the 90 litres from the engine and gearbox, easily done these days with a handy vacuum pump with it’s 10 litre reservoir being emptied progressively into additional 20 litre containers. Next change the filters - primary and secondary oil filters and primary and secondary fuel filters. Next refill the engine and gearbox and run to ensure the oil is circulating properly, then check levels, top up and clean hands. The final job is to dispose of the drums, the full containers and any waste material used to clean up plus the old filters. Thankfully each French town has a dechetterie - a rubbish dump where containers are supplied for the safe disposal of oils, batteries and containers. Job done.
This reminds me of the time I bought the first two primary oil filters from the local chandlery. They charged me over 300 Euros for two. Not knowing any better I paid and departed. It was not until I bought two more a year of so later that I found the right price for two was 30 Euros. I demanded my money back but didn’t get it as the shop claimed that’s what they had paid the agent they sourced them from. I advised them they could do what I had just done - get them direct from Baudouin at the correct price. You live and learn but this was the only time I believe I paid over the odds for anything for the boat.
The next 10 days passed with rounds of social occasions including dinner on Arjo, a small Tjalk (sailing barge) owned by an ex RAN warrant officer John Doughty and his wife Jan. We had a couple of barbecues and drinks parties on Van Nelle as well, reinforcing our friendships with Philipe Gerard and his fiancé Emma, Caroline and Matthew from Vixit and John and Rosemary off Passe Pierre. Plans we had made for a Mad Hatters Party at L’Amiral (site of many raucous soirees) had to be cancelled due to lack of people, most by now having begun their summer cruising.
We finished our maintenance by repainting the top deck, the white stripe around the scuppers and touching up the black rails and took on 800 litres of white diesel. We paid our account at H2O and had a final afternoon tea at John and Rosemary’s house away from the Saone river and then - on the 28th of May - headed back into the Canal de Bourgogne for the trip up to Dijon, on to La Bussiere and our four next guests - Ian and Anthea Murchison and Clive and Jenny Willis. On the way, we took a couple of days at Dijon where I was able to find some extra Crystal d’Arques champagne glasses exactly the same model as those we had bought nearly 30 years ago and had with us on Van Nelle. I also found one replacement 19thC French antique crystal wine glass, having carelessly broken one of my collection.
The next couple of days saw us slowly cruise through a number of pretty canal side towns - Plombiers, Fleury and Gissey - where the eclusier kindly opened the canal museum for us - and on to the meeting place of La Bussiere. Strangely, the hot weather changed to rain, leaving us wondering what this summer would be like - hot as hell for 5 months as for 2003 or more normally changeable, as France’s summers tend to be.
We had the prospect of a cheerful West Aussie team aboard for ten days and had therefore planned a varied program of some long and some short cruise days to towns with, or near, interesting tourist attractions. The first night aboard we had the beginning of these at the Abbaye La Bussiere. The revolution had appropriated this complex, ultimately bought back by the Catholic diocese of Dijon, which now has opened it to groups for retreats, conferences and lunches or dinners. The meals are set price, set menu affairs in the refectory, a vaulted hall with musicians galleries and stained glass windows. This evening, a string quartet was engaged by the group holding a conference at the Abbaye, so we were entertained during dinner by their renditions of Mozart and other composers.
The beginning of the Canal de Bourgogne features more locks (ecluses) than kilometres as it ascends the gentle Burgundian hills, rich in the many green and yellow tones of the grasses, crops and trees and dotted with the white daisies and red poppies that proliferate the canal banks. The canal is operated by fewer and fewer eclusiers these days so if you want to progress at a reasonable pace you need to get off the boat to assist in closing gates, opening and closing sluices (vannes) and opening the departure side gates before progressing on to the next lock, sometimes only 300- 400 metres on.
We had plenty of assistants for working the locks, the deck ropes and indeed, steering Van Nelle, Ian and Clive taking turns each day to master the physical and mental strains of operating such a vessel in enclosed waters. The girls, Maureen, Anthea and Jenny walked between locks or sat on the fore deck watching the country slip by and the locks approach. Both teams became proficient very quickly and we were unhampered by other boats, passing only two in the first week and only 6 the whole trip. Tourism has been hit badly by the almost total disappearance of Americans since September 11. Whether the fear of terrorist action or disdain for the French attitude to the war is the cause is immaterial, the effect is that more than 50% of the numbers booking boats, coaches and hotels have just vanished - then for two years going on for three.
On the other hand, we had met two American couples with barges, Don and Patty in Dijon on their fine Luxemotor ‘Maria’ and Joe and Lisa on their baby barge ‘Jolie Folie’ at Vandenesse and these two couples played hopscotch with us for the next few days as we progressed through Vandenesse, Pouilly, Gissey and Pont Royal. One of the highlights of this section is the 3.5km Pouilly Tunnel, for which we have to de-mount the roof.
We arrived at the tunnel bassin ecluse at 1100 and advised the eclusiers (who control movements through the tunnel) that we would be ready to go through in 30 minutes. They inspected our safety gear - gilets de sauvetage (lifejackets), une seau (a bucket - why ?), gaffes (boat hooks) and a powerful bow light and gave us our pass to allow us exclusive use of the tunnel for one and a half hours. We were right on time to depart 30 minutes later and after just less than one hour had completed the very dark, cold and moist passage, arriving at Pouilly by 1230 to be met by the girls (who had decided to chicken out and ride over the tunnel), and rain. A quick scramble had the roof back in place and we soon tied up at the Pouilly port for lunch.
Apres le dejeuner (after lunch), we departed Pouilly for a wild mooring (a canal side stop far from towns or ports) next to a field inhabited by fat and friendly Charolais cattle. No doubt we kept these bovine French awake for sometime that night as we partied far from inquisitive eyes. Next morning we continued our travels - now descending - or ‘locking down’ as we had reached the top section (bief de partage) of the canal at Pouilly. The towns of Marigny, Pouillenay and Veneray were the next stops on the way to Montbard where the four from Perth would leave us. On the way however there were things to do, places to see and tastes to indulge in. The great fortified town of Chateauneuf was worth a long, tortuous bike ride up the hill from the canal while later, the team took a mixture of taxis and hire cars to get much further a field to visit the markets in the cheese town of Epoisses, the Chateau of Bussy Rabutin, the ancient towns of Semur and Flavigny and the wine areas of Romany Conti and others.
The chateau Bussy Rabutin is fascinating as it was the home of a French nobleman who wrote a scandalous book of the sexual exploits of the court of Louis 14. One of Louis’ mistresses took umbrage as her husband was not impressed with her exploits being made public and she brought the book to the notice of her lover (the king) who promptly imprisoned then exiled the author to his country home. It was not before some 30 years that Bussy-Rabutin was able to rejoin the court in Paris. Meanwhile he decorated his home with pictures of all the courtesans - nude - with personal details he knew from his own liaisons.
Meanwhile on board, Maureen was cooking up gastronomic feasts of pates, veal, duck, rabbit and salmon while I selected a range of wines to wash them down including whites - Puligny Montrachets, Marsannay, Chablis, Sancerre, and reds - Nuits St George, St Estephe, St Emilion, Gevrey Chambertin and Aloxe Corton - plus some Minervois, south west Chardonnay and Sauvignons - a reasonable mix of Burgundy and Bordeaux. Not to mention the Champagne - I think we saw the bottom of over a dozen varieties of that particular tipple. Clive also tasted most of the beer brands available on the continent, both pression (draft) and packaged.
We danced on deck after handing out suitable awards at dinner on the last night, having made a second group restaurant visit at the fine Marroniers Restaurant near St Remy on the penultimate night. All in all a busy program with good weather and convivial company throughout. Some of the guests were better than others at Petanque (boules) but as we only had one chance for such a competition it was probably not a good indication. Shortly after our stop for boules we enjoyed a shady stop at Veneray where, in jumping down from the boat to shore, my left foot turned completely under as my full weight crashed down on it. The cracks could be heard plainly and as I writhed on the ground in agony the taxi arrived, returning the team. They thought I was having a rest.... After some recovery time with frozen packaged pasta wrapped round the ankle I was able to continue my duties - albeit painfully and slowly. After arrival at our point of departure for the guests I was able to get to the hospital where X-rays revealed there were no breaks so only an ankle support was prescribed.
After nine nights the team left for different destinations, Ian and Anthea on the TGV for Paris CDG and the flight to Hong Kong then home and Clive and Jenny into their hire car for a trip to Reims, Epernay and Paris, then the UK and home. As for us, we had a day of washing, and several days of rest and recuperation before our next guests, Sandy and Tony Denham were to arrive by train from Paris. Before they arrived however, we hosted aperitifs on board for the galaxy of local lovelies who had recommended the Marronnier restaurant we had all enjoyed on the penultimate night. I had wandered into a home decorator shop in town looking for antique glasses and ended up chatting to Mme Beranger the owner who recommended two restaurants and had one of her younger friends (Mme being nearly 70) take me in her car to inspect the same. In appreciation for their kindness I later invited them all to visit and they came in force. Mme Beranger and husband Tibor, their friends Christianne, Caroline (my guide) and Caroline’s parents. We demolished a couple of bottles of bubbly and were in turn invited to dinner the next time we visited Montbard. We also renewed our acquaintance with young New Zealanders Jeff and Salina Howell in their ex-rental boat and made acquaintance with a young West Aussie girl now working on a Hotel Boat which arrived in port to change passengers.
So, the first couple of weeks has been busy, full of good food, wines and company and we even managed to get about 150km up the Canal de Bourgogne.
Mid June - Mid July 2004
How time flies - it’s now the 20th of July, we are on the River Oise at L’Isle Adam and heaps has happened in between. When last I wrote we were on the Bourgogne (Burgundy) Canal at Montbard and had just had a great time with some French locals who had befriended us. Just two days ago a similar thing happened as a result of us having a broken fuel pipe and having been assisted by an expatriate Canadian mother of two who lives Riverside in Mantes la Jolie but works in Paris. It was a Sunday and she was walking her dog - but I digress. Let me go back to Montbard and bring you up to date.
Montbard was a change over place for our passengers and we had no sooner said goodbye to the Murchison’s and the Willis’s and washed the sheets and towels than we heralded the arrival of Tony and Sandy Denham, great friends of ‘Admiral’ Ian and ‘Lady’ Helen Palmer. Getting them started on the tourist trail immediately, we sent them off by taxi to the magnificent Abbaye de Fontenay and then to La Forge de Bussy while we navigated Van Nelle through the numerous locks to arrive at the forge by lunch time. We had seen their taxi pass us coming back from depositing them at the Forge but when we arrived there was no sign of them and a search by Maureen failed to locate them. This was a first, we have never managed to lose passengers on their first day, indeed we have never managed to lose any at all.
I set out on my bike to see if, since the forge closed for lunch, they had meandered into the nearby town, but cleverly, did a check on the ticket office at the forge first - it was open. I entered and inquired as to whether they had any stray Australians inside the ruined 16th century tourist attraction. Yes they replied - please take them away - its our lunch time ! We quickly located them and dragged them back to the boat for lunch, after which we all headed to the forge again to do it justice. It was one of the first major iron working factories in France and used new technology to beat the virgin iron into sheets. River water turned the mills that raised and lowered giant hammers.
After exhausting ourselves wandering the labyrinth passages and buildings of the forge we returned to Van Nelle to continue our voyage. Next on the overnight stops was Ravieres which we made by 6.45pm to find all conveniences including electricity. Shore power is not necessary, but when travelling short distances at slow speeds in canals the alternator does not fully charge the batteries requiring us to use the generator for longer periods, so it is convenient. There was not a lot to do in Ravieres the next morning so after a walk through we set off again for Tanlay and the first of the Grand Chateaux.
Arriving at Tanlay at 3.00 in the afternoon made it possible for us to do the tour of the Chateau that day. Indeed, as we arrived between tour times, we had the opportunity to taste a range of excellent Chablis in one of the adjacent rooms of the former stables and also to visit the art gallery before heading back to the castle. As we arrived so did the owners, the current lord and lady, very down to earth Parisians these days. They later wandered by the boat in shorts and sandals with a gaggle of young children running them off their feet. They were probably there to present the trophies at the nearby tennis tournament.
The Chateau is very much lived in with newspapers on desks and pictures of the family weddings on grand pianos. It is beautiful but sadly a bit shabby and needs much restoration and renovation work - the sort that ends up costing millions - I can see why they are holding off.
That night, Tony and Sandy wanted to visit a restaurant so we managed to get a booking at the No 2 restaurant in town as the premiere place was full with a group. Dinner was fun but a bit pre-prepared and we wandered back to Van Nelle in the twilight, better off for having enjoyed a couple of bottles of Chablis.
Then a day trip from Tanlay to Tonnerre, site of another great chateau. Bourgogne abounds with chateaux and quite a few are on the side of the canal, making it interesting and pleasant to tour through this region. Since the canal is also close to the most famous wine areas, gastronomy and excellent tipples are accessible and not overly expensive. Tonnerre also offers free water and electricity and a beautiful Hotel Dieu (ancient hospital), which provides a fascinating insight into the medical practices of the 14th to 19th century. Many Hotels Dieu were still used for medicine up to the 19th century so the buildings have been well preserved and restored, unlike some of the chateaux and churches which came in for some damage by revolutionaries and peasants during the late 1700s. We ended the day playing petanque with our steel ‘boules’ on an adjacent boularama and enjoyed Boeuf Bourguignon (cooked on board) with some brilliant Burgundian Pinot Noir reds.
Sadly the next day was the departure day for the Denham’s and we put them on the 11.13am train to Paris to continue their trip through Europe. We continued on to St Florentin, home of some very good and very smelly cheeses. Unfortunately we had moored close to a revelling group of French and Germans so the evening was not one of peace and quiet after the hectic schedule of the past week. We slept through it well enough however, in our heavily insulated ship.
Moving on from St Florentin in the afternoon we arrived at Briennon where we were to collect our next guests, Rob and Sue Thomas who duly arrived on time at Migennes by train where we met them in a taxi to bring them to the boat. This trip was a 50th birthday present for Sue who unfortunately had just suffered an operation on ligaments in her knee due to tennis injuries, but a trip on Van Nelle was a perfect way to see parts of France without the hassle of having to check in and out of hotels, catch busses, taxis and trains and end up walking miles. At this time we experienced gales but fortunately were well sheltered both at rest and while moving so were not inconvenienced or delayed. The thing that did delay us however was the crazy new regulation of the VNF (the department of the canals) that has them close the locks to traffic travelling upstream. That meant every lock we came to we had to wait for it to be emptied and opened. Putting one of the crew ashore before the locks was the only way to speed things up a little but it still meant we were one lock short of our planned destination at the end of the day. We were planning to be in Migennes but fortunately found a pleasant canal side spot to moor before going into the town the next day.
Our main target at this stage was to exit the Canal de Bourgogne and get onto the Yonne river to go down to Auxerre, start of the legendary Nivernais Canal (which we had done in 1999 with David and Judith Reed and Gary and Dianne Prattley on a hire boat that led to our being here now) ! Auxerre is a beautiful city with a great port from which you can visit Chablis, only 13km to the west. Suffice it to say, we found the best spot in the harbour and arranged a taxi for the next day to take us to and from Chablis. Meanwhile we did some serious exploring of the City with its magnificent churches, museums and old, half timbered houses.
Before we could get into our taxi the next afternoon a hotel boat arrived and demanded we move. They had no rights and I refused. They then put us under enormous pressure from their powerful engine while they tried unsuccessfully to moor their ship right on our stern. Having realised their tactic was not going to move us, they moved further down the quai then when secured, again sent someone to ask us to move. The word ‘please’ was not used, the guy lied about his and our rights, and our taxi was waiting. However, out of courtesy I relented and we pulled Van Nelle forward about 7 metres, as to go further would have us in the car park. We chained the boat and jumped into the taxi for the quick trip to Chablis.
Wine towns like Chablis, Sancerre, Nuits St George and many others are very similar. In the towns you will find both outlets for specific vineyards and caves (wine shops) where a range are offered. It is good to go to both since at one you can taste a range of house product and at the other you can choose a range of different producers. We split up and while Sue and Rob went to check out labels they knew, I went in search of the local branch of La Poste to deposit some cash and change some Euro 500 notes I had been issued. Just across from La Poste was one of the biggest wine producers and it’s sales manager was bored enough to entice me into the bureau to test the product. This consisted of trying half glasses of some 9 different levels and ages of their very fine white wines. He then insisted we tour the production plant, and after a fascinating hour I returned with him to the bureau to choose some bottles for later consumption. The Compagnie Regnard can be trusted to make your palate sing. We enjoyed every one of the half dozen bottles of theirs plus the same number of other Chablis bought by Rob and Sue.
An interesting sidelight was that when the temperature plummets in winter, they spray their vines with water which freezes, providing the developing grapes an igloo like protection from the cold ! How about that technology. We chose the nearby Maxims restaurant that night for dinner and a visit to the cathedral for their 10.30pm Son et Lumiere which was attended by us four and only one other couple. We seemed a bit isolated in such a huge building with a three quarter hour production put on for just 6 people.
The next morning we were off to Joigny, and now that we were on the river, Van Nelle could stretch her legs, increasing speed from 6-8kmh on the canals to 12 - 15kmh on the rivers. It makes a big difference in the distances you can cover and, on rivers, the number of locks are significantly reduced - but increased in size. Full speed cruising clears the engine of accumulated carbon build up accumulated on shallow canals without damage to the river banks.
Joigny is about 60km from Auxerre and we arrived at 3.30 in the afternoon to enable us to tour the town and discover there was to be a big bonfire that night with a Country and Western band and dancing on the riverside park. We all attended and watched but were not enticed onto the dance floor, which was crowded with line dancers looking every bit American.
Sens, another cathedral town with a huge Hotel Dieu was our next stop and we found the town jetty available to us with electricity and water supplied free. Perfect. Also at Sens were two sets of friends we had met and enjoyed time with earlier - Jeff and Salina from New Zealand and Joe and Lisa (a couple of Americans) on their little Luxemotor. We set out on bicycle up the hill from the mooring and explored the Hotel Dieu with its boat shaped, timber ceiling and roof and its carved floor. The floor features a set of lines emanating from a hole in the wall where the sun shines through advising high summer. We continued on to the Museum, had a quick look for shops in the town and visited the cathedral with its magnificent stained glass before retiring to the boat and magret (duck) barbecued with orange sauce and some more Chablis that night.
Magret is not like duck breast in Australia. The ducks are farmed so they are bigger and more meaty. They are fed well so they are also fatter, and with just 7 minutes each side on the barbecue at high temperature, the breasts come out crisp and succulent and the huge quantities of fat drains off. Cut into thin strips and laced with orange sauce (replete with cognac and well reduced), accompanied with pommes de terre puré and haricots verte, perfection. Wash it all down with Puligny Montrachet, Sancerre or Chablis, even a Vosne Romany or a Nuits St George and heaven is on the back deck !
We cast off the next day to cruise to St Mammes and were now on the Riviere Seine and pointed in the direction of Paris. St Mammes is a small town with a big jetty and a few restaurants but while we were there the best one was closed so we ate on board and made off the next morning for the last stop before Paris - Corbeil Essonnes. Now this place is definitely not a tourist attraction. We have stayed overnight there twice at a loading dock right on the doorstep of the village - well its not really a village since it is actually now a suburb of outer Paris. However, Rob and Sue went exploring, found a wonderful little restaurant and later that evening headed up the fragile ladder to the dock (we being about 2 metres under it). They stumbled back near midnight having been invited by the patron of their chosen restaurant to drink vast quantities of his favourite moonshine ‘Eau de Vie’. They were happy to sleep in the next morning until we neared Paris.
Entering Paris by boat is a wonderful experience. It is slow enough to take in all the magnificent buildings that surround the river’s edge and has just that extra little bit of frisson that comes with sharing the waterway with huge commercial barges, fast ferries, Bateau Mouches carrying hundreds of tourists and a few assorted private boats.
To give Rob and Sue the best of the experience we did a circle of the islands of the city. These are the Isle de Paris and the Isle St Louis - named for the 11th king of France and the island that houses the Notre Dame cathedral. Having taken the tour we moored back at the place we have stayed before, just short of the Isle St Louis beside a park which hosts various night time entertainments. Mooring here is technically illegally but we are generally untroubled by the authorities and we were also close to our guest’s hotel for their departure the next day. Just to the east of the Isle St Louis is the park in front of the Institute a l’Arabe. This is a popular Paris feature as it is riverside and attractive, easy to get to and has, let into the river wall on the side of the park to which we attach, a number of amphitheatres which are used at night by large groups of people studying the Tango, the Passe Doble (?), circus skills and classical French theatre. This makes for a great place to wander to with a bottle and some glasses to watch the action illuminated by the lights of the city.
The next day, July 1, we helped Rob and Sue to their tiny, nearby hotel and took up arms against the plaguing computer problems that had been driving us crazy for a couple of weeks. In the end I bought a new phone, having spent countless hours on the other one with France Telecom technical people trying to get data to flow. The new phone fixed the problem and we now were able to send and receive email. I also took the Sony video camera to the repair shop and left it - with 45 euros - to be inspected and hopefully fixed as it had stopped loading or ejecting tapes.
At this time we also bade welcome to Gill Ragus. Gilly worked with me at Lexmark and eventually ran the office in Perth before being transferred to Sydney and being assigned the job of liaison with Dell, the big PC manufacturer which brands and sells Lexmark printers. Gill is also an elite athlete - a heptathlete (?) and had been in Germany to try to qualify for the Australian Olympic Team. Sadly she missed by a few hundred points (out of some thousands) but had recorded her best scores and PB’s in a few of the events.
We decided we would stay in Paris to await the arrival of our next guests, Sandy and Lynne Buchan who were due on Sunday the 4th and meanwhile caught up with Alex and Sandra Anderson, also visiting Paris from Perth, who we took on a two hour river cruise, ending with a barbecue on board at Grenelle, the Port de Plaisance at which we had now moored.
Grenelle, later renamed Port Tour Eiffel (as it is nearly under that famous landmark) is a wonderful mooring for large visiting boats unable to fit into the other marina, the Arsenal. With a Metro station and supermarket nearby it is close to the Australian Embassy, the Napoleonic veteran’s hospital Les Invalides, Napoleon’s tomb, the Military Museum, the Trocadero and it’s maritime museum across the river and just a short walk to the Musee d’Orsay and the Louvre - and all that plus electricity and water for just 50 Euros per night.
Gilly, having accompanied us to the Musee Jacquemart Andre, the Picasso Museum and the Arc de Triumph, left on Sunday morning for her train trip back to Germany to be replaced by Sandy and Lynne shortly afterward, assisted by my picking them up at the Gare (station) and taxiing them back to the port.
We spent the next day in port and wandering the metro system for the shopping, preparing for our departure down the Seine and out of Paris via the Canal St Dennis. This starts at the Arsenal marina and goes through an underground tunnel to the Bassin de Vincelle, and then at street level on to the Seine and Ruille Malmaison where we had an overnight stop. There is a Napoleonic museum here but it was closed on Tuesdays, the day we were there. We visited the Musee Charenton the next morning and headed off to Conflans St Honorine, centre of commercial barging in France and the location of a very good museum on the subject. We found our usual place at the main town jetty and settled in for a couple of days.
Sandy, Lynne, Maureen and I had a lovely, lazy couple of days exploring the museum in detail and wandering through the lovely park that overlooks the river where, each year, hundreds of barges gather for the blessing of the fleet and its attendant festival. We had chanced on this in a previous visit and had been welcomed by the large crowd of commercial bargees.
Sandy arranged for a taxi / bus trip for their easy delivery to Aeroport Charles de Gaulle on the Thursday morning and so after they departed we moved the boat up to Diesel Marine’s workshop for repairs to a leaking fuel filter. The fuel pipe leading to the final filter also caused us some trouble on the way to Conflans but fortunately we were right in a town near a quai so were able to stop immediately while I repaired the problem. This repair lasted all the way to and from Rouen until a day away from Conflans on our return.
After these maintenance jobs we headed out for Rouen, our base to explore the WWII landing areas and battlefields, but with several stops planned on the way.
First stop was Mantes la Jolie which was having a Chinese Festival. We experienced the parade and visited the museum which displayed Chinese costumes and artefacts. Presumably the Chinese population came or was reinforced by the thousands of coolies imported during WWI. The next day we moved on to Vernon where we moored at the quay where huge hotel boats arrive and leave at odd hours of the day and night (causing us to hurriedly move to raft up alongside the local restaurant barge on one occasion). This town is 3km from Claude Monet’s house and gardens, famous and crammed with visitors 12 hours a day.
A bus from near the mooring takes you to the house which offers itself, the gardens and the gallery at a very reasonable price. This area was his retreat and has remained intact as it was during his lifetime. He painted many familiar scenes at this house and visitors like ourselves can clearly see the scenes in real life and take away copies of the pictures. The house is preserved just as he left it together with its wonderful gardens and now with a large shop attached from which you can buy any number of Monet artefacts.
We moved on to the last lock before the fully tidal stretch of the Seine that goes all the way past Rouen to Le Havre. Staying the night there allowed us to move down to Rouen the next day on the ebb tide and by early afternoon, be safely tied up at the commercial quai for the next three days.
Rouen is big, and had endured constant bombing during the war as it was an industrial centre for the occupying Germans and also a railhead. Despite the destruction, many of the ancient timber houses remained, were repaired and now given a new lease of life as restaurants, shops and homes. The cathedral was rebuilt and Rouen re-invented as a dual ancient and modern city. Having been to the main attractions we found a lovely little Auberge (restaurant) and had a neat meal in the upstairs room of a 500 year old house. Going to town and coming back to the boat was interesting as during the time away the tide would rise or drop up to 4 metres causing us to have to climb a spidery ladder and requiring very long mooring lines so as not to hang the boat up or submerge it.
The next day was Bastille Day and we were moored just 300 metres from the main bridge across the river on which the fireworks (Feu de Artifice) were laid for that evening. All day however, kids wandered the town with huge bags of crackers, still legal in France, vaguely trying to blow their fingers off and sending dogs and citizens into a frenzy. This kept up until the fireworks at 11.00pm and recommenced after they finished at 11.30 until about 1.00am
The next day we hired a car and drove to Caen to visit the Peace Museum. Principally this tells the story of the war, the cold war, and then concepts of peace. It is vast, not unlike a part of the Smithsonian in Washington, it is modern and multi lingual and took us 3 hours to get around at a trot. Some of the exhibits are riveting, all are excellent. One, a picture of a young and attractive French girl and her boyfriend was taken in the process of their being hung by the Germans while smiling and obviously in love with each other. That was very emotional.
We then headed out of town to Arromanches on the coast where the British and Americans built a huge temporary harbour (Mulberry) out of old ships, concrete caissons and steel floating docks, all anchored and riding up and down on the tides through the use of ‘spuds’ or long steel feet. This is truly amazing since much of the structure which was meant to last 6 months is still there - albeit now in bits, with the piers gone and most of the steel bits disintegrated. During it’s first days a huge storm tried to destroy it and mostly failed.
This harbour was in the British sector with the American beaches to the west and the Canadian beach next door. The town is a tiny fishing village, now pretty much living off the huge numbers of tourists, many of whom were here in action or had parents who were. There were many specialist tour groups representing the units that fought here as this was the 60th anniversary of D Day and, we assume, those chaps will not be back for the 70th anniversary.
We went on to the Cap d’Hoc where the Germans had a battery of well dug in 175mm naval guns. The area is now an American memorial and is preserved as it was left, sans guns, but with the bomb craters and the ruined gun pits open to visitors. It is reported that when the American Rangers scaled the cliffs in front of the guns, they found many of them operational but silent as most of the crews had been killed or sent mad by the enormous, unending patterns of bombs laid on them for 3 days and nights. Some resistance was offered by reserve German troops who were brought in when the shelling and bombing stopped and some 90 Americans died here, but the guns were not used against the exposed invading allied forces.
By this time it was past 6.00pm and we drove back to Rouen to return the car the next morning and ship out on our return journey, first stopping at Vernon for a visit to the Monet house and garden and some good times with Sherry and Dennis, an American couple. We then departed for Conflans - or so we thought.
On one of my regular engine room checks (conducted every hour and a half) I discovered the leak had returned to the fuel pipe from the final fuel filter to the injectors. OK I thought, tightening it fixed it last time - I’ll just give it a bit more grunt. As I applied the strain the pipe cracked and fuel began to spray in vast quantities onto and around the engine. Catastrophe !
We had a huge commercial behind us and were travelling at 13kmh, near flat out, in order to stay ahead of him but were within a half kilometre of the quai we had used at Mantes la Jolie on our way down river (how do these good bits of luck always appear when things get out of whack ?). I dashed up to the wheelhouse where Maureen was unconcernedly steering and backed the throttle right off to reduce the fuel leak, at the same time veering the boat hard to the right side of the channel (as we were in a section where we were required to be proceeding on the left). This gave the commercial room to pass, and us time to sort out our arrival strategy. Maureen was all for stopping immediately but the better quai was only minutes ahead. We made it and tied up, closing down the engine and turning off the fuel supply.
About half an hour later I had cleared up the mess and pumped 20 litres of oily fuel from the pans under the engine (which keeps fuel and oil from the bilges) into a plastic drum kept for small quantities of leakage - it was now full. I had disengaged the pipe and discovered a hairline crack on the wrong side of the collar that seals the line inside the connecting nuts. All I needed now was a mechanic or plumber with copper pipe cutting gear and a new collar. It was Sunday and French lunch time. I guessed we would be here for a day or two.
I came out of the engine room to find Maureen chatting with a Canadian woman and her Scotty dog. I was introduced and able to ask if she happened to know any mechanics. Of course she did, one lived immediately behind her. Off we went to deliver a message to le Monsieur via his brother in law and lo and behold, about an hour later he arrived, took a look and advised me it was time to call in his mate, the plumber who would come at about 5.00pm.
At 5.10pm Jean Jacques arrived, cut the pipe, realised he would need a new collar, went away for half an hour and returned with a packet of them, fixed and fitted the pipe the collar and the nut and we then bled and started the engine. It ran and no fuel leaked. Yes, they both replied, an aperitif would be in order. We were soon sitting over some beer (me) and rum (them as they were from St Martinique) and they were asked how much for the parts and labour. Rien ! (Nothing). I insisted, they resisted.
They then finished their one drink and left. And these are the people supposed to be arrogant, distant and hard to get on with !!!! Heather, our Canadian rescuer arrived at 7.00pm with an artist friend and his wife, were given a conducted tour of the boat and we all settled in to a couple of hours of aperitif after which Heather stayed for dinner and Champagne.
The next morning we departed for Conflans - checked the work with the experts at the Baudouin engine workshop (Diesel Marine) who declared it expert and then left for Pontoise - now on the Oise River. We arrived at Pontoise, moored securely and took our bikes off the boat to explore this supposedly delightful town but found little of interest and a whole lot of young Moroccan gang kids. We did not like the feel of the place and so moved on at 6.00 pm for Le Isle d’Adam.
This place is a delight with a pretty little island and very neat houses and shops, dispersed by huge numbers of great restaurants and boutiques. The next morning we went to the markets and that night to a riverside restaurant. Heaven on a stick - Oh yes, I also found two Caves and was able to acquire a dozen assorted white wines of very good calibre at very good prices and with adequate bottle age. This does not in any way make up for the consumption by the more than 10 guests we have had in just over a month - but it will get us through the week - Just ! - Maybe.
Mid July - 10 Aug - 2004
We spent a few days at Isle d’Adam, with a good pontoon to moor alongside but with no services such as water and electricity. We had relaxed and rested from the many guests we had enjoyed during the past couple of months and now felt it was time to continue our personal voyage of exploration.
Next stop up the Aisne River was St Leu d’Esserent. Not a wonderful village in itself but very close to the magnificent Chateaux Chantilly, Grande and Petite, and of course the famous nearby horse racing and breeding establishments. To say that the Chateaux are ‘grande’ is an understatement in the extreme. These are HUGE estates and buildings, until quite recently still owned and occupied by the last prince and his family. The original Prince de Conde built his home here to entertain the king and other courtiers as the nearby parks and forests provided very good hunting.
We took the scooter off the boat, having greatly upset a fisherman who believed that the port facilities were his personal fishing spot. Having disabused him of that fact we drove off to see the chateaux, some 7 or 8 kilometres distant. The buildings are in beautiful condition and are now part of the Academie Francais and obviously get plenty of money from tourist visits to keep them in good condition. Conducted tours take you through the many rooms, still furnished in original 16th and 17th century style. The hundreds of paintings and sculptures are the former collection of the prince and his family. Unhappily the last prince was without descendants so he passed the properties in their excellent condition on to the government with the condition that they be open to the public.
And so we continued north towards Compiegne which also boasts a Royal Chateau, this one originally owned by Charles V and rebuilt by Louis XV, then in turn modified by Marie Antoinette, Napoleon I and III and now open to the public with their furnishings on display. Attached to the chateau is the Musee of Touring Automobiles (currently closed for renovation) another horse breeding establishment and huge gardens. I have to add that these buildings are magnificent in their detail and sumptuous furnishings. One can only wonder who did all the cleaning - they are vast.
A key reason for us to have decided to tour this area was of course the enormous amount of history associated with World War One, especially as the Australian’s were engaged in the area from 1916. We were keen to see as much as we could of the many museums, cemeteries and protected areas of trenches and abandoned relics of war. Some of the most obvious were at Compiegne, Amiens and Villers-Bretonneux with many small attractions between. Further on was Dunkerque and the WWII monuments and museums at Arromanches, site of the ‘Mulberry Harbour’. This whole region is steeped in history and well worth spending sufficient time to really explore each of the highlights.
On the way to Compiegne the bracket holding the throttle cable broke its weld and required a quick (wire) fix until we arrived in Compiegne where more appropriate repairs could be made. It was while doing this that I discovered the limitations of 220v power as supplied by 12V batteries. Using a grinder to prepare the bracket I blew the top off a very large 12V 220Amp battery. Apart from giving me a hell of a scare as I was right next to it when it exploded, it then necessitated replacing it and it’s partner - another 350 Euros. Still, since we had been experiencing reduced battery performance it was probably the right time to get some new ones. I persuaded the supplier to deliver the new and take away the old. The driver even assisted in their placement which required some modification to the external plastic casings to fit. This may sound like the most recent of a long list of disasters - some of my making - but taken into context against the passage of time and constant hard use of the boat and it’s systems, this is light maintenance.
At Compiegne we discovered my barge handling teachers, Tam and Di Murrell. In order to operate one of these big boats in France, one has to have qualifications. These are taught by the Murrell’s on their barge and the examinations take place (in French) at their base in Cambrai by the examiners of the VNF. I completed mine in September 2000 prior to purchasing Van Nelle. As the Murrells at this time were just enjoying the time between courses we were able to enjoy a couple of afternoon aperitif sessions and a visit to a local restaurant with them while in Compiegne. They fancy themselves as foodies but unfortunately the restaurant they chose that evening was a bit disappointing.
Near Compiegne are a couple of other attractions. The first and most interesting is the Armistice Clearing in the forest of Rethondes, about 7km from the city. In this forest setting is a large clearing where the Germans were forced to accept the terms of the Allies at the end of the 1st World War. This was done in a railway carriage which was later interred in a building for display. As an act of revenge in1940, Hitler had the carriage brought out of the museum where it had been on display for 20 years and he forced the French to sign his conditions having blitzkrieged through France. The carriage was then taken to Berlin, displayed and then burnt and is now replaced by an identical carriage which has been outfitted as the original was in 1918.
On the other side of the river and at the next lock up the system at Janville is a very good barge museum which displays and explains the life of professional peniche operators in France. This town is a centre of retired and still active boats so there is a great deal of material available.
We spent hours discovering the various memorials and attractions in and around Compiegne before moving on again. Our next stop was Peronne where one of the most outstanding WWI museums in France is built into a 16th century fortified castle. Called the ‘Historial’ this building has a number of vast rooms set with uniforms, equipment, display panels, artefacts, explanations, videos and films of the period 1914 to 1918. Mock soldiers in every uniform representing the countries that were involved lie in grave like shallow pits in the floors. It has an excellent bookshop where many books about the war are available, including Major and Mrs Holt’s Battlefield guide book and map. We bought a copy in order to be able to find the many places the Australians had campaigned in France after their arrival in 1916 having been ‘blooded’ at Gallipoli as this was the main reason for our trip in this region.
The Germans had rapidly deployed through Belgium into France and had finally been stopped in the Somme District where the British and French maintained a stalemate for some 18 months. Reinforced by Indian, South African, Australian, Canadian and Newfoundland troops, Field Marshal Haig, in concert with the French commander Foch, planned the ‘meat grinder’ battles of attrition in this region.
During 1916, hundreds of thousands of allied and German troops were massacred under millions of artillery and small arms rounds. Areas once occupied by troops were so devastated that soldiers were buried, dead or alive by the barrage, then dug up by subsequent bombardments and re-buried by them or left exposed. Huge areas were literally pulverised and over 150,000 men were never found, their bodies having been shredded by the actions of both sides.
In 1918 the Germans tried their last desperate action, breaking through the allied lines and heading for the channel ports which were the vital start of supply lines of the Allies. Desperate defence was put in place but it was the actions of the Australians, now commanded by the Australian General Monash, who turned the tide. At Pozieres, Monash organised a coordinated tank, aircraft, artillery and troop attack, the first of its kind. Using a rolling barrage ahead of the troops who were accompanied by tanks for the first time in a rehearsed mutually supportive role, and re-supplied by air drops from their aircraft, the Aussies smashed through the German lines and made huge advances into the rear areas, causing the ‘blackest day of the war’ for Ludendorf, the German Commander.
France’s President changed his plans to visit French lines when he heard of the Aussie’s battle and immediately travelled to be with them, stating that ‘you have achieved a miracle in your actions’. Monash was knighted in the field by the King of England (the first such action for some 200 years) and the Australian tactics were adopted as the Allied method from that time on. Monash’s officers spread out to train allied forces for the then successful final push that caused the German surrender.
Australian memorials exist at Villers Bretonneux and Pozieres and there are Australians in battlefield cemeteries (brilliantly managed by the Commonwealth Graves Commission) in many other places. One of the most outstanding is the black marble concentric walls at Pozieres that stand in front of some remaining trench lines. However, we had not reached Amiens and the other key Australian battlefield locations yet. We took in the marvellous Historial at Peronne and looked at British and German positions nearby, using the scooter to get out to places up to 15km away, then again started Van Nelle’s motors to continue on to Amiens - up the Somme River - we thought.
The confluence of the Somme and the Aisne is just a few kilometres from Peronne and we left early in order to get half way up the river towards Amiens in time to take in the nearby memorials at Le Hamel and Villers Bretonneux. Arriving near the Y junction, Nellie slowed down and yawed menacingly with her head swinging away from the port bank. We slowed and slowly stopped, hard aground - or should I say - hard a mud. With no commercial boats now using the Somme, silt has been shifted away from the channel on the Aisne to the entrance of the Somme, causing a bank that proved to be less than a half metre deep. This in a channel supposed to be 2 ½ metres deep !
We radioed the next lock as we tried to manoeuvre Van Nelle using the engine in forward and in reverse - to suck a channel backwards to freedom. The eclusier was not very helpful, telling us the channel was supposed to be 2 ½ metres deep and how much did we draw ? I insisted that he provide more water to this section of the canalised river in order for us to be able to float off. He did not seem to be in sympathy. A couple of loaded barges came by and chatted with us on the radio, all offering advice but not willing to get anywhere near us to give us a tow - they knew what the eclusier did not ! They did however have an effect on the water level as they insisted to the eclusier that we were a normal boat and were stuck and that the water level did appear to be significantly reduced in the area. Action was taken to raise the level for us then and after about an hour and a half we drifted free and reversed into the Aisne Channel.
Plan B - which now did not include the Somme by boat. We would continue north to Calais and Dunkerque and hire a car to discover the Somme River area later.
So, on to Inchy and Douai. We took a place downstream of the lock which was perfect for using the crane to get the scooter on and off but decided to use bikes instead as we were not planning to go any great distance. Douai is an interesting town and the weather had changed for the warmer so we spent a couple of days doing the tourist thing here.
Climbing the hundreds of steps up the belfry to the bells at the Mairie is the big attraction here and so we had to do it. Before getting into the belfry - one of 3 major carillons in France - we were taken on a conducted tour of the magnificent public rooms in the Hotel de Ville (Town Hall) which dates back to the 1500s. These included a magnificent council chamber with 17th century furnishings and a white chapel room where weddings are conducted.
The many bells in the belfry are perfectly tuned and have a keyboard to allow visiting players to give concerts. The belfry also tolls out the hours and their divisions automatically. The bells - including the huge big bass bell - went off while we were in the bell loft - what a racket. This set-up makes the Perth foreshore bell tower with its bells from St Martin in the Fields look like a toy.
On to Lille, which in 2004 was the ‘European City of Culture’ presenting many outstanding events spread throughout the year. Unfortunately we arrived on a Monday therefore missing the last weekend’s events and being too early for next weekend’s. We stopped beside a major highway and wondered why such a city did not have a decent port. We persevered there for a couple of days to do justice to the sights and sounds and moved on to the River Lys, which, we had been told, we would enjoy. We did not.
The River Lys is small, narrow, shallow ditch, subject to algae and, with the exception of Armentieres (nice shady canal side moorings but no tourist attractions) and St Venant (nice small town and port with facilities), has little to recommend it. In fact, as we approached the lock at Merville we noticed it was being used by a gang of teenage boys as a swimming pool. This in itself is forbidden but it appeared the eclusier had lost control of his facility.
Maureen de-barked and went to the ecluse to get it open and found the eclusier slow to respond and obviously in fear of the gang. When the gates eventually opened and I took Van Nelle in we endured about 20 minutes of abuse, rocks and dirt thrown at the boat and other threatening behaviour. When eventually one of the ring leaders abused Maureen I went ballistic and leaping off the boat grabbed him by the throat, throwing him into a nearby bush with suitable threats that if he or anyone else moved I would follow up the action with something more damaging. They got the message and left but we were very pleased to leave that rotten place behind !
We arrived at what would have been a pleasant stop (St Venant) too late to get through the lock and so spent the night on the unkempt side, near the water treatment plant. We were pleased to get out of the River Lys and onto the major canal to Calais / Dunkerque. 13kph took us to within 10km of Dunkerque by 6.00pm that day. We called it a day for a cold beer and a barbecue before retiring after the big commercial vessels which ply this waterway had stopped for the night, we mooring against a concrete wall on a corner. The commercials on this stretch of the river and canal are huge. Minimum size is 98 metres long (they can be 148 metres) and they carry containers, building materials, bulk fuels and grains.
We arrived in Dunkerque (you might spell it Dunkirk) at about lunch time on Friday, 6 August and fell for the town almost immediately. We found a quiet mooring in the commercial Gare d’Eau, about 5 minutes from town, with electricity and water supplied by a clever electronic key device available from the VNF office nearby at reasonable cost. The town was the site of the Allied evacuation in 1940 so it has lots of history and museums. It also has a huge beach and a lively arts and culture program which we were about to experience.
Opera on the Street was something else ! Friday night was the date for a visiting opera troupe who performed in five different city locations on pre-prepared stages. The cast and crew led the audience (some thousands) through the streets from one stage to the next while performing on the move. They were equipped with radio microphones and accompanied by full orchestral backing all mixed perfectly and broadcast by FM radio to two travelling speaker pods, controlled by another, larger, mobile control station. These wheeled pods were 4 metres high and contained stereo speakers and amplifiers capable of very powerful volume and great quality sound. The technical side of the production was enough to make you gasp and the quality of the production was every bit as outstanding.
Starting at the town library we followed the troupe through the streets to each of the other stages where the acts were presented culminating in the final act on the grand stage in the centre of town. After the curtain calls and applause died down, rock music started up and everyone danced together. A fantastic night of wonderful free entertainment and a truly great technical and artistic achievement.
I spent the day before the opera looking for thick stern gland grease. There are no oil company offices in Dunkerque so I went to six different outlets before one suggested I go to the biggest ship building / repair yard here. I wandered in looking like a gypsy and was passed on from the receptionist to the chief engineer to the Managing Director, Mr Wally Salamon, who took me in his car to the workshops, introduced me to his foreman and advised him to give me whatever I needed from his ‘private’ store. Seems he owns a barge and had just the grease I needed. Wonderful people here !
Saturday night saw us attend the Eglise Sacre Coeur for a Gospel concert. Singer, black, big and brilliant, sound system and room acoustics - DISASTER. I just about left during the first half but was determined to have my money’s worth - besides there was a decidedly eccentric Elvis impersonator in the front row who was causing the singer (Mme Segan) a deal of trouble and who was worth keeping an eye on. During interval I went to the accompanist and explained the problem that was causing the audience to under react somewhat - he took me to see the manager. Turn down the amplifier volume and ask Mme Segan to use it sparingly as the reverberation in this room is causing the sound to turn into confusing noise. He took it on board and then dragged me off to speak to the Diva herself. We chatted about technical things, she had the sound turned down, desisted from using the mike except when absolutely necessary and at the end of the second half received a standing ovation - twice. And Elvis left the building !
The weather now was hotting up so we took some time at the huge beach, the evacuation museum and the fantastic Maritime Museum which includes a rigged three masted ship and a peniche. Then on Sunday hired a car for the somewhat postponed visits to Amiens, Pozieres and Le Hamel.
While en-route to Le Hamel the phone rang. ‘Admiral Ian Palmer calling, I’m in London, where are you and are you taking visitors ?’. “Of course we are”.
For Australians who have seen military service and have studied the history of our troops in various campaigns, the ‘Western Front’ from 1916 to 1919 occupies a special reputation. Our troops, removed from the debacle of Gallipoli where they established the fame of the ‘diggers’, had recovered in Egypt before being shipped to France. Here they were to suffer the privations and the constant danger of trench warfare through several summers and the especially bad winters. Thousands of artillery pieces shredded men and material day after day while the troops were forced to attack massed machine guns in blind, British led madness.
Australian troops excelled, being selected for many especially important actions due to their tenacity and ingenuity. Their patrolling of no man’s land was legendary and especially scary to their opposing forces and their final tactics under Monash brilliantly executed. So it is a great privilege to be able to visit the areas, trenches, towns, cemeteries and memorials they passed though and now inhabit. Many other troops fought alongside with valour and many other remarkable exploits occurred in these areas, so places like Le Hamel, Armentieres, Fromelles, Pozieres, Mouquet Farm, Bullecourt, Passchendaele, and especially Villers-Bretonneux are pilgrimage sites. We were able to visit and access many with the help of the excellent references and directions contained in the guide books available for the area. An experience not to be missed.
12 - 30 Aug - 2004
Ian Palmer and his son Craig were coming from London. We had hired a car to explore the area and so had it to pick them up from the Eurostar as it emerged from the ‘chunnel’ at Calais. Once established on board we all spent the next couple of days exploring the WWII evacuation museums and the excellent maritime museum that dominates the old port area. We climbed over the decks of the square rigged ship and down through it’s decks. We spent hours in the maritime museum, walking the beach front with it’s lively art market and had the occasional beer at the sea side cafes.
Their stay was all too short and after a final BBQ dinner accompanied by a bottle of aged Moss Wood Cabernet from home, we farewelled them as they took the train to Paris and on to Nice and we headed for Belgium.
Travelling to Belgium by canal and river is different from the same type of journey in France as the Belgians use many low bridges which swing out of the way or raise up as you approach - unless it is lunch time, whereupon you wait for an hour for the operation. On the way to Bruges, our first main stop in this small but very industrial country, we stayed overnight in Veuve. Exploring the town we found large and elaborately decorated churches - (protestant) and lots of small specialist shops making chocolates, bread, meat products, cheeses and other comestibles. The area we were travelling was very flat and obviously prone to flooding. It was also an area fought over in both the first and second wars and is still littered with concrete gun boxes along the line of the canal.
This area is also littered with large shops on main roads selling alcohol, cigarettes and chocolates. Belgium is a country with very low taxes on consumer goods and so is a favourite place for the Brits to visit on a regular basis to top up their wine cellars and cigarette supplies. A quick trip across the channel, a day or two in the very tourist friendly areas around Bruges and Gent and home with enough product to start a shop and at least to cover the cost of the trip.
Bruges. We cruised into the town via a round lock with four entrances and exits and were directed to the one that would take us to the WWW Yacht Club Flandria, conveniently positioned ‘en face’ to a lovely park area, train manufacturing factory and bus park. The cost was reasonable, power was available (but not water on the side of the marina we were directed to) and we were asked to back in. On this afternoon we were experiencing quite a strong cross wind (30-40kmh) which would have driven us against the bows and sterns of the boats moored opposite our intended space if we had attempted such a manoeuvre. We ignored the direction and steamed in forwards, quickly and neatly securing the boat and arranged our power supply. I then swung the scooter out and rode it right around the inlet on which the Yacht Club is situated to the club house where I faced the ire of the imposing female manager.
I pointed out the benefit of leaving their members boats undamaged and inquired as to the reason for their advice on direction. It was a directive of the Commodore in case of emergencies so that boats could evacuate quickly. This must be a hang over from their days of fearing widespread outbreaks of fire in their predominantly wooden towns. I explained that evacuation would be possible with alacrity if necessary and after paying for our stay, relations became warm and even generous as the members got to know us over dinners in the club. We were even invited to stay over winter, an offer we considered enthusiastically given the beauty of Bruges and the generosity of its people.
Bruges is truly a spectacular tourist city ! Undamaged by the wars (or wonderfully restored afterwards), Bruges is a medieval city of grace, charm, beauty and warmth. Narrow cobbled streets lead inward to city squares faced by small shops, restaurants, hotels, museums, churches, city halls and ancient hospitals. Overlooking all are the ever present carillon, tall towers with bells to warn the populace of fires or attacks. On the canal and river sides are graceful windmills and lining the small streets are grandmothers spinning lace for the many shops that feature this speciality of the region.
During the time we were there, the city was featuring a nightly spectacular series of entertainments in seven city squares within a fenced off area of the old town. Starring hundreds of local enthusiasts, the two and a half hour event tells the story of the city as the audience of thousands walk from location to location for each of the 20 minute performances, sequential and different in each. Dancing, balls, parties, opera, plays, laser and sound performances and even a ‘water theatre’ where a movie is played on a water curtain produced by jets of canal water in the centre of town. Amazing stuff.
One of the highlights was a troupe of young boys and girls dancing in clogs. It was a comedy routine and left everyone wheezing for breath after laughing so much. The other events such as a lavish double wedding - the toffs in the building across a narrow canal and the locals in the park on the audience side was revealing. Opera and other exhibitions were every bit as engaging and well executed.
Beer is a big deal in Belgium and each town seemingly has a range of small and large breweries. Bruges is no exception with dozens of brands vying for your thirst. Many of the small breweries are also restaurants where you can see your brew coming out of the huge copper pots while you eat local delicacies (moules frites, thick meat casseroles, crepes etc). In the small squares outside you might see a weekend jazz concert, lace making, artists at work or just the endless stream of people wandering and enjoying the ambience. We sat for a comfortable few hours one afternoon at a very good big band jazz concert - cost - a couple of drinks from the bar that was hosting the event.
We did spend one night on the boat however as the opening ceremony of the Athens Olympics was on satellite television - what a show !!!!
We left Bruges believing we had not really scratched the surface and headed to Gent, a one day trip with no rush as much of it is on a huge commercial canal with few locks or bridges to traverse. Arriving, we stopped right in the middle of the city at a small marina (three boats) just short of the main city marina (with 25 boats). Some negotiation with the owner lowered the cost from 50 Euro per night to 50 for three days, complete with electricity and opposite a good bar / restaurant and we set out to explore.
It is said that while Bruges is the best Belgian city for tourism, Gent is better since it has much of the same attraction but fewer tourists. I think there are actually as many but since Gent is bigger, it seems to absorb them and expose itself more. The other lasting memory is the bewildering one way street system.
A huge cathedral and city administrative buildings from the 1600s dominate the main square while hundreds of similar age, 3 story timber or stone buildings line the many canals and narrow streets. Wandering is the answer as you can take the time to probe the interiors of the many shops offering really beautiful wares (lace, silver, foodstuffs, tourist items etc) and you come across the many museums and galleries ready to expose your mind to the fabulously rich heritage of this country at very reasonable cost.
Just a short walk from the city centre is the Castle of the Counts. Built from the turn of the previous Millennium (1,000AD that is) it was continuously added to and strengthened against stone projectiles then cannon balls until it was damaged in WWII by more modern explosive projectiles. Following the war it was rebuilt as a huge museum of torture. The way this culture sorted out its criminals was to ensure that a confession was always obtained before ‘punishing’ the unfortunate - if they were still alive after the confession process. They really had some extremely uncomfortable methods that would do more than make your eyes water, and these were all on display.
We passed a shop that featured absolutely fabulous linen and lace for home interiors and in one of the windows a large silver roast meat salver and tray from the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo. Having spent a couple of days there in November 2003 on the way to Italy this imposing piece seemed ridiculously priced at under 200 Euro. Should we ? Oh to hell with it - yes. We bought the piece and then had to carry it back to the boat - on the scooter. It was just about as big as our conveyance but looked fantastic in the saloon.
Trying to find modern shops like supermarkets is a trick here - they are situated underground as a way to preserve the people against the cold of winter while also preserving the ‘look’ of the city. The other ‘trick’ about Gent is trying to find your way back to the boat in the maze of seemingly illogically arranged one way streets.
Our stay in Gent was short since we were expecting the arrival of Doug and Susan Cruzan from the UK, a couple interested in this lifestyle who wanted to experience it for a few days. We figured the best plan was to backtrack to Bruges where they could easily find us, leave their car secure in the Yacht Club and cruise to and from Gent for their barging experience. That would also give us a second bite at both cherries.
They arrived at the right time of the week to experience the Bruges historical spectacular and we left the next morning for Gent, again having an easy trip and, with a booking arranged at the small marina, no problems with accommodation for the boat together with power and - now - water. We asked the marina operator where he got his water supply and then approached his mate, the restaurant owner across the street for a deal on a couple of hours supply. There is always a way.
Doug and Susan had a good trip with plenty of time on the helm and just enough rope handling opportunities en-route and planned to follow it up with a barge handling course and PP certificate exam at Cambrai. So, saying we could well see them in Cambrai in a couple of months, they headed back to their chiropractic clinic in London while we departed for Brussels.
The trip to Brussels is on a tidal river, requiring departure to be coordinated with the outgoing tide. We wanted to get through to the lock securing the water depth on the canal to Brussels before nightfall so we arranged to leave a couple of hours earlier than the turn of the tide. Van Nelle is powerful enough to stem the tides of all but the most powerful rivers (the Rhine perhaps the only exception) so the slightly slower start was not a problem. What was a problem however was that we were fast running out of fuel.
A fuel bunker station is indicated on the Belgian charts, just out of the main Bruges lock on a tributary so we headed there first to fill up. We soon realized that the indicated supply was no longer there and on the radio asked a passing commercial where we might get fuel. He indicated that the best place was past the lock we were heading for - some 6 hours travel away at near full speed - and therefore high fuel consumption. “Good Luck” he added before also advising us that while on his holidays in a campervan down the Rhone River in southern France he had seen Van Nelle. We exchanged pleasantries and reversed our course for the main channel and with crossed fingers, pushed up the revs and forged into the current.
Having also been trained as a pilot, I am conservative in the matter of fuel reserves and so on arrival at the bunker ship after our 6 hours travel we had at least enough to do the same trip again - possibly twice. We filled up with 1,000 litres of Belgian (untaxed) diesel fuel at less than half the price of French ‘gasole’ and continued towards Brussels.
Brussels is a busy commercial boating centre and therefore quite zealously policed, as we found out. The advice for plaisanciers is to stop at the Royal Brussels Yacht Club. As this is also noted to be well out of town and somewhat expensive, we opted to continue further into town and to moor in an area close to a new port facility. After having secured the boat and taken off the bikes we were hailed by a policeman in a rubber ducky with the advice that we could not moor there (despite several other boats being in the area) and that we should reverse our direction to the yacht club. With no option we reboarded - with bikes - turned the boat and headed back, slipping Van Nelle into the narrow entrance backwards so we could exit easily. I made my way to the office where our fears were confirmed. 2.60 Euro per metre per night ! That worked out to 65 (since VN had mysteriously shrunk to just 25 metres from her normal 27).
“That”, I said, “is outrageous. Even Paris is only E50 per night”. That did not seem to faze the secretary who had heard such protests for years - especially from our Dutch friends. We agreed to one night (not enough to really explore this headquarters of Europe) and set out to see the sights.
We have worked out the best way to get to grips with a large city - take the ‘Open Tour’ bus. These are in Rome, Paris, Lille, Brussels etc and take a circuitous route that passes all the best attractions. On the way you get an appreciation of the geography and the layout of the city and during the day’s validity of the ticket, allows you to get off wherever it stops and get on following busses later. In this way we went past the best monuments, EU HQ buildings, cathedrals, royal palaces and up the hill to the fantastic Automobile, Military and Aerospace Museums. We arrived there at about 3.00pm and decided to spend some time seeing their sights. We were directed out of the buildings at 5.30pm with much passed over far too quickly or not seen at all. These museums are as good as the Smithsonian in Washington USA, so if you visit Brussels - don’t miss them.
Having spent our part day and expensive night at the Yacht club we decided to continue on. The way out of Brussels and back to France is via a place called Ronquieres. This is famous for its ancient Ascenseur, a meccano like structure of caste iron that holds two box like trays in which a fully laden commercial barge could be lifted 15 metres, thereby bypassing some 5 locks. Its operation was ceased in favour of a modern set of huge commercial locks in the 1960s but it remains as a museum. We stopped here for the full tour and inspection before heading off for the even more spectacular modern version a day away.
At a place called Streppy Thieu there is an ‘Inclined Plane’ and shortly further on, a modern ‘Ascenseur’. These structures are enormous and take several modern day commercials, vastly larger than the old 38metre models of yesteryear. We were alone and dwarfed by these colossal engineering marvels that effortlessly lift the enormous caissons of steel and water containing huge barges 30 - 60 metres to the next canal level. Absolutely gob smacking !
The next town of note we visited was Mons, well known for its participation in both world wars. We saw a note in the tourist office that conducted tours were available by multi-lingual guides from the railway station taking in the town’s attractions including the town hall, which otherwise could not be accessed. We took the option and met our charming guide at the Gare, accompanying her through the cathedral and the beautiful Mairie (town hall). We were ushered into all the private and public spaces, including access to the roof areas and the marriage halls, mayor’s chambers and balconies - where we graciously waved to the assembled multitude below.
We took our guide to a nearby café for tea afterwards where we took seats on the first floor to witness the gathering of the crowds for the annual ‘ Tanks in Town’ parade of some 15 WWII American tanks plus assorted other jeeps, half tracks, deuces and a plethora of crew, all Belgian but dressed in US WWII uniforms. There is no sign of anti US sentiment in this predominantly French speaking part of Belgium. Our guide was appreciative and so were we as the cost was negligible and she would not take a tip. We left her to take a closer look at the assembled machinery before retiring to Van Nelle for dinner.
Leaving Belgium we took a short side track to Peronnes where ‘Captain Neptunia’ has a large series of barges serving as fuel bunkers and ships chandleries, here to top up with 200 litres of cheap fuel before crossing back into France. We still had a long way to go this season as we had guests expecting to meet us before we would finally come to rest at Cambrai, our winter port, so the extra fuel would hopefully allow all of that distance until we would be able to return here for our final winter fuelling.
30 Aug - 10 Sep - 2004
Having spent the past three weeks exploring Bruges, Gent and Brussels, possibly the best parts of Belgium, we were now heading back into France for four separate guest bookings in Reims, Paris and Cambrai. These trips would take us more than 1,000 km and use 1,000 litres of diesel fuel so the opportunity to top up our tanks with 40c per litre diesel in Belgium rather than 1.10 per litre gasole in France was high on our priority list. We took on the fuel and headed south via Valenciennes to Cambrai, our eventual winter port.
At Valenciennes we moored canal side amongst commercial barges and in front of one of the town’s university colleges for the night and the next morning, disembarked our bikes for an exploration of the town. On the way into the town we had to negotiate a large round-about during peak traffic and Maureen very nearly came to grief with a fast moving car cutting her off and very nearly hitting her. She was not happy as she had been following me and apparently I was the culprit not the car. We survived the incident however and headed into town, some distance from the canal, it being a large town.
Most everything appeared to be closed (museum and tourist office) despite this being a Tuesday so we had a look at one of the churches, assisted by an aged gentleman who obviously had a deep affection for the building and it’s purpose and decided to head on out of town. We caste off at midday and by 5.00pm were in the port at Cambrai.
Cambrai was once a busy commercial port but like many other French canal towns it has lost most of the factories and warehouses that used to employ the many barges. The facilities that remain however are used by pleasure boats and a number of other part or full time charter or education vessels. The port now is filled with (mostly) English people who live semi permanently on barges similar to Van Nelle but who return to the UK during winter. These include Tam and Di Murrell who use their 25m barge Friesland to conduct barge handling and PP licence courses, Bob and Bobby Marsland who do charter cruises, John and Val and US couple Bill and Sylvia who are converting a small barge for their next summer’s use. Bob, an ex RAF pilot is on a cruiser and a couple of other boats were then unoccupied.
We pulled into the port and stopped at the Capitainerie to take on water before moving into a space reserved for the missing ‘Tinker’s Tug’ currently away for repairs. We soon made friends with the other boating residents and the Capitain - Gerard. We had two days only to do washing and shopping before again heading out southwards towards Champagne for our first rendezvous with Peter Livingstone, a Perth friend who was at the time on a master’s hockey tour, culminating in Athens after the cessation of the Olympics. We were to meet him in Reims, introduce him to the delicate pleasures of Champagne and then cruise towards Paris. But first we had to get to Reims.
Our first highlight on the journey was one day from Cambrai at the famous Riqueval Tunnel. Supposedly sited and directed by Napoleon 1, this 6km tunnel was built around 1800 to make possible a direct route from the northern industrial towns to the Champagne region and thence Paris and was operated as a tunnel de touage - or towed tunnel. Barges were roped together and pulled through by men, later by horses. This method was later upgraded to using a windless at the end of the 6km that was powered by relays of 6 horses and finally by an electric tug system that pulls itself along by means of a chain laid underwater and electric cables strung above. As the tunnel is not ventilated, engines cannot be used as early experiments with coal fired steam engines tended to asphyxiate the bargees. Today, the tunnel still operates with the latest version of tug (built in 1912) pulling up to 30 barges (theoretically). We were one of three on our first experience and alone the next time. The trip takes 2 hours and after the first experience can be a bit boring but is a grand adventure in history.
There is also a museum at the small town above the tunnel that deals with the history of the system. Interestingly, the Germans used the tunnel in the first world war as a safe dormitory for their troops, it being quite close to the front lines. They concreted the entrances and filled the tunnel with barges, converted into sleeping accommodation for resting troops. The tunnel was taken by the allies with little resistance in 1918 during the big final push to victory.
Just past the tunnel we found a lovely canal side picnic spot with an indented section for boats, complete with bollards and a strange roof. We had a very quiet night there and by 12.00 the next day were in St Quentin, the city from which the name of this canal derives. St Quentin was celebrating the 300th anniversary of one of its famous sons and was that night to host a grand spectacle, ‘Sax in the City’ and a large fireworks display. We decided to stay for the fun.
At 9.30pm the spectacle began at the square outside the museum which holds the works of St Jean, their famous artist. A huge, fire breathing apparatus on wheels was accompanied by many whirling dervishes, dressed in star wars like costumes of plastic tubes and luminous drapes. All had saxophones. Loud saxophone music emanated from large speakers on the chariot of flames which must have been relaying this from radio, broadcast from the central stage area in the main city square as it was perfectly coordinated as we approached the centre ville. Eventually we were surrounded by hundreds of creatures playing saxophones who hung from buildings, graced elevated stages and even performed on top of the futuristic bandstand in the huge central square - this complete with a grand piano on its roof.
Actors with saxophones abseiled down from roofs while on the biggest stage in front of the medieval Mairie a large band of these aliens assembled, there to play custom written pieces for the next couple of hours, accompanied by others on smaller stages surrounding the square. Windows of the buildings making up the square were inhabited by back lit dancers throwing shadow replicas of themselves in writhing grotesque forms at the scrim curtains hung on the windows. The whole thing was mesmerising and as it led up to a shattering crescendo the crowd voiced its deafening approval before breaking away to stream down to the canal side Place de la Revolution for the Feu d’Artifice - the fireworks.
We were moored just a couple of hundred metres from the edge of the fireworks launching place so had a pretty good view of the event but decided to get with the crowd, right under the bursts, immediately in front of the launch pad. This IS the BEST way to see fireworks, right under them at no great distance. It has its dangers of course and I was one of the crowd hit by spent plastic cartridges from the bigger mortar star shells, fortunately on the cheek so not coming to any great harm. No wonder we have to be 400 metres away from similar events in Australia.
After the big commercial Canal de Nord and Belgian waterways, the St Quentin canal is a return to the dreamy canals of the centre and south which are now almost exclusively dedicated to tourist activity. St Quentin still has a reasonable amount of commercial boats of the 38m size but they just add to the pleasure and interest - so long as we don’t get stuck behind them as they travel ponderously at half our speed.
Having left St Quentin, we stopped at a couple of the small villages along the way, not as evening stop overs or for supplies, but because the tourist and canal guides mention that some have museums displaying artefacts from the wars. Chaugny and Tergnier were two such where we found no evidence of such museums and none of the local population were able to shed light on the subject when questioned. Things change and local enthusiasts often close little local displays, giving their pieces to bigger enterprises in the towns and cities on the Remembrance Trail.
Courcy le Chateau however is quite different. Mooring a couple of kilometres away at the point of closest contact with a direct road to the fortified hill town, one rides a bike or walks the 3km up a fairly steep hill to this beautiful village, still protected by its 9 metre thick walls, multitudes of mutually supporting towers and within the gates, ruined and rebuilt castle keeps and fortifications.
The lass in the Tourist Office agreed to open the Musee specially for us despite the fact that she was alone, so long as we would wait for her to get a friend to mind the shop. After all that trouble and having escorted us through the towers, the chateau and the museum, she refused payment and gaily waved us good bye as we flew down hill on our now seemingly jet powered bikes.
At our next stop, Pinon, we found a delightful little port, park and picnic area, right next to a small supermarket. This is obviously a great draw for the passing commercial peniches as we found out very soon after stopping when we had one attach to our hull, generator roaring away as mum went shopping. The kids watched a movie and dad engaged us in the usual Q & A about where we were from, the boat, the lifestyle and the meaning of life. It turns out he was a carpenter from the area near St Jean de Losne in Burgundy but his wife inherited her parents barge so they decided to run it and see where it took them. They were now in their 13th year and still happy to continue.
On to Bourg au Bac where again there was no museum (as advised) and so on to Berry au Bac, a crossroads of the canals, which on our original trip down from the Netherlands we found extremely busy and crammed with commercials. On this occasion we found it very windy and empty. A search of the town turned up a bric a brac market in full swing but no museum so onto Courcy where we stayed for a couple of days before we had to enter the noise and gritty air pollution of Reims. This gave us the chance to do our necessary preparation of shopping, cleaning, washing and I rode to Reims on the scooter to check out our normal mooring place.
Having made our preparations in the quiet of the countryside we moved on to Reims and just past the Port de Plaisance we moored in front of local, permanent boat undergoing conversion by a local restauranteur (Alain) and a 24m peniche owned by a New Zealand couple.
10 Sep - 2 Oct - 2004
Reims is a large city, dominated by one of its cathedrals in which all the Kings of France were crowned from the time St Remi converted Clovis to Catholicism in the 9th century. The region around it is of course famous for the wine, said to be the innovation of Dom Perignon, a monk cellarmaster of the local Benedictine or Cistercian monks. It is a city which has much to be explored by the casual tourist including the cathedral, the abbatial church of St Remi (in which his body still lies), a major car museum, and of course, many of the most famous Champagne houses including; Mumm, Veuve Clicquot (meaning the widow Clicquot), Piper Heidsieck, Maxims, Palmer and possibly a hundred or so more. There are hundreds of Champagne producers spread throughout the region in cities, towns and hamlets. Many sell their small production to local restaurants, others to the large companies. In Australia we see only the largest such as Moet, Piper, Mumm etc.
It was here that Peter Livingstone, fresh (?) from his Masters hockey tournaments in Singapore, Dubai and Athens would join us for a week’s cruise through Champagne to Paris. We arrived at our regular mooring place in the early afternoon and Peter arrived at the station around six. A short taxi ride had us all back at the boat and the sound of the first cork was heard to pop. Actually you are not supposed to ‘pop’ a champagne cork, rather to ease it off with the sigh of a contented virgin. The next day was reserved for visits to the cathedral and the house of Mumm, then in the afternoon to Piper Heidsieck and an early departure for Tours sur Marne, a small village which none the less, houses a number of very good producers of the sparkling tipple.
For those who are unaware, tours of the ‘caves’ of the famous and not so famous Champagne houses are available every day of the year at moderate cost and include full explanations of the methode champenoise and tasting of one to three tiny glasses of their range, or more at extra cost.
Most non vintage Champagnes are made from three grape varieties blended together, chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meuniere, the first a white grape producing white juice and the other two black grapes which produce white juice. After hand picking and pressing each different variety AND area, the ‘must cuvees’ (juices from each different area and grape type) are then fermented separately and undergo malolactic conversion. The wines produced are then blended with stocks of previous years ‘cuvees’ to get the same taste and a liquid yeast added to create the CO2 that adds the bubbles and pressure and the bottles are then racked and shaken, rotated and their bases elevated so the sediment from the yeast / sugar second fermentation settles into plastic caps under the metal caps that seal the bottles at this times. The necks are then frozen and the caps removed to ‘degorge’ the sediment and the bottles refilled with a mixture of champagne wine mixed with cane sugar, different amounts to determine if a wine is Brut, Demi Sec or Sec, the final corks are inserted and wires applied. The bottles are then laid down for minimum periods determined by the AOC (Appellation Origine Controllee) trustees, generally about 3 years for Brut non vintage and 5 + years for Millesime or Grand Cru.
In excellent years a Millesime can be produced, generally of a single grape variety and from Grand Cru areas only, its flavour will be different from any other year. This wine can carry a year date since it is not blended with previous year’s juices. Champagnes can be made from a single variety; Blanc de Blancs for example are white juice from the white grape type - i.e. Chardonnay while Blanc de Noir are from Pinot. Roses are made by adding Bouzy Rouge, a red wine made from the Pinot grape and not really good for much else.
Our tours of the Reims Champagne houses Mumm and Piper were different since at Mumm you are accompanied by an attractive young female tour guide through a 40 minute walk of the caves while at Pipers you embark on a little remote controlled chariot with a recorded commentary that explains the mannequins and friezes posed along the way that illustrate the ‘methode’. This tour is about 20 minutes and both end up in tasting rooms and boutiques where you are encouraged to try and buy at reasonable prices.
We left Reims (pronounced Razz) in the afternoon for a rendezvous with our friends Dr Amiable and his family who make a range of Premier Cru Champagne at Tours sur Marne under the label, L’Amiable. We have visited and bought here before and on this visit we took Bob and Carol, an English couple along as well. We tasted the Brut Grand Cru and their Standard Brut, buying cases of each for the boat. The family are wonderfully generous, opening fresh bottles at no cost, probably knowing that we will always end up staggering out under the weight of their standard six bottles to a carton loads.
After a quiet dinner on board we retired for the night to wake the next morning ready for our voyage to Chateau Thierry, some 30km distant. Chateau Thierry boasts a ruined chateau overlooking the canal and the Halte Fluviale where we unrolled a very long series of electric cables to get shore power. The town is another pretty town on the Marne River which cuts through the chalky soil area of Champagne and links Reims with Epernay and other such famous centres of ‘bulles’ (bubbles). It also has a live enactment of life in the medieval times situated within the chateau walls. A medieval village has been created here with a range of mud and thatch huts, tended it seems by a family who weave and thatch and bake basic bread, milk goats and for a few hours each day live the life of the serf.
Ferte sous Jouarre was our next stop along the Marne as we had elected on this trip to miss the (expensive) pleasures of Epernay. Above Ferte is Jouarre where an ancient Abbaye and convent is situated. Tended to and occupied once again by members of the original female order, the buildings have been built, destroyed, re-built and sold by the revolutionaries, re-purchased and rebuilt and re-occupied by these tenacious women. They quietly tend the museum areas and shop while I suspect many others, hidden in the main buildings, go about their daily routines as they have for hundreds of years.
We wanted to also take Peter to visit the nearby crypt which holds the earthly remains of earlier luminaries. This is supposed to be undertaken with a guide from the tourist office, who seemed to be unwilling to allow us the privilege, so we just walked to the place and as a person was within conducting research or renovation, we politely asked to enter and did as bidden, until discovered some time later by the harridan from the tourist office who had arrived with a VIP group. We beat a hasty retreat and remounted our bikes for the trip down hill.
One of the drawbacks of exploration from rivers and canals is that the attractions are inevitably up hills, some of which are very long and steep. Great to come back to the boat from but sometimes more than the required amount of exercise to get to. Such is the experience here at Jouarre.
We travelled on to the lovely town of Meaux, which boasts a very nice port with power and water supplied by the Port Autonome de Paris on large floating pontoons in the centre of town. Meaux runs a very good and very big annual pageant each Friday and Saturday night during summer. We arrived in time for the final performance but unhappily all the tickets had been sold. so while we could explore the town and the performance areas during the day, we were unable to repeat our enjoyment of the show 3 years earlier.
In our tour of the town we also discovered and inspected the lovely museum which at the time featured a WWI exposition. Aimed at the level of the ‘Poilus’ (French foot soldier) it contained many real exhibits and fascinating films. The gardens behind the museum, formerly the bishop’s palace, are also a delight, employing a small army of town gardeners. The range of floral displays and the variety of exotic, brightly coloured plants is really amazing by comparison with the sun drenched environment of Australia.
In making Peter’s return arrangements we discovered there is a bus direct to the Aeroport Charles de Gaulle that left every hour and cost peanuts by comparison with trains via Paris and took half the time direct to terminal 1 or 2. We took the short walk from the port to the Gare on the morning of Peter’s flight and ensured he was on the right bus to arrive at the airport in plenty of time to undertake the security measures now in place for international flights.
Our English friends, Bob and Carol arrived in town on their barge (built by Bob) ‘Carol-Ann’. We ended up in another round of social occasions - as usual.
On to Paris as we had Lesley Wiles, a friend from Perth’s Rotary Club joining us for 10 days. We planned to retrace the voyage we had just taken for her trip, back into Champagne but with a couple of days in Paris first to give her the feel of the ‘City of Light’. As usual we stopped at the quay at Pont Sully overnight before moving on to the Port at Grenelle the next morning. Now this is actually not allowed since the quay there is for boats waiting for the lights allowing river traffic into Paris to turn green at 25 minutes to the hour. We stayed there some years back until after a week, a town council officer and the river police asked us to move as they were preparing the area for a fishing expo. As this area features night time entertainment in the riverside park, we have used the area on all our visits to Paris, before relocating to Grenelle. The advantage of the official port is the quayside supply of power and water which is necessary in preparation for guests.
Lesley arrived early on Tuesday, fresh from the airport and unerringly made her way by RER and Metro to the Bir Hakim Metro station near to the port. In order to meet her and escort her to Van Nelle, I had walked along the Seine to the Musee d’Orsay as I had found one entrance to the RER station closed. While I was walking, Lesley found Maureen who by chance was returning from the boulangerie and they made it back to the boat before I got to the correct station entrance.
After a brief orientation of the boat and the operation of such necessary appliances as the vacuum pump operated toilet the girls departed for L’Open Tour of Paris followed by a visit to the d’Orsay. I elected for a view of the flesh spots of Montmartre and Pigalle not having had the chance before. Later, reunited on the boat, we celebrated Lesley’s arrival with aperitifs of (of course) Champagne and then took the Metro to Rue Mouffetard, our favourite eating centre on the Left Bank behind the Sorbonne.
During the day I had also taken the time to visit the Singapore Airlines office to buy two return tickets to Australia, as this year for the first time since I left in 2001 I will enjoy part of the summer in Perth.
The next morning we were off, direction Meaux, past the fabulous riverside sights of Paris; the Tour Eiffel, Invalides, Musee d’Orsay, the Louvre, the Treasury, Notre Dame, Isle St Louis and much more. An hour after leaving the quay at Grenelle we were out of Paris centre and by mid afternoon, tied up in the port at Meaux.
Retracing our ‘steps’ we travelled back to Ferte sous Jouarre where the girls visited the Abbaye before departing for a couple of days at Chateau Thierry to discover the Musee of Jean de la Fontaine. Jean, a famous son of that town was best known for his hundreds of ‘Fables’ starring animals as the protagonists. He was also ‘Keeper of the Forests’ and as such had to entertain visiting dignitaries, which he did to the death of his wealth, ending up bankrupt. His house is now the site of his museum.
On this trip we decided to take the right turn on the Marne to visit Epernay. Bob and Carol had mentioned a silo (unused) just past the Tennis Club (the port of exorbitant price reputation), so we cruised past the club and found the old silo quay perfect for our purposes and moored there to enable our visit to the town and to the very stylish Moet et Chandon caves.
Pronounced with the T if spoken as Moet et Chandon, or without if only Moet Chandon is used, this cave and its attendant buildings are very attractive. M&C was a great favourite of Napoleon who visited often enough for the proprietors to build two town houses opposite each other - one for Napoleon, the other for Josephine. They are still there, in the sumptuous gardens, used now as offices. The visite du caves á Moet et Chandon is more a wander with poetry than a serious explanation of their wine making but our young female Japanese guide was gorgeous and charming, spoke beautiful English and liked a drink. We were right at home with her later in the private ‘Regatta Room’ in which we had our tasting of 6 glasses of different types. On leaving we bought a demi sec for use with dinner that night and enjoyed the sweetness of it thoroughly.
Tours sur Marne was our next stop. Our timing brought us to their caves right in the middle of the ‘vendage’ (harvest) so they were extremely busy. They agreed however to my suggestion (made by phone some time before our rendezvous) that I would buy a bottle of their very special Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs which we would be presented with to taste. We could then buy what we wanted and depart happily with the least disruption to their production schedule. Of course they were so gracious they not only followed that plan but they also presented us with juice for the current pressing (beautiful and very sweet) and refused to take payment for the B de B. We bought serious quantities of the same and staggered under its weight back to the boat for dinner.
Reims was the next and final stop for Lesley who enjoyed further discoveries at Mumm with more champers before we explored the rest of the town and made a booking at Brasserie Flo for a final dinner. Unfortunately this was disrupted by a very rude Maitre’d who insisted on making an argument over my request for a fresh glass as the one provided was cracked. We enjoyed the meal, disliked him, warmed a little to our waiter but decided if the Maitre was to remain there we would not chose the establishment again.
All too soon it was time for Lesley’s departure and we arranged for her to go direct to the airport using the limo service (a 6 seat people mover) which was the easiest, most direct and (almost) the least expensive method. We were again moored canal side and in front of Renaissance, the 24m Luxemotor of New Zealander Ted Blomfield and his partner Barbara, but with jobs to do Maureen and I decided to head for Sillery for a couple of days.
2 - 30 Oct - 2004
In the past four weeks we had a very busy time, entertaining three sets of guests, travelling from Cambrai in the north of France, down through Champagne, on to Paris and back to Champagne at Reims. On the 2nd of October we found ourselves with a couple of days free before our next guest, American Steve Beierlein who was to arrive on the 6th. Time to do the washing, clean the boat, even do a bit of remedial painting of the rubbing strakes on both sides as they had received a few grazes.
We arrived at the small port of Sillery, just out of Reims, for this rest period and found the port all but deserted but the power and water still operating. Many small ports close down completely after August so we were pleased to have the services, but found to our dismay that the port had been fenced and there was no way out for the scooter. We planned to use the little Peugeot, 49cc motor scooter to get back into Reims and out to a couple of the nearby tourist attractions. However, one boat still in the port was owned and operated by a small rental company and the manager was preparing it for clients. We inquired about the gate and he happily produced a key for us with instructions to just leave it in a nearby letterbox before we left. There they go again, the French being nice.
During the next day or two we noticed small aeroplanes passing overhead, obviously in their landing patterns - there must be an airport nearby with training facilities I thought! Once I established that fact I decided to visit the same to check out if a flight was possible. I did and it was. On the Monday therefore I scootered over, arranged the details and with a female flight instructor, walked to the designated Cessna 152. She advised that she had externally pre-flighted the aircraft and indicated the left (command) seat for me. I took the hint and after arranging the seat and harness began the engine and systems pre-flight checklist.
I was somewhat surprised therefore when, half way through, she leaned over me and switched the engine start key on. I hurriedly completed the first checks as she told me to taxi and radioed the tower. We had not gone more than 50 metres when we both heard an almighty bang from the front of the aircraft and I stood on the brakes and cut the engine. We de-planed to find the tow hitch had not been detached to the front undercarriage and while taxiing had obviously bounced up into the path of the propeller. During the next 30 minutes as instructors and management remonstrated and sucked teeth, I, left somewhat on my own, wandered off to find the missing two parts of the tow hitch, located some 50 metres from the impact point and directly in line with the club rooms on their spectator lawn. I’m glad it was not the weekend as kids had been playing there on Sunday. A short while later they gave me my money back and suggested a flight would not be occurring that day. I left. I should have obeyed my instincts to stop the whole performance when my pre-flight was aborted. Next time I will not be bullied and overruled by a supposedly experienced senior instructor.
With the few days spare I finally had the chance to get into Paris to pick up my repaired video camera. We had left it there some months earlier. A half hour by scooter into Reims, one and a half hours train to Paris, an hour to get the Metro and walk to the repair office and then the repeat on the way back - almost a whole day for such a simple task.
It was at this time that on my way back to Sillery from Reims I stopped at Ted Blomfield’s 24m Luxemotor barge in Reims to find that he had just had the misfortune to have dropped his scooter in the canal as his crane cable had given way. Fortunately the skipper of the commercial moored nearby rushed to his aid with a rope and some extra muscle and it was rescued. Shortly after I arrived, Alain, the restauranteur who owns the boat under conversion just behind Ted’s, arrived to assist with the drying out and re-starting of the waterlogged Vespa. As I was pretty much a spare part I left for the trip back to Sillery on our (dry) scooter.
Having completed my trip to Paris and our preparations it was time to get the boat back to Reims for Steve’s arrival on the Wednesday and to arrange for him to be collected from the airport by the local limo / bus service. As a result of Ted’s scooter misfortune however, we all had to go to Alain’s restaurant before attending a Mozart Requiem concert at the St Remi Basilica. Alain specialises in seafood, especially oysters. The seven of us ordered a large plate of huge oysters followed by a range of seafood main courses. French oysters are truly sumptuous, big, succulent and full of fresh sea water flavour.
Steve arrived late on the Wednesday afternoon, in time for the abovementioned oyster binge and Mozart concert. The next day was planned as a tourist day in Reims for Steve, so we found our way to the now very familiar Piper Heidsieck Champagne cellars and took a walk through town before lunch. We planned to depart immediately after lunch to Tours sur Marne, away from the noise and confusion of the city. We had no sooner caste off all but the bow line when the remote engine gear / throttle control in the wheelhouse broke. I found myself in mid channel with no gear selection available. We therefore had to pull the boat back into the mooring using the only line we still had on. Inspection of the remote revealed a sealed system with no user serviceable parts within. Typical.
A new Vetus remote control was required - but from where, and how long would this all take ? I got on the phone to Vetus Holland - they gave me numbers for Vetus France - but they were at Toulon on the Mediterranean, somewhat further away than Marseilles. This was not looking good. I got on the Vetus website and established the identity of the part required and rang Toulon, was passed to an English speaking (sort of) assistant who established they had no parts available. Ah, but their subsidiary did and perhaps could get it to Vitry le Francois (65km from Reims) the next day, if the chantier there would fax an order to them that day. I made a call to the chantier (workshop) and was assured the manager would immediately order the part. From there I had to operate on trust as I hired a car for the next day and 24 hours later we all drove to Vitry.
As we arrived (the others having come for the ride) the manager welcomed us with the good news that he had received a part, but was it the correct one ? A quick tearing open of the wrapping revealed a brand new single lever operating control and we were back on the road to Reims. Within half an hour of our return, the control was installed and checked. We could leave the next morning.
The next morning bright and early we cruised out of Reims and on to Tours sur Marne where I had arranged a Champagne tasting at L’Amiable, and as usual, we bought almost the complete output of their cellars to place under the guest bed. During that day and indeed the next few, Steve, after due instruction, displayed some skill on the wheel, getting us into and out of locks without panic and through the canals smoothly. He also took to the life, enjoying the daily routines and the onboard hospitality.
A night’s stop canal side at Pinon as three commercials had taken our normal place (there is a supermarket right next to the small port - very popular with the wives), then onto Jussy for a long walk up hill to the chateau at Courcy le Chateau. On this occasion everything at Courcy was open so visiting the towers and the grounds of the ruined fortress was easily undertaken.
We continued our cruise that afternoon in order to arrive at the Riqueval tunnel just 40 minutes before towing time, just enough time to charge up the hill to the Musee de Touage. This small museum is actually inside one of the old electric tugs that operated the towing service through the 6 kilometre tunnel until the 60s. It was built in 1902 and was replaced by the current tug in 1912 ! The interior is restored to ‘as it was’ condition with mannequins and motors, photos and displays, all showing the workings of the boat and the tunnel through time.
From Riqueval to Cambrai is a day’s travel but we had travelled some distance the night before and we arrived at our new home port at 1.00pm. We had discussed Steve’s onward plans and suggested that it would be foolish of him to come to France for the first time and not spend a day in Paris. We therefore arranged a night at the Hotel St Jacques on the left bank near the Sorbonne and a full day of tourist activities for him to indulge in. So, the next morning the taxi arrived bright and early (wish I could have said the same of the weather) and off to the Gare de Cambrai for his transfer to Paris. Another happy camper satisfied with his time on the French canals.
Again we had only a short while before the arrival of our next guests, the inimitable Admiral Ian Palmer and Lady Helen who arrived just after the washing the next day, ready for a cruise to Belgium, then a couple of days on the St Quentin canal (from whence we had just come), followed by a day trip to the WWI museums in Peronne and Compiegne.
The day they arrived, so did the circus. At 10.30 that night we heard the loud sounds of many trucks, caravans and other conveyances descending on port park. The next morning all hell broke loose as they fought us for our water supply, plugged into our electricity and blocked in cars. They also poured their effluent into the canal and left enormous amounts or rubbish and wreckage when they departed 3 days later - again in the middle of the night. The water fight is worth mentioning.
For some reason the town council decrees that the port gets its water turned on at the only tap on Mondays and Thursdays from 9.00am until 5.00pm. That requires us to combine all our hoses to stretch the water supply to each boat in order to top up tanks. We were of course waiting for our Monday supply when the circus workers installed their own fittings to our tap, cutting us off. We reversed the procedure, inciting the wife of the operator to riot. She screamed for him and he duly arrived with a couple of heavies, but was unable to move us from our sentry positions. He was also totally unwilling to listen to our advice that after we had finished he could have access - for his animals (yeah right !). At one point he actually threatened to hit me but backed off after I didn’t flinch or melt in front of him and an uneasy truce reigned for some hours. Their later effort to again interrupt our supply was frustrated by the captain of the port until we had indeed finished. It was then agreed to leave the water supply on for the duration of their stay. An uneasy peace broke out.
The first day of the Palmer’s cruise was taken entering Belgium and carrying away some 1,000 litres of their excellent and inexpensive red, untaxed diesel fuel. We accomplished the task despite being caught behind a very slow commercial barge for much of the morning and after filling up we returned to France overnight in the hope that we could take a small canal to the city of Douai the next morning. After breakfast we carefully entered the canal and were stopped cold at the first lock after scraping through what seemed more and more to be an unused waterway. Our phone calls to the VNF from the ecluse brought exactly that information, so we had to turn the boat and return to the major canal in order to retrace our steps to Cambrai and further.
We only just managed the reverse of direction, since the lock was paired next to an equal size barrage that effectively doubled the width of the canal immediately in front of the lock. We had about 2 metres to spare - one at the bow and one at the stern as we backed and filled Van Nelle 180 degrees. As this lock was about 4 kilometres down a windy and very narrow, overgrown canal section, I don’t know how we would have been able to get out if we could not have turned Van Nelle around. Reversing that far would have been a nightmare.
The St Quentin Canal is very pleasant, furnished with double locks, wide leafy stretches, quiet pretty towns and a good supply of little shops and restaurants along the way to the Riqueval Tunnel and beyond to St Quentin. We chose to go only about half the distance to Riqueval so we could turn at a lock served by a hand operated ‘peche de commande’. This meant we could turn immediately in front of a lock where the canal widens without alerting an automatic operating mechanism by having passed through radar detectors that are used to operate many of these ecluses.
On the way to Cambrai we stopped for the night at the fortress town of Bourchain. Early the next morning an idiot commercial skipper decided to test our mooring lines by running at full speed just off our beam. Needless to say, the extreme suction snapped a 20 tonne breaking strain rope and our bow was sucked into the channel, nearly hitting his vessel. He continued on his way looking decidedly pale. After sorting out that episode, we proceeded to Masniers and there, Admiral Ian and I came across a local soccer game. Very exciting action, especially since the local team triumphed with a one handed goal after about 70 minutes, against the run of play. We celebrated with a Champagne aperitif on return to VN. We had now tried some 5 or 6 different brands and qualities, from Palmer, Mumm and L’Amiable. Their Brut and Grand Cru, the Millesime 99 Brut de Brut and Mumm’s Carte Classique (the American blend) plus the great Palmer Amazone - their top drop.
Arriving back in Cambrai we were relieved to see the circus had indeed gone, they had sneaked out the previous night between midnight and dawn - they must have known we were returning and were unwilling to face me again. A quick bit of water filling and some drinks with Tag and Enid from our neighbouring boat and we finished the cruise with a chicken BBQ washed down with a couple of well chosen Burgundies (red and white).
The next day we picked up a hire car and set off for the Historial Museum at Peronne and further, to Compiegne to visit the Chateau Royale and the Armistice Carriage in the forest of Compiegne. Unfortunately Compiegne was closed - both the Chateau and the Carriage musee..... !!!!! We often grumble about Fermé Lundi (the French habit of having Monday off) but this town obviously has Tuesday off, which caught us out.
Anyway - we had a good day out, especially since by chance we discovered the glorious Chateau at Pierrefonds. This was ruined by Richelieu on orders from Louis XIV as it was too grand but by order of Napoleon III it was completely rebuilt and it is REALLY amazing. It stands in a very pretty village that has charming little electric boats for hire on a clear, still lake that reflects the local hills. Above the village nestled in the valley towers the Chateau. Huge, ornate, imposing. A fantasy castle just like the one in the Disney opening credits of yesteryear’s TV shows. Inside it is every bit as wonderful to behold as the incredible exterior. This is one amazing place - and we have seen many in France !
We returned along the Auto route and later enjoyed a quiet dinner at the Relais St Remi, a favourite restaurant in Cambrai. The next morning, the Palmers, another couple of happy campers, boarded their train to make connections through to London and to take a rest from the hectic taste and feel sensations of life aboard Van Nelle. We also deserved a break, and so followed the longest stretch of AFDs (alcohol free days) we had this year - 3 whole days !
Life is now in ‘winter preparation’ mode. Except the day we took Bill and Sylvia out for a day of barge handling instruction prior to their PP certificate and Barge Handling course with Tam and Di Murrell, there at Cambrai. Sylvia (Columbian but a US citizen) is married to Bill (a native Californian) who was converting the small Dutch barge (14 metres) they bought from Bob and Bobby Marsland. They planned to begin cruising during the next year. The thought of helming Friesland - Tam and Di Murrell’s 25m Luxemotor, was beginning to spook them so I suggested a day cruise to give them some preparation - and confidence.
All went well until I decided to leave Sylvia to her own devices in the wheelhouse on her last lock approach - a sort of confidence booster. Well the chain of events from then included her approaching the lock too quickly, putting the boat back into forward gear when entering the lock and increasing the speed, then not taking the boat out of gear, Maureen capturing a bollard with the bow line and almost melted it while using it to slow the boat down, the boat therefore making an abrupt right turn into the wall and unfortunately, into the command rods which operate the lock. One bent and one disconnected as a result of the shock which also raised the automatic system alarm down at canal headquarters.
We quickly repaired the break but were unable to effect full repairs to the bent section before the VNF arrived to take an interest in the affair. Well, we sorted out the details on arrival back in port - after all it was only a couple of bent bits of metal rod, no big deal and the VNF offered to provide a repair estimate before we might involve our insurance company. The VNF supervisor arrived a couple of days later with the bill - €193.00. We paid cash to everyone’s satisfaction and I guess they will put a plaque on the lock with my name on it !
Monday 15 November saw some excitement nearby - a woman’s body was discovered on the nearby towpath and the place was crawling with gendarmes and forensic officers from the early hours. It was on the other side of the canal to the marina but near enough for the locals to gain sketchy information. It was apparently not to be treated as suspicious as the unfortunate woman appeared not to have been molested but had probably died of exposure. There are many homeless people throughout France despite their encompassing socialist welfare practices. Many are immigrants, most are illegal since the borders are now extremely porous throughout Europe.
Chapter Twelve - End of 2004 and a trip to Australia
The end of 2004 was marked by a great difference for me since for the first time in almost 4 years I was to go back to Perth for the four months of the European winter. No struggling with the cold, snow, ice, driving sleet or fogs. No struggling with French conversation but also, no choir and the contact with many generous and friendly locals in the community. However there are compensations - sparkling white beaches; clear, fresh, clean oceans, Rottnest Island, crayfish (lobsters), fishing, the south-west wine areas, Aussie friends, BBQs, Australian wine, flying and our families.
Our son Sean announced we were to be Grandparents - I was not too sure how I felt about this as I was sure I was not old enough to be a ‘Grandfather’. He and partner Lisa were expecting in February so the timing is perfect as we will be in Perth until the end of March. Time enough to get clucky I suppose. We will also see his Sean’s younger brother, our second son Simon and his girlfriend Jacinta as we are sponsoring their return to Perth from Melbourne for the Christmas season. With Maureen’s parents and her brothers and my sisters we will have a full time job just catching up with them, let alone with all our friends.
So, preparation time between the end of the cruising season, basically the end of October and our departure date 25 November - our wedding anniversary date ! Must be auspicious. We have booked to stay at the Hotel St Jacques on the left bank in Paris as our plane leaves too early on the 25th to get from Cambrai to Paris and make the 3 hour anti terrorist check-in on the same day.
Winterising the boat took several days and had to be carefully planned so that we ran out of water in the tanks on the day of departure so they would not freeze. We had a specialist change the water in the central heating system to antifreeze and to do several other small maintenance jobs. The engines required our Holt’s Block Soudure coolant to be drained and anti freeze inserted. Sea cocks all to be closed, batteries to be topped up and electrical systems to be closed down except for the battery charger and the central heating system switched to its antifreeze mode.
Many parties and drinks sessions before leaving with the crew here in port. Tam and Di, Tag, John and Valerie, Alistair, Bill and Sylvia, John and Marietta and our boat guardian while we are away - Bob Smalldon. And then it was time to go.
Departure day was marked by Bob driving us to the station and just after he left us, Maureen discovering she had left her make-up case on the boat. Hurried phone calls and Bob arriving back with the case minutes before the train departed. After our arrival in Paris and the St Jacques Hotel there was time to wander familiar streets before taking the metro to Rue Mouffetard for dinner and then a good night’s sleep before the RER trek to the airport the next day and, after some discussion with the Singapore Airlines seating supervisor, getting our favourite seats unblocked for us for the flight to Singapore. Extra leg room for the first leg but disappointment on entering the Boeing 777 for Perth as we found we were seated in the back with standard leg room. Oh well - it was only 6 hours !
We take sleeping pills in order to rest on the long leg from Paris to Singapore so after a movie and a meal, pop the pill and settle into the seat to sleep. 30 minutes, 45, 60 - no sleep. OK pop another sleeping pill - still nothing. Damn. More movies and very scratchy eyes on arrival. Oh well, all the best laid plans .......the pills must be placebos !
On our arrival in Perth there was family at the airport, hellos and arrangements made to meet later and then off with Sean to his townhouse in Subiaco to stay with he and Lisa for some bonding time before moving into the house that our friends the Livingstones had generously loaned to us for the entire 4 months. Some shopping to do for both houses as there was a shortage of tables (we bought three) and chairs (we bought 10) and barbecues (we bought two).
So many things to do and see, so many friends to catch up with - and a hopeful plan to do some income generating work as well. Of course there were meetings with Rotarian friends to arrange meetings with potential contractors and Maureen went off to work with the youth environmental group ‘Millennium Kids’. I was asked to consider a contract with the Police Union and the Australian Opera Studio to propose profile and fund raising ideas - the result - one contract - to arrange a large opera spectacular at Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club for a year hence.
Then it was Christmas. The boys and their ladies arrived at our little bungalow with heaps of presents and wines. Good times and hot days. Indeed and amazingly - almost a white Christmas - as we had a truly spectacular hail storm which covered the back lawn with white ice crystals on Christmas eve. After Christmas we were off to Rottnest Island for a week. Sean’s friend James and he had organised a number of houses, some friends and few oldies - us - and James’ boat. I bought and licensed a couple of craypots to catch the local lobsters and on arrival we laid them. Unfortunately after the first day the boys were not too keen in the early mornings to go out to pull the craypots for the crayfish that had, in any case probably been raided by the earlier and not so legal kids from the main bay. I think their early tardiness had something to do with the amount of beer consumed each evening. We laid the pots near the island at the entrance to the main bay and there they stayed - they are probably still there.
New Years eve on Rottnest Island saw the younger team creating a fairyland setting on the front lawn of the cottage with many candles in brown paper bags lighting the outdoor bacchanal while several roast legs of lamb with lots of Veuve Clicquot and Margaret River Chardonnay were produced. Passing revellers wondered if they could join in.
After a lazy week on the island we were back to the mainland for meetings with the Opera and trips out to the Airport at Jandakot to brush up my flying skills and to take my bi-annual pilot’s flight review and to start my endorsement of retractable undercarriage and constant speed propeller units on the Cessna 182 at the Royal Aero Club. Unfortunately this was punctuated by fights with the new instructress - with us finally agreeing to change her for a more understanding senior instructor and finally I achieved good passes in both disciplines.
Transport was made simple by us having bought a Ford Fairmont Ghia (1989 version) that mostly worked and proved cheap transport for the period since we sold it the day before we left for $ 1,000 less than we bought it. $ 250 per month or about $ 40 per week for a big car that took us all over the south of the state in comfort and safety. I also bought a Yamaha Virago 250cc motorbike which gave me great service for the 4 months and so much pleasure I decided to keep it. I still have it and it gives me good, cheap transport.
January, February and March saw us busy with constant social engagements, trips south to Eagle Bay for a Grande Bouche dinner with ten friends at Ian and Helen Palmer’s grand seaside castle and for the final dinner of the Golden Wing sailing fraternity - a group of geriatric Laser sailors. In March we took a flight south to Albany with Adrian and Leslie in their Cessna 182 and stayed at Vancouver Guest house - reminiscent of my many sojourns there doing the Centenary of Federation Festival and ANZAC Dawn Service in 2001.
The big event of course was the arrival of Elle Alexandra McDaniell on 28 February 2005. 6lbs and 13ozs and 51cm long - 20 inches. Perfect little girl since she was delivered by Caesarean section as Lisa had a placenta previa problem - not even a vague resemblance to Winston Churchill to be seen!
We were there in strength of course - Judy and Keith (Lisa’s parents), Sean (in the delivery theatre) and us, all with cameras (video and digital). The hospital’s official photographer took one look, shrugged and departed without a word. Within an hour both Mum and baby were in the private room with us, Elle having had a battery of tests and being pronounced perfect.
Besotted grandparents were now in great profusion for the next several weeks before Keith departed back to Queensland with Judy to staying on until after the day we left on March 27.
During the whole period in Perth we had about 4 nights ‘at home’ with the chance to just have left overs and stare vaguely at the TV. It became almost silly towards the end of the period, as dinner dates filled the time completely to be augmented by breakfast and lunch arrangements in order to get through the lists of people to see and farewell.
I conducted some more work, consulting for the Alzheimer’s Association but had a shock as the opera company announced that it could not continue. Arrangements had been made for the gala in March 2005 which I had developed for them and the Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club but since they would have to contract the orchestra immediately and - if the concert was cancelled - they would stand the risk of having to pay out the entire orchestra, even though they would not play. Ah well, these things sometimes happen and at least I don’t have the worry of the event clouding the 2005 cruising season.
Our plans for the forthcoming year include travelling up through Belgium to the Netherlands - first to Rotterdam to have the boat painted and some work done to the stern gland and rudder post and to enable us to thoroughly research the history of Van Nelle since the Van Nelle Museum is in Rotterdam as is the Dutch ship registry ! We also have two very good friends living 30 minutes from the centre of Rotterdam, Marcus and Els Leguijt, who we met on our first journey from Amsterdam to St Jean de Losne in 2001. It seems right to have them as part of our 2005 and possibly final season.
So, all we have to do is navigate our way through the amazing maze of canals and rivers to Rotterdam, then on to Amsterdam, north to Friesland, east to Germany and finally back into Burgundy - hopefully through Strasbourg before a busy period of cruises in Burgundy, Champagne, possibly Paris and back to St Jean de Losne.
Who knows what the year may hold ?
Chapter Thirteen - 2005 - The Netherlands
Our arrival back in France immediately followed our departure from Perth at 4.00pm on Easter Sunday for Singapore and then on to Paris, arriving at 7.00am on Monday 28 March for the transit to Gare Paris Nord and the 11.00 train to Douai with a change on to the rattler to Cambrai. Bob, who delivered us to the train on our way out, was there to meet us and take us to Van Nelle which had survived easily over the four months of winter and showed no resentment for having been left in the cold.
Coming back was accompanied by a sense of relief for a number or reasons. I had been at the bedside of an old friend in Perth during her last hour of life and another friend, the father of a school friend, had also been hospitalised with heart issues at 86, but happily had returned to his home and his wife soon after I spent some time with him in his hospital room at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. It was also a feeling of coming home. We had been given good seats on both flights and the sleeping pills given to us had worked this time.
Only some of the crew from the Port Cantimpré were in residence, Bob of course since he was here for the whole winter, Bill and Sylvia having arrived back from their summer in South America, California and Florida, John and Valerie having arrived back some days earlier and Alastair having been here for a week or so. Tam and Di, John and Marietta and Bob and Bobby were still in England and one of the other owners, John, having been diagnosed with cancer remained in the UK. That did not reduce the obligatory social occasions with a couple of dinners and drinks sessions immediately being arranged.
Several jobs were necessary on arrival. Half an hours worth of water had been put in the boat for our return by Bob Smalldon so another 3 hours was required to fill the tanks, at the same time the decks needed urgent cleaning as the black gunk from traffic, dust and other sources had built up and they were very grubby. The dinghy had leapt off the cabin top during a wild wind storm so the repairs I had made to the damage sustained in Loosdrecht before we set sail for France in 2001 had come apart. That can wait. The engines needed to be returned to operation by priming the external cooling water systems, replacing antifreeze with Holt’s Block Soudure in the main engine and both it and the generator engine had to be serviced. A couple of days work followed and pretty soon things were looking a little more ship-shape.
Dutch friends, true to their word have sent us some charts to assist us in our voyage north to Rotterdam and Bill had a giant map of the entire waterways of Europe, including the way to the Bosphorus and into Russia. This I photocopied and spent some time studying to work out our best routes. The big question will be whether we can get into Belgium before being asked by the French authorities where our 2005 Peage (waterways tax certificate) is. Maybe I can get a one day ticket in Douai early in the week in order to get us out of France and into Belgium.
The Peage is paid each year and is available for a year, three months, a week or a day. Working out what you need is balanced by the fact that the next step up is not much more than the previous certificate cost. For example a year’s cruising cost us about € 400, 3 months about € 350, a week about € 100 and a day € 60. Sometimes it is better to take the greater period if you are unsure since buying a second period costs heaps more. We were not sure if we would spend any time in France as we were planning to cruise extensively in the Low Countries before returning at the end of the season fro a quick run to St Jean de Losne.
Before we left, John and Valerie were to leave and since they were on the inside of us in the port we needed to turn the boats so we were able to depart. That was to be Monday or Tuesday’s job. During this last couple of days we also had a few local events to attend, a Salon Gourmandise - at which we bought wine, truffles, ham, foie gras, cakes and cheese, and an antique fair - at which we bought nothing, there being no glasses of the kind I collected ! I later found some in Paris, now at 4 times the price I started buying antique crystal wine glasses at 4 years earlier.
So, just a couple of days to go. Adventures ahead !!!!
April - May 2005
We bought a one day Peage and departed Cambrai to Antoing across the Belgian border where we bought 650 litres of red fuel to send us on our way north, as we headed into our exploration of Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, before returning to France through Strasbourg (to meet friends) and Burgundy, the end of our 5 summers of cruising the waterways.
We headed north this year for three reasons. Van Nelle was born and is registered in the Netherlands and as it was now 4 years (but 5 summers) since we bought the ship, it was time to have a survey and do some ‘out-of-the-water’ maintenance. Our belief is that Holland is the best place to have that done. The second reason, like the first, is the connection to the Netherlands, the place VN spent all her life before we took her south. It was obvious that we would discover more about her in Holland and we wanted to prove her provenance for our records and for new owners. The third reason was to explore the Low Countries, areas we had not spent time in except for Bruges, Gent and Brussels briefly in 2004.
We made arrangements to have the boat surveyed and for any work required to be done at Van Grevenstein’s yard, just out of Rotterdam, so first off we headed in that direction through a number of small but interesting towns that lie along the canals and rivers in our path. We stayed overnight at Antoing after fuelling and moved on through Halle via the amazing ‘ascenseurs’ at Streppy-Thieu and Ronquieres. These are giant mechanical lifts that take boats up 50 metres at a time, by-passing dozens of old locks, now defunct.
Like shower taps in hotels which it seems all have to be different, the French and Belgians seem to have tried to outdo each other in designing and building new ways to get boats from one level to another, especially where great heights were required. The first were structures supporting great boxes (caissons) of water into which boats entered, were lifted or lowered and then exited. These worked well for a number of years until one collapsed leading the authorities to create the inclined plane - where a caisson was pulled up a 40 degree slope, the ascenseur where hundreds of cables lifted caissons up a tower, the Pente d’Eau where a giant double tractor pushed water (and boats) up a concrete trench and others of similar but different designs. There is even a giant water wheel like design in Scotland !
Brussels has a great name but as a place for boaties it is a bit of a con as the only place one is allowed to stay is at the Brussels Royal Yacht Club, and they certainly know how to charge - about 2.60 Euro per metre per day - and we are 27 metres. We advised we would stay one night and maybe another to be decided on the Sunday morning. As the office was closed on the weekend that (as it happened) gave us a second day free as the bar staff refused to charge us. It was as well as we heard some strange noises very early the next morning and, passing them off as the next boat, ignored them until the smell of smoke made it imperative to investigate. We found to our horror that the water pump was melting and giving off dense smoke as the insulation immolated. A quick douse from the fire extinguisher by Maureen and the power cut off by me and the situation was under control, although we were now sans water and doused under a blanket of blue powder from the extinguisher.
I keep spares of key items and one was a brand new water pump, so, after a couple of hours cleaning out the blue extinguisher powder, I installed the new pump and everything tested fine. We have no idea why the pump overheated. It is a very expensive, run dry, thermal protected piece of equipment and supposedly impervious to excess heat. A mystery never explained but one that made us think about what could happen if the boat was unattended when it happened.
While in Brussels we took the nearby tram to town and I explored at leisure the excellent aviation museum in Brussels which I had visited before but, arriving at 4.00 in the afternoon on that occasion, had not the time to digest. Maureen went in the opposite direction to the art gallery.
The aviation museum and adjoining motor museums are amazing, containing in the first, complete jet passenger planes and everything from the Wright Flyer through to a modern FA 18 fighter jet. The motor (car) museum has (for example), three of the latest Lamborghinis, since they come in three colours and the museum thought they better have one of each. It has some 200 cars. There is also a military museum with, among thousands of weapons, uniforms and other articles of war, about 20 tanks ! These are buildings worth days rather than hours but when time and adventures press you must away.
Leaving Brussels after two full days and some excitement, our next stops were small towns along the way. Lier where they wanted 14 Euro for the night but with no facilities except bollards (we moved immediately to the other side of the canal which was free) and Lommel which is a pretty town with a new port where no-one came to see us to take payment (which we would have been happy to pay) and where we passed into the Netherlands. Arriving at the entry canal at Helmond, the lock was unattended, so we tied up, ate, slept and reversing direction, left the next morning by the main canal into s’Hertogenbosch - or Den Bosch as it is commonly referred to.
I should make another comment about paying for moorings as it sounds like sour grapes to ‘have to pay’. There is no commonality of costs across the waterways or countries. For people like us who pay annual fees and winter mooring fees, travelling constantly in between can be expensive if all ports charge (say) € 30 a night, especially if all they are providing is some space. A month would cost some € 900 - at that time nearly $1500 - a month. Multiply that by the 7 months of cruising weather and it would be over $ 10,000. This is not paid by rental boats or locals who use the waterways and therefore we feel a bit aggrieved unless they offer a welcome and pretty location with facilities such as water and electricity. Many French towns have realised that offering good ports means attracting many visitors who keep their dwindling local populations going by supporting local shops which otherwise would close - as they have in many places.
At Den Bosch we found a good spot on the outskirts, un-shipped the scooter and spent a couple of days exploring the museums and general attractions of the city. Our stop here gave us time to get some funds transferred to our Dutch bank account and also arrange for 4 new batteries to be installed in Werkendam, the place they are made, just near the entry to Rotterdam where we were heading for the shipyard nearby at Krimpen. The Dutch produce brilliant batteries for boats at very reasonable cost so we took advantage of their most powerful together with their offer to install them and a special diode that enabled the engine batteries to be recharged but stopped their power being used by the domestic systems. This ensures we always have power to start the engine, which in turn provides power to recharge the house batteries in case they run down as does the generator or shore power, thus providing yet another layer of ‘fail safe’ over the system.
So, on to a tiny yacht club in Werkendam for the batteries. We perched precariously on the outside piles of their marina but had access to power and an easy access for the battery installer and our bikes, which we used to explore the area and go shopping. A young chap arrived on the Monday morning and we proceeded to take off four old cells and replace them with the big, new ones. He did all the work of installing them (which is a bugger of a job I had done several times before). I was grateful for his assistance and the new highly charged power cells. We were there a couple of days as the other systems were installed and so had occasion to observed the locals Sunday customs.
Traditional or fundamental Dutch religious culture prohibits the use of any modern technology on the Sunday so parishioners don their black suits and hats and walk to church. We observed local families driving to the port (which was nearer the church than their homes but was out of sight of it), and then walk the short distance to the church. I had to wonder what their children thought that was all about. Another example of Dutch practicality.
Now it was time to mix it with the real ships, as, entering Rotterdam is entering one of the biggest ports in the world - and the ships really do come right into the city. We skirted the edge of the huge waterway on our way to the access canal to the Van Grevenstein shipyard and on arrival, tied up across the two finger wharfs that give access to their slips. Here we stayed for several days before it was our turn to go up for survey and maintenance work. Once on the slip it was impossible to live properly on Van Nelle due to its great fore and aft angle, so we were very grateful for the offer of Marcus and Else Leguit’s spare bedroom, their company and one of their company cars - for the time we needed them, at their home in Dinterlord, about 35 minutes drive from the shipyard.
We had selected Van Grevenstein’s after a deal of research as they would allow us to do some of the work ourselves - an arrangement not permitted in some to protect their worker’s income. It was a large and well respected yard with history, well used to the older ships like Van Nelle, and their quote for the work was reasonable, even inexpensive by French standards. We had arranged for the surveyor through our insurance company so they would be happy with the result - and they actually paid for him to attend.
Once we had settled the boat, the list of jobs to be done and agreed the schedule, we moved to Marcus and Else’s and from then on we were up very early every morning to brave the tough Rotterdam traffic on the way to Grevenstein’s to supervise and conduct activities on Van Nelle. The surveyor found a couple of places where the hull was thinning so we required two new plates to be welded on. We also had the stern gland re-packed, the rudder post and pintle reworked and a new roof built as the old one was de-laminating. We had the hull re-painted and anti-fouled and did some other paint work on the superstructure also while welders installed new hinges on the deck skylights.
Finally, after a short fight with the carpenter about the fact he had not painted the roof and rain threatened, we did that job ourselves while his workers fitted the wet sections and we were finished. I negotiated part cash, part invoice payment terms and having parted with too much money, headed Van Nelle into Rotterdam and the Veerhaven, a marina right in the centre of town.
The practical Dutch realise that taxes are a necessary evil and support their government’s right to impose them. They also respect their right not to pay too much of them and so a system exists (clandestinely) where part payments are made ‘under the desk’ thereby reducing the invoiced and taxed, amount. We completely agree with the public’s procedures and supported them wholeheartedly.
We had also negotiated a reduced rate with Rudolf, the port captain at the Veerhaven in Rotterdam central as we had a ‘historic ship’, not a new fangled vessel - and Rudolf was a very traditional Dutch port captain who wanted historic ships in his harbour. We stayed there several times on the way through Rotterdam and on our return journey. Just 10 minutes to anywhere in town, this is a great place to be to have the time to explore the excellent maritime museum, the port areas and the loads of historic ships that litter the old working areas of the port.
‘Spido’ is the name of a harbour sightseeing company whose boat trip we took to orient ourselves and learn about Rotterdam’s harbour works - an hour and a half of rubber-necking at just some of the huge number of maritime installations of this very busy port. They pointed out what looked like an oil facility with tanker ships unloading. This was where Europe’s supply of orange juice from South America is unloaded and stored !
Some of the other attractions on the waterfront were the Hotel New York, built when the Holland-Amerika Line was busy transporting Dutch immigrants to the new world and now an art deco restaurant complex, Queen Juliana’s 25th Birthday celebrations, including a big street market, street music and dance party, and the Douane Museum - customs and immigration. We also took a trip to the Van Nelle factory - now unused by the company and turned into a business incubator and world heritage site. Unfortunately it was just after the tour (last Sunday of each month) had finished, but we were able to get a contact with the historian and take some pictures and video footage. We later arranged for a full on, proper tour and meeting - but more on that later.
Queen Juliana’s birthday was huge. Thousands - probably millions or Dutch donned orange (their national colour) clothes and took to the streets. Marcus and Els came into town to stay aboard and we all headed off to enjoy the Latin dancers and music, the steetside food stalls and the general street mayhem. Revellers had found all sorts of places to put stages, bands and other entertainers, so it was not hard to find something that you could enjoy - with the occasional cooling ale along the way. We finished the night in a restaurant near the boat and a nightcap on deck before sleeping off the party. The next morning we made a leisurely breakfast with our terrific and very generous guests before they departed for their home and we thought about our own departure.
After cleaning the boat and filling tanks it was time to move on and we departed west for Delft, centre of the famous blue pottery. Arriving near the centre we found an excellent little haven with plenty of space for us and were waved at by other, permanent, users so tied up for a few days. Delft has a number of very interesting museums, the War museum, the Prinsenhof, Vermmeer and Piet Hein’s museum, redolent in Dutch masters and fabulous treasure and an old monastery where an excellent and inexpensive lunch can be had in medieval surroundings. There is also the Royal Delft Pottery factory, which was within 3 minutes walk from Van Nelle’s mooring so we were well served by foot and by bike.
After a pleasant stay at Delft we travelled on to Den Haag - the parliamentary centre of the Netherlands. The Dutch have Amsterdam as the Capital, Rotterdam as the biggest commercial centre and Den Haag as the parliamentary centre - I suppose it works for them. This city also boasts great museums and attractions and was having a Peace Festival when we arrived. We did the Royal Tour which took in the city, the coast area of Scheveningen including its famous diorama and beaches (very cold and wind swept) and the old ‘Kings Hall’ palace of the parliament - highly decorated. We also visited the Maurits Huis where they display fine paintings by Vermeer and Rembrandt among other masters.
We had one amusing incident here as we took the wrong turn going out of the city and found ourselves, on the scooter (max speed 50) on a freeway (minimum speed 100) - oops. The thing was not funny at the time as it was miles before we could get off and then ages to find our way back on side roads. Funny afterwards ! It reminded me of my early days in Holland where only with the help of my portable GPS could I find my way around.
We could have spent more time here, especially at the coast since we did not stop there on the guided tour except for the quick inspection of the diorama, but the weather at the time was cold and windy with some rain - good weather for travelling - so we moved on to Leiden.
When you have been to a few big cities it is really good to get back to smaller towns where it feels like you can cope and control rather than being dwarfed and rushed. Leiden is one such town. It is not a small village, on the contrary it spreads quite wide, but its centre has an unhurried and gentle pace with old, small canals and quiet squares fed by narrow streets filled with small shops. There is a good port where hotel boats stay for a day or two to allow their passengers to explore. Here we met a young couple who had recently bought a 38 metre hotel boat which they ran themselves, catering for up to 20 people at a time - including school groups. They are a lovely couple, battling the economics of boat life and happy to do it. We saw them again in Amsterdam where we had the chance to have drinks with them.
It was Leiden where Rembrandt was born and schooled and there is a museum to that effect. There are also good walking tours and little tourist boats that ply the canals. They make excellent ice cream here as well and the banana split was scrumptious. Another attraction of the Netherlands, especially when your mobile phone will not give you connection to the internet and email, is the provision in every public library of an internet area, many free. By these facilities were we able to remain in contact with family, friends and prospective guests.
Leiden is also close to Keudenhof, famous for its huge tulip gardens which can be visited by bus from the Leiden station. We went out by bus (25 minutes) and wandered through the pavilions and gardens looking at the hundreds of different colours, patterns and types of tulips. Really remarkable and very busy with visitors from all other the world.
Having ‘done’ Leiden by visits to the old town and the walking tour that includes the old canals, the fortress, the churches and the schools and buildings of note in Rembrandt’s life, it was time to move on to Amsterdam - but first to leave the port. We had been delighted that there was room for us in the main port near the entrance of the town and not having to go deeper into the old city where manoeuvring would have been a nightmare, so it was relatively easy to turn the boat and line up for the lock and raising bridge that lets you out - except - down the canal in the opposite direction, two hotel boats were approaching. Since there are frail small craft moored on both sides of the approach it was imperative that the hotel boats enter the haven before we left, so we waited. As they came through, in blustery conditions, it was also important that I stay out of their way - no easy task.
By fastening the bow to the quay that runs out in a line on one side of the lock I used the engine to keep the stern away from the turning circle of the big boats coming in and once clear, caste off and made for the entry. No go !. The bridge was being lowered - to allow the traffic to flow I supposed since the bridge had been up for some time to allow the second hotel boat in. No. When we appealed for information as to how long the wait would be the lock keeper declared that we had not paid for the time spent in the port and would have to pay before leaving. That was news to us as the hotel boats did not pay and there were no signs to indicate costs. We paid - about Euro 37 and left - a good deal but a pity we could not have paid before we caste off from our mooring.
Else Leguit’s father had suggested we had to visit Alsmeer, a famous holiday spot with nearby lakes and marinas, shops and restaurants and, that he might well join us there on his boat. That arrangement did not come off as his boat was not ready for the season, but we made our way there on the way to Amsterdam. We were disappointed. It is not as big or extensive as the lake system at Loosdrecht and had few attractions, especially since it was still cool with windy conditions. We found a mooring against a building site and stayed just the one night, visiting a marina bar for a beer but not getting much warmth from the place.
And so - on to Amsterdam. By now it was May 10, about a month after leaving Cambrai.
Our trip into Amsterdam was uneventful though interesting with the ships getting bigger as we approached. The approach is from the south and you have two alternative routes, one on the canalised River Amstel into the city and the other, the commercial route to the west. We were advised to take the Amstel by a Dutch couple who run a hotel boat and so we approached from that direction. Being unsure exactly where we might be able to stay we looked out for a mooring on the approach and found one with a sign ‘authorised vessels only’ which suited us, as a place to stop and do a recce on bike.
We soon tied up and I took my bike off to ride along the canal, through the old town and to the port - the Oosterdok - where I thought we might have a chance of a few days mooring. Arriving at the port office, a watch tower on the busy river port side of Amsterdam I made enquiries. I was told that at the sluice we had to pass through to get into the city canal system I could pay the tax and arrange to stay at the Niewhaven near the Oosterdok - right in the centre of town ! As the sluice was closed until 6.00pm for the frenetic Amsterdam traffic we would have to wait till then to come through. I returned to Van Nelle.
In front of us was a permanent boat where the business of repairing washing machines was being conducted - therefore they had water. I approached the man working on one of the machines and asked if I could buy some water. He referred me to the owner who, noting the name of our boat, said we could have water in exchange for some Van Nelle Black Shag tobacco - which we happened to have on board purely as examples of the goods once carried on Van Nelle. We exchanged gifts.
Meanwhile, a young man riding by, stopped his bike at the boat and declared he knew the ship, he knew a previous owner of Van Nelle and more than that, the owner lived in Amsterdam. We asked if he could arrange a meeting and, flushed with excitement about this chance encounter, he rode off and we untied and headed for the Niewhaven. At the sluice I explained to the sluiswatcher what the port captain had advised me, and that if we asked nicely the tax might be reduced for a day or two’s stay. The man looked at us and Van Nelle, asked what we wanted to do in Amsterdam (touristing) and gave us a week for just 8 Euros ! We were delighted and passed through the lock. For the next half hour we cruised through the streets of Amsterdam overlooked by the tall historic houses on each side and gawked at by locals and tourists alike. We took the trip as slowly as possible to enjoy the experience, emerging in the heart of the old maritime centre and turning right into the haven. While there are no facilities there - power or water - it is quiet and secure, and just minutes from everything Amsterdam has to offer.
Having been told there was a serviced facility for visiting boats, we took our bikes across the busy river by ferry to check out the yacht haven listed in the charts - what a joke. Crammed with small plastic vessels, Sixhaven is totally unsuited to larger steel vessels - so we were relieved to have so easily arranged for our official berth at the Niewhaven. Having had the chance to fill our water tanks and still having plenty of fuel for the generator, we were absolutely self sufficient and happy as clams to be so well provided for in the heart of this great city.
By this time we were starting to take our lives afloat a little for granted as we experienced the fascination of it’s attractions on a daily basis but occasionally, like on this day, we realised how lucky we were to be able to just sail into a great city’s heart and take up residence to explore its wonders and feel its beat.
Some time after we moored and as we were arranging the boat for our stay, a burly Dutchman arrived on a bicycle and announced he was Francois Palm, previous owner of Van Nelle. We boiled water and made coffee - always a precursor to discussion in the Netherlands. Francois chatted about how he came by the boat, filling in details we could only previously guess using the documents we had. We had visited the Kadaster office (the Dutch registry office of all land, ship and aircraft purchases) while in Van Grevenstein’s shipyard and had obtained other documents from Douwe Egbert which listed him and the others we were to meet, as previous owners. Francois promised to hunt out some other documents and photos and return with his wife for drinks - which he did the next day. He then took us to see his Luxemotor, located in a nearby permanent mooring, which he rents out to tourist visitors as a B&B.
Following his visit we found the tourist office and procured Museum passes, allowing us three days to visit many of the city’s historic attractions. We spent the next few days doing a canal tour, poring through records at the Historical Museum, visiting the Niewkirk and the Theatre Museum. Looking for live music we also went to the Musikcentrum building for some terrible unmelodic Jazz one night and an outstanding tribute party to one of Amsterdam’s Jazz legends some nights later. Many old colleagues attended and played sets or pieces with him. 70 years old, this jazz drummer was still great.
And on to more attractions, the Resistance Museum, Rijksmuseum, Holthuyser Huis, Photo Museum and on the weekend around the port, Musica Aqua - a special festival of traditional and classical music on historic barges at the Maritime Museum. This museum is a must for anyone interested in water borne craft. Not only does it hold the history of the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC - whose name and rights are now owned by Voyager Wines in Western Australia) but also the royal barge, an huge floating East Indiaman, the life of seafarers and a collection of barges - still owned and lived on by their former operators.
During the weekend, our young Dutch friends, Herzen and Neltje arrived in port with their hotel boat and we had an afternoon chatting and having a few drinks with them in the commercial port adjacent to our mooring. The next day, Sunday, a youngish family rowed by and as soon as they saw Van Nelle, exclaimed ‘that’s our old ship !’ This was Esther Croes and Michel Risjenbrij. They were immediately invited aboard and later, having secured their dinghy back at the marina also visited, bringing memorabilia and inspecting the many changes wrought by us and 80% Frank.
Van Nelle was built and operated by the Van Nelle Company from 1915 to 1953 when she was sold to the Roodenburg brothers and converted to carry drinking water. She remained in that configuration through to the 90s, having been sold twice as a watership in the 80s and then to Francois Palm. He experienced the breakdown of the second engine, a two cylinder Brons, and when tied alongside a Spits barge, bought the Baudouin engine and the Spit’s wheelhouse. He then sold VN to Ester and Michel who had the engine and wheelhouse installed. They then sold the ship to Frank de Jong in 1998. 80 % Frank (as we called him for the many elements left unfinished) converted her to live aboard and we bought her in 2001. As a result of these meetings, both entirely by chance, we had filled in large gaps in our knowledge.
Our phone connection to France’s telecom was unusable in the Netherlands but we discovered that every town has a library and every library an internet centre. By this means we were able to connect and communicate. This also gave us the chance to do some research but nothing more turned up that we did not know. On the 8th day in Amsterdam a member of the waterways authority came by to inquire when we were leaving as our pass had expired and we advised we were leaving that day. Both satisfied, he and we left the scene. We were heading on to Alkmaar where Van Nelle was built.
To get to Alkmaar, up the west coast, you go through Zaandam a very pretty, small town with windmills outside it in a row along the canal. This presents a perfect picture of the Holland of the postcards, windmills, pastures, flowers and rickety looking 6th century houses.
Entering the town of Alkmaar you pass by Nicolaas Witsen Scheepswerf, successor to the yard in operation from the 1800s where Van Nelle was ordered in 1915 as ship number 532. We were about to be delighted once again in our search for details of our floating home, but first we had to find a place to stay. In the centre of town are the port facilities, firstly the Yacht Haven where we stopped. The captain soon appeared to advise we would have to move to the commercial area further away and gave us instructions. We started up again and proceeded to the area where commercials and hotel boats operate from. Charged 20 Euro per night, we had no water or electricity and objected somewhat. The next day we had to move again since a hotel boat wanted our space - back to square one. We moved our boat again and finally had a place where we could stay for the few days we required.
I rode back to the Nicolas Witsen shipyard and went to the office to inquire. A young man advised he was the manager (we later found out he was actually the Managing Director) and that they had some records but they were under the control of their archivist who would be at work the next day at 10.00am. This sounded pretty good and I headed back to begin an exploration of the town.
Another picture postcard Dutch old town, Alkmaar is still dominated by the cheese market, a large square and warehouse where markets are still held every Friday - mostly now for tourist’s interest. We attended and were amazed at the scene. From early morning the cheeses arrive from surrounding towns, huge yellow wheels of Edam and Alkmaar and Gouda. These are laid out on covers in front of the market building which, with it’s doors open, reveals several huge sets of scales on which the cheeses are weighed. Outside the stacks of cheeses are inspected by buyers who clap hands with the sellers until a deal is agreed when the hands are clasped and vigorously shaken. The purchased cheese is then loaded onto sleds, about 4 per sled, all weighing about 100kg and the sleds are then picked up by teams of cheese carriers, all uniformed in black and white with coloured ribbons on the straw hats to indicate which team they belong to. The teams compete to carry the most cheese to the scales, as they are paid by the load, and back to the waiting carts and trucks of the purchasers. At the end of the day the carrying teams retire to the bar inside the cheese building to drink a few litre pots of beer. All of this is done in a highly colourful and organised manner, the methods and teams having been developed and cherished over centuries. Alkmaar is the last functioning cheese market of its kind and is besieged by hundreds of tourists for the spectacle.
But, the real task here was the search for information at Witsen’s. There, at 10.00am on the Tuesday, we met Mr Joop Zoorn, the archivist who took us to the small office where he had assembled and organised the piles of books, plans and photographs that had been piled in a corner until just a year before. Joop, now over 70 and well into his retirement, had experienced several strokes and was working on this task as much as therapy as for his obvious interest. Here we discovered pictures of our ship and documents of Van Nelle’s order, building and launching. We then sweated over the photocopier to record it all for our growing history file. A large ‘blue print’ like document recorded the list of ships built from 1886. Van Nelle was number 532. A diary revealed the details of the order. She was to be 22 metres long, 4.3 wide and 0.75 deep and was to cost 11,300 Guilders. Other details included the installation of a Landaal coal gas engine. Further searching revealed three photographs of this pristine, white painted ship, gliding down the canal near the shipyard. What a treasure !
Joop was beside himself as we were the first people who had come to make inquiries and we vindicated his dedication. He confessed (with moist eyes) that he had always wanted to buy a ship like Van Nelle and explore the waterways on his retirement but that the strokes had put an end to his dream. We celebrated with him the next morning on Van Nelle where he presented Maureen with a book on Holland and we presented him with Woldendorp’s photo essay of Western Australia -Looking West.
Having exhausted the records, we turned to the town’s Beer Museum for a couple of hours investigation but try as we might, could not find the actual product - a dry beer museum ! So, it was time to continue our journeys and we set of to Purmerand from where we planned to go through Edam to the Ijslmeer - the remains of the Netherland’s original Zuider Zee, the inland ocean of water now reduced to a lake by reclamation. Having arrived at Purmerand we discovered that the rail bridges to the now named Markmeer were closed for repairs so we made our stay semi-permanent in order to offload the scooter to visit Edam and Volendam by road. We were obviously meant to stop here since Purmerand was the birthplace of the graphic designer famous for Van Nelle advertising and promotion designs. His work was on display at the town museum where we bought a little cut-out Van Nelle shop, a thing designed in the 20s for children to cut and glue. On display in the shop are all the Van Nelle products - tea, coffee and tobacco.
Edam by scooter - about 12 km there and back on side roads. Once famous for cheese of the same name (now manufactured in factories rather than farms), this is a small and very pretty town, cris- crossed by miniature canals leading to the seaside lock that can take sailing barges of up to 30 metres or so, many of which are based here to take groups sailing on the Markmeer. Just down the sea wall is Volendam, a sea side fishing village now an amazingly busy tourist town, noisy with the languages of the world, alighting from fleets of coaches and rushing to restaurants, bars and souvenir shops. After a walk around and some take-away fish bits with mayonnaise, we retired back to Edam to witness their Piano Festival.
Throughout the town, signs hanging outside open house doors indicated that piano music was on offer. Some twenty houses participated with a range of different music being presented. Small crowds stood outside each house, moving on after listening to one or two pieces played by a resident on their own piano. We joined the throng for a while then retired to the local hotel’s very pretty outside courtyard for cups of tea, then on to the scooter and back to Van Nelle. We decided that since we could not get to Amsterdam by the Markmeer / Ijslmeer, we would go back down the west coast to Haarlem where the port captain charged 25 Euro each night for 2 nights - Holland is getting pretty pricy. The town boasted a big multi screen cinema so we took the opportunity to catch the latest Star Wars episode - in English. Haarlem also has an excellent Heysen Museum and Frans Hals Huis. We visited both and took in an Organ concert to finish.
On to Gouda. We motored Van Nelle slowly through the low lying surroundings and under old swing and lift bridges before tying up and walking the short distance to the centre, but once there, were overwhelmed by bad vibes. This did not seem to be a ‘feel good’ town. We looked around the market and shopping streets but couldn’t warm to it so we decided to leave early the next morning to get to Rotterdam. As we arrived at the lock the next day at 8.00am, having spent the night in a not too enjoyable area and just tied to a concrete wall without facilities, we were caught by the port person at the lock to pay E 11.80 for nothing. Not a great start to the day but worse was to come.
As we travelled south to Rotterdam I had a feeling that the tooth that had continued to give me a pain despite having it capped in Perth was feeling different - it was - the back half suddenly dislodged and came away in my fingers. In disgust I tossed the shard overboard and rued the $ 1,000 I had paid for the cap. Then I realised that it was not that tooth, it was the one next to it. The pain I had experienced all along was from this other, cracked tooth and I had spent a thousand dollars having a cap placed on its neighbour. Well, I couldn’t do anything till Rotterdam so we continued. I called Rudolph, the captain at the Veerhaven to ensure our place was available and asked did he know a dentist. Yes and yes were the answers and so, after arriving, I hot footed to the nearby dental surgery to arrange to be the first cab off the rank the next morning.
Mooring at the Veerhaven is fun - it’s a narrow marina off the huge river Maas that forms the vast port of Rotterdam. Here, one has to moor facing outwards. The problem is that there is not quite enough room to turn around without putting the bow of your boat into one of the pens on one side and with that, having about 1 metre clearance at the stern as it rotates. In this manoeuvre you are not secured to anything. You rotate using the power of the propeller in forward gear pushing water over the rudder so pushing the stern sideways and in reverse, using the fact that the boat will ‘walk’ sideways in the same direction. I’ve done it three times now and reckon I have it down to a fine art. With practise I could turn the boat in nearly it’s own length. The manoeuvre becomes more complicated with wind and current acting against you but you just have to take that into account and work with it - or against it !
We had arranged to meet with the Van Nelle historian at the abandoned Van Nelle factory which was built as a huge Art Deco style building in the 20s but was abandoned by Douwe Egbert / Sarah Lee when they bought the company. Sarah Lee consolidated in Utrecht and were only able to get $8,000,000 for the shell. It was suggested that it be turned into a museum, expo centre and business incubator and was then looking for UNESCO heritage listing. As we were to take Van Nelle with us and to use their mooring stage in front, I thought I had better get the varnishing up to date so the ship looked spick and span for the visit. So that, together with a dentist appointment made up my program. The varnishing progressed well and at the appointed time, so did the dentistry. A very pretty and confident Dutch born Chinese dentist did a complete repair for the (not) huge sum of 120 Euros. The tooth is now terrific !
While on the Rhone a few years ago we met a couple who had completely rebuilt a Luxemotor barge to original condition (externally) but with a modern live-aboard interior. Anneke and Root on Amsterdiep were here in the Veerhaven so we had a bit to chat about, comparing historical notes. His boat has the same engine as Van Nelle’s second - a Brons, 50hp diesel engine.
My great school friend Michael Kiernan’s wedding was held on the 28th and I arranged a phone connection through our son Sean, who was a guest. This was the second time I had been unable to attend one of Michael’s weddings and I was sad that it had happened while we were away but very happy for he and Susan - his new wife - and also that I had the chance to chat with him on the night. Having to get to our rendezvous, I paid the 43 Euro port fee and we departed for the Van Nelle factory.
Sunday 29, just before 11.00am we arrived at the Van Nelle Factory to be met by Mary Annal-Slingerland, grand daughter of the second and long term captain of Van Nelle. By arrangement, she arrived to join us on the tour of the factory and for lunch with her husband Eric. As it happened we were put in contact with her as a result of our enquiries with Sarah Lee’s historian as she had recently contacted the company for information regarding her grand father. We all had a great look around at the whole establishment, personally escorted by the Van Nelle historian and PR consultant Hans, who extremely generously presented us with some outstanding memorabilia as gifts. A Van Nelle flag, a tin tea box, a tabak plaque, a book in Dutch about Australia, a history CD, puzzle, cups and saucers and an aerial picture of the factory all appeared as extra items from his museum....wow !
Our visit to the Netherlands had given us so much more than we had expected. We considered what to do from here - to continue in Holland by going north east to Friesland or to keep heading south to join the Dutch Barge Association rally at Namur in Belgium. We decided that we could not top what we had experienced in the Netherlands to date, so made the arrangements to join the rally in Namur and then head for Germany and Strasbourg where friends from Western Australia were to meet up with us for a cruise.
May 29 - June 30
The excitement of our visit to the Van Nelle factory, meeting the historians and the boat’s second captain’s grand daughter, having been given a host of Van Nelle memorabilia and historical records plus having an article written and published in the Dutch shipping newspaper was a great way to climax our exploration of the Netherlands. We had contacted the shipping news and they had sent a journalist to cover the story which then meant we had a lovely article to add to the records - more provenance. Since we knew we could not top all that we decided to head south, away from Holland and into Belgium to attend the DBA Barge Rally - a gathering of other historic canal vessels for some fun and education. As a result we headed off to Den Haag on our return voyage.
Den Haag is a lovely big town with lots of quay space in the commercial area of the port, close to the town centre. It is accessed via a round lock, a pretty unique feature of which there is only one other that we know of - at Agde in the south of France - so it is a bit of a novelty to enjoy. We had been here before so the town held few secrets but much we had not had time to experience so we were pleased to be able to re-visit its pleasures.
We had received and accepted quite a few bookings for 2005, in fact we were booked pretty well solid from July through to September so it was time to round up some deposits and fix the schedule. E-mails were sent off to all and sundry and over the next few days we received mostly cancellations. This was a two edged sword. On one hand the dates had been reserved and other people had missed out so no shared cost income was going to be forthcoming. On the other hand it meant that we were free to re-arrange our schedule in this last year to do what we wanted to do. We decided that we would revisit Champagne, Paris and Burgundy as a final fling for our own pleasure.
Having made our plans we headed on to the south - and a stop overnight at Sluis 11 - not a brilliant tourist attraction but at the end of a day of travel you take what you can get if you are not planning to stay in a town. Sometimes it is great to be outside the towns and cities, just quietly resting in the countryside, but the Low Countries of the Netherlands and Belgium are pretty much that - flat and generally lacking picturesque views.
The next day we arrived at Maastricht taking our mooring near the Shell bunkership, which is a great place to shop for boat bits. We found on our visit to the shop that they had copies of the Schuttvaer newspaper which had the article of Van Nelle published in it so I bought three, keeping two and sending one to Mrs Annal-Slingerland the former captain’s grand daughter.
Having been several times in Maastricht we took in the sights we had not had a chance to see, including the historic city walk and bus tour. We frequented the many bars in the floral squares throughout the city and wandered through the weekend street markets and art markets. While not in a rush we moved on down the mighty Maas river (Meuse in France), on our journey to join the 23 other barges at Namur.
DBA are the initials of the Dutch Barge Association which has over 1000 members and lots of barges on it’s register. We joined in 1999 as soon as we became serious about barging and gained a great deal of information and assistance from it. Each year they organise a couple of events where ‘bargees’ like us can get together, enjoy the chat, the comparisons, the social gatherings and the water borne activities. These include handling exercises and a parade. We had first to register and pay for the event so tried to contact the organiser via the name and number listed on the DBA website (www.barges.org). After a false start we managed to get the program and registration form through email and sent off the money and registration. We then had plenty of time to spend on the way at Maastricht, Liege, Huy, Namur, Dinant and Floreffe.
Maastricht is very pretty and pleasant to visit, full of colourful shops and restaurant an historic port, an old town tram ride, walking tour, old mill, three churches, fortifications, shopping streets, market, lots of art and music. From Maastricht the next town is Liege - which as I have previously reported - holds no romance for us. It has a character slightly warped by a lack of cleanliness, lots of kebab shops and kids on very noisy motor scooters, it has limited historical interest and an avaricious port captain. Its not a place to stay in so on this occasion we passed by. That was easy to do as we were on the river with an unrestricted speed limit so that Van Nelle was able to lope along at 12 - 14 kilometres per hour, a speed which ate up the kilometres between attractions.
On the other hand, the next town on the river Maas is Huy, which is terrific. Overlooked by a fortress and split by the river, the people are welcoming and the feeling around town is light-hearted. While its tourist attractions are limited, the museum is interesting (the curator stayed late so we were not rushed out at the end of our visit) and the fortress is worth the climb up the hill. Shopping was good here as well and we were able to buy a new umbrella for the back deck at a very reasonable price and in a colour that matched the boat. This was useful as days of heat invited some lazy times reading the same page of a good book on the back deck as the heavy eyelids invited afternoon snoozes.
Mooring in Huy was good as the Tourist Office and local tour boat people were great, assuring us we could use the quai for nothing and stay as long as we liked. On our visit to the fortress, we found the exhibits contained were rotting away with moisture and neglect, a far cry from those in the town museum. I looked to buy some of the local wine from newly replanted grapes but no one sold the product. They had made wine here before phylloxera but not replanted after that plague. Recently a couple of interested local amateurs have had some success. But since none was available I hunted out the huge local cave and drinks wholesaler to buy some aged reds and whites from Burgundy.
On to Namur. Next morning was the 10th of June - my birthday. I am happy to say that I received some nice prezzies, a wine carafe and Delft wine bottle coaster, a Dutch birthday card and calls from son Sean, friends Ian and Helen Palmer, Rod and Miria Cummins and Jan and John (our English boating friends from 2001), a text from son Simon and an email from my sister Sandra. All in all a good haul.
Having a week before the start of the rally we planned to re-visit Dinant where we had taken a great picture of the boat 4 years before (under the huge cliff top fort, in front of the Leffe café) and also to do a side trip to a small town named Floreffe, which boasts a large monastery including an ancient brewery. Stopping in Namur on the way we discovered a good place for mooring near the river entry to the Sambre, a canalised river, with good little shops nearby - this could be useful on our return.
On to Dinant where a mooring was available almost exactly in the spot where we were 5 summers before, right in front of the cathedral and fortress. We enjoyed my birthday dinner at Le Roi de Moules for the Moules Frites which we had enjoyed for lunch on the terrasse years before. Very Nice. The next day I was out with the digital camera to take lots of pics of the boat in the same position and then headed up the cable car (very steep and scary) for the conducted tour of the Citadel which overlooks and menaces the town below. While the tour was in French, the very helpful guide kindly spent a few minutes at times with us to explain the salient points we had missed translating, in English.
Dinant was the home of Albert Sax, the inventor of the saxophone and it pays tribute to him by displaying cut out metal saxophones attached to the light poles. The town spreads over two sides of the River Maas as the hills - nay - cliffs behind the river front force the town precariously along its banks.
Having enjoyed re-visiting Dinant we went on to Floreffe via Namur for a couple of days before heading back to Namur for the rally. Floreffe has a monastery which was taken over at the time of the Revolution by the government. It is now a school but features tours of its church and museum. The guide here was very kind to do the tour in English as the only other couple also spoke English. At the end of the tour we visited the brasserie where we had to taste a Floreffe monastery beer and to buy Floreffe beer glasses. Floreffe has a nice quiet mooring, except that huge commercials come past very regularly, creating a wash that makes the glasses jingle.
Wednesday the 15th of June we headed back to Namur to join other early birds on the vast quai where the rally was to be held. The town council workers were already installing the huge silent generator which would supply electrical power for the duration and the organiser, Roger Lamothe, was already running back and forth, up and down the quai, organising boats. That was to be the pattern for the balance of the week as more boats arrived and people moored up fore and aft and side by side.
The boats attending ranged from small Tjalks to a 38 metre peniche and everything in between. Some were in pristine condition, being brand new replicas, others showed the maturity of the years they had spent working - one being built in the late 1880s. Van Nelle was comfortable among this crowd and looked well in the sunshine with all our flags and pennants fluttering from the mast, especially the huge Van Nelle Tabac flag given to us by the historian at the erstwhile factory.
The first official engagement was a Welcome, Champagne Reception accompanied by local dignitaries speeches. The next day a Forum addressed by heads of the English, French, Belgian and Dutch waterways about concerns and future plans was followed by tours of the city and the fortress. Our friends Bill and Sylvia came up from Cambrai to join us on this day and on the tour. The next day we joined the other boats in the ‘sail past’ parade in two columns, alternatively placed - which became a bit of a scramble at the turning point but was conducted in nearly naval order and then the final dinner in the town’s ancient Arsenal finished the official program.
Lots of opportunities for meeting and learning about other people and their boats exist at these rallies. There were Irish, Swiss, British, Canadian, Belgian, French, even Australian attendees who made the event interesting and very worthwhile. We stayed a day or two after the event and then headed south. First stop Givet, a smallish town that has the last Belgian fuel pump - a must when re-entering France - to fill up here with ‘red’ diesel. We carried on that day to Fumay where we stopped for one night. There’s not much in Fumay - but we did add frites (chips) from the caravan friterie at the port, to our barbecued ribs that night. Then on to Montherme, another small riverside stop with a couple of bollards and no other facilities - not even an ATM for cash. We carried on....
Our next stop was Charleville-Meziers, a big town with all facilities but also lots of Dutch boats. We opted for the commercial quai across the river from the floating ponton which held electricity and water, since we could do without. We had company as lots of students from the local Lycees came to the riverside to swim as the temperature was over 30 through this whole period. We also attracted a couple of other boats from time to time over the next couple of days but they disliked our generator and plumped for the power supplied on the ponton over the river. There is also a huge new port which we were the first boat to visit some 5 summers ago but there is no shade and the costs are horrendous. We stayed long enough to top up our French bank account by transfer from Australia by internet since the phone company seemed to be living off it - and left.
Sedan (of sedan chair fame) boasts one of the biggest medieval forts in France and here we next stopped to visit. We arrived at the back door of the fort and by wandering around, managed to find our way inside, about half way through the self guided tour. We enjoyed the attraction and ended up in the café having a beer when we realized we should actually have gone in the front door and paid. All was not lost - we went back the next day and did the whole tour, this time with the free audio guide in hand to understand what we were seeing. The fort has rooms with mannequins dressed in realistic costumes showing what the occupants would have done in bygone days. The audio guide was also very helpful !
Past Mouzon the next day where we stopped long enough to get an hour or so’s worth of water before continuing to Stenay where the port boasts all conveniences for just 6.50 per night. We paid for 2 nights and settle in to visit the crypt (didn’t find it) and the beer museum. This was a good attraction since it not only explained all the facts but invited you to taste the result. Unfortunately it was just as we reached the bar when the storm that broke the serious heat wave we had been experiencing, commenced. We jumped on bikes and pedalled furiously back to the port - to find that our umbrellas (left up on departure) and windows (left open) had been taken down and closed (respectively) by the lovely Dutch couple on the next boat - a very pretty Tjalk. As a reward, Foko and Helma joined us and Mike and Josie (an English couple we were virtually shadowing for the previous week), for thank you drinks on Van Nelle - in the wheelhouse as the rain bucketed down around us. Foko has leukaemia - a rare kind with no cure - and he and Helma had 3 months away from their jobs to travel but had to head back to work and chemotherapy. What a bugger !
We found out from Foko that the other Dutch in the port had complained to the captainiere that we only had to pay the same amount as them in smaller boats. Many of the Dutch boating fraternity are never happy when out of their own country. Some of them are just a downright pain. They leave the Netherlands for France because it’s cheaper, has lots or space and better weather, then try to saturate the ports or pass you on canals to get ahead of you. A right pain in the .... clogs ! That is not all I hasten to underline - examples above plus Marcus and Els and others who are wonderful, warm and generous souls.
Through Dun sur Meuse the next day with a visit to its hill top church and battlements while Van Nelle lay against the stony bank tied to three trees. A quiet and cool spot since we had the advantage of trees for shade whereas the Dutch on the floating pontoon opposite had none. There is some justice. And so, on to Verdun.
Verdun is an excellent place to visit. A big port with electricity and water provided in order to attract the tourists on boats (yes the place is crammed with the ever parsimonious Dutch). On the quai is a huge sound stage for Saturday night concerts - this week was a Cuban group - very good. Lots of things to see and do as this was the centre of French resistance against the German attacks for three years in the Great War. There are conducted tours of the battlefields including villages that ceased to exist and are now just sign posts and shell holes, museums, a mausoleum, graveyards, forts and memorials. There is also the great fortress in the town and a cathedral with a World Centre for Peace next door. The town is crammed with restaurants and shops and a major rail connection to the rest of France.
Our mooring was too far from the power supplies but I had a chat with the restaurant peniche in front of us who agreed to supply electricity, and with lots of shops nearby - what else could you want.
Verdun’s large Museum is built in the casemates and tunnels of the fort that occupies most of the high ground behind the town. Unfortunately it is a bit ‘naff’. You wait for an hour to take a little remote controlled carriage through some tunnels that have models posed in various ‘acts’ of the story of the siege of Verdun. It is just a little bit amateurish and while the technology is interesting (holograms and projections on scrim curtains) it doesn’t actually work very well. A minor disappointment since it could be riveting. On the other hand the Centre de Paix has a very good section with a recreated trench that you walk through accompanied by realistic sound effects of the battles.
On the Saturday night we opted for a Chinese takeaway from a great Chinese charcuterie and ate on deck to watch the grand salsa concert on the huge stage just opposite us in the port. British friends joined us with their very docile German Shepherd for the event. Then, while Maureen was away working for the Clean Up The World Campaign in Paris, a job she was asked to do as a result of her 10 years orchestrating the Clean Up campaigns in Western Australia, I indulged my World War One interest by taking the battlefield tour which included the Forts, trench lines, Ossuary and the town that no longer exists - shelled to oblivion and now marked only by place names on pickets.
Some work got done as I sanded the Jarrah deck table and went shopping for the girl’s return. Maureen was to meet and accompany back to Van Nelle, Rhonda Parker and her friend Pippa who were to have 4 days with us en route to Commercy where they would take the train to Switzerland. On the day they arrived we had news via satellite TV of the terrorist bombs in London. That caste a bit of a pall over the arrival but good spirits prevailed with the onset of Champagne and Fois Gras.
The girls were in for a bit of fun as we rode bikes to nearby attractions, danced and consumed much good food and wine during their four day visit. We left Verdun after the girls had a chance to explore a bit of the town and its surroundings, including an old fort that was basically ignored but very interesting and headed to St Croix. En route an eclusier tried to squeeze us into a lock with a 17metre boat. We told him we would not fit and guess what - we didn’t. We had to back out and wait for the next cycle - a great time waster. On to St Mihiel and at each small town a bit of an explore before well prepared meals and evening entertainment including formal dinners and dancing.
Three days after leaving Verdun we arrived at Commercy where the girls were to go to Lausanne by train via a taxi to Toul station. All this was accomplished with a minimum of fuss and we then moved Van Nelle on to Toul. The port was pretty full but there was an area big enough in front of a vintage boat wearing a German flag. I explained the situation to the owner and assisted in moving him, the German owner complaining over all two metres of the move !
I took the bike to the local Brico for a replacement light switch - which turned out to be a bell switch and wrong. I returned - up the hill to the Brico to return the article and to obtain a correct model without the benefit of a refund - bah, humbug ! That afternoon we moved to other side of the ecluse and therefore out of the port, as requested by the Captain as it was Bastille Day and the fireworks (Feu de Artifice) were to be provided in the port. We found free electricity on the nearby pole to our mooring site, which was a bonus and were therefore quite happy, especially as the eclusier had provided a half tonne of water to us while in the ecluse. We always have a bit to do before and after guests so we mixed in a town visit - museum etc - with washing and cleaning - 6 loads of washing !
The weather at this time was getting extremely hot - we had visions of another 2003 when the generator melted. It cooled somewhat as we moved onto the River Moselle and Pont a Mousson. This stretch of the Moselle has France on one side and as you go north, Luxembourg on the west and Germany on the east. An interesting mixture of cultures and architectures, languages and foods now appear, making the trip interesting.
We headed off to the market at Pont a Mousson and took the Abbey visit - the Abbey now a cultural centre following the Revolution and Reforms, then watched with interest the preparations for the next day’s jet ski races. Trials were held throughout the day and we moved up the quai to eliminate most of the wash from the competing skis. We stayed that night to experience the races the next day and the concert that night. Unfortunately the concert consisted of showcasing the town’s Karaoke stars - most of whom could not sing in tune - so we baled out early to prepare for the next day’s departure.
On to Metz where we moored right in town, past the marina (which was all small finger jetties and full to boot), right under the Protestant church which at night was beautifully lit - as were many of the town’s impressive (and very old) buildings. This is a really lovely town - with architecture both German and French from before, during and after, the time Alsace and Lorraine were annexed and occupied by Germany as a result of the 1870 war. In 1918 it was returned to France as part of the Versailles Treaty reparations.
We took the minibus tour, which gave a great perspective of the whole city and featured the cathedral, the museum, the old town and all its major edifices and even the very German railway station, complete with scantily attired ‘working girls’ flaunting their wares nearby. These town bus tours are a great way to find the best attractions and to get an appreciation of the geography so you can get back to explore them. Following the tour we visited the Museums - a number of buildings constructed progressively upwards over time based on and containing the remains of Roman baths in the basement followed by medieval building sections to modern architecture at the top - a really good idea, well executed. That night we walked down the quai to view the buildings all lit up and on to the dancing water fountain, set to music with a light show to delight one and all.
The next town was Thionville for an overnight stay but via Sierk les Bains for their castle tour. The chateau was destroyed but the walls and one tower are intact and it dominates the river which it was build to protect and serve. We took the scooter to the castle and climbed the many stairs to the top to look down on our minuscule little ship.
After Thionville we moved to Remich - the towns and people noticeably becoming more German now. This town is spread along the river with steep hills behind impeding expansion. Along the waterfront are a number of specialist shops selling chocolates, cigarettes and cigars and premium brand liquor - it must be cheaper than Germany or France - we could not find out. There are also many boats on the river front - tourists and hotel boats with hundreds of passengers.
On to Trier at the confluence of the Moselle and the Saar rivers. We looked in vain for a mooring - nothing - so we turned around and left, taking fuel at a bunker ship on the way out. On to Saarburg - We are now on the Saar river which becomes a canal further south into France after Sarregemines. It was a long day - 60k and quite a few locks. At Saarburg the port was unsuitable so we left to go a short distance to Merzig. A tidy town with a big supermarket is about all I can recall - perhaps at this time we were travelling too fast - but unfortunately we had to move on quickly as we to rendezvous with friends in Strasbourg and still had a way to go.
At PK68 (the kilometre 68 mark on the Canal / River) we stopped to meet Rolly and Val O’Driscoll, Kiwi friends up from the deep south, who were heading in the opposite direction. At the 68km point we found a quay in the wild and prepared for a big dinner. Penfolds Chardonnay, L’Amiable Champagne and Premier Cru Bordeaux - a big night with lots to talk about. The next morning we all had slightly second hand heads but enjoyed breakfast together before heading off on our separate ways. We went on to Sarregemines - where, despite its name suggesting otherwise, there are no mines ! A pleasant town however and a good place to stay overnight before we headed on to Ecluse 16 - where Rolly and Val had recommended the very good restaurant of the same name. We went - we ate and were extremely impressed. A two star Michelin equivalent miles from everywhere.
Now we came onto the Canal Marne au Rhin to arrive at Arzviller and its famous inclined plane. This is a structure built to eliminate 16 locks and is a boat lift that runs up the side of the hill 44.5metres to the summit. A huge concrete ramp with rail lines laid in and cables attached to the steel caisson that rides up and down on it, allows boats to just drive in either at the top or the bottom where it stops, opening its end at water level to allow up to four large boats access. Just drive your boat into the caisson and up she goes - opening at the top so you can reconnect with the canal and save a day or more. And just the same in reverse. This is a wow for visitors - and was also for us the first time we tried it. There is also a small museum at the top to absorb waiting time and extensive picnic grounds at the bottom to camp at.
And so, on to Saverne, a big town with an even bigger museum, lots of shops and a big port that is useless to us as it is almost entirely taken up by small boats at finger jetties. The large boat space is lionised by the hotel boats which wait until the next arrives before departing so that private boats never get to use the space allocated. We had a quick look at the town and museum for our return visit with our next visitors, the Cummins and Carsons in a couple of weeks time. Since there were no moorings, we decided we would have to use the footpath railings that run along the canal side before the ecluse. Having reconnoitred this town for our later visit we moved on to Hochfelden to check out the Meteor brewery where tours are held and tastings conducted. We arranged for our group to be welcomed in 10 days time and spent a quiet night moored along the canal bank at the nearby VNF workshop area that also provides fresh water supplies - if your hoses are long enough. Ours were..
On to Strasbourg - where we moored before the lock, near the town centre and across from the main town hospital. There is a marina through the lock where I made an arrangement with the Captain for a couple of days mooring, electricity and water supplies, so we could be ready for our guests and secure in a new town. A couple of days later, as we were to take up the place allocated, I walked over to make final arrangements. The once benign gentleman I had negotiated had changed to a grumpy, rude and arrogant beast. He denied he had agreed, denied us the right to come into the port and in disgust I decided we would stay where we were. I had a word with the eclusier to make sure he had no problems outlining the arrangements I had made and what had ensued. He was not a bit surprised, totally sympathetic and happy for us to stay as long as we liked.
We had a pleasant location adjacent to the tranquil canal side park where we had no trouble despite the odd drunk who slept in the area. We were also able to get the scooter off Van Nelle which allowed us great mobility around this fascinating and historic town.
Strasbourg is a great town with lots to do - there are boat canal trips, a huge cathedral with a nightly light show and it’s daily attraction of its Astrological Clock striking midday. At one end of the town is Petite France, a beautiful area replete with ancient (but very well renovated) buildings, incorporating a tourist area with ancient canals, locks and cafes. A terrific place for an afternoon beer or an al fresco meal. On the way to Petite France is the old warehouse and customs building, hundreds of years old, which has been renovated true to it’s heritage and is now the place to take boat trips from, on the internal canal system, which is separated from the major link we are on.
As we had a few days free, I had time to paint the side decks and to general titivate the boat so she would not disgrace herself in front of our mates. She came up looking new and so, cleaned and prepared, we awaited the arrival of Rod and Miria Cummins and Max and Lissie Carson, all old friends from school in Perth, Western Australia..
Rod, Miria, Max and Lissie arrived in their hire car and found their way direct to the boat without help, having driven directly from Frankfurt where they had just flown in from Oz. ! Max and I took the rental car back after lunch and then met the others in time for the boat tour and a visit to Petite France for a beer before dinner. We had decided to ‘go native’ and do as the Alsatians do - so had found and booked at an Alsatian restaurant when the ‘three roasted meats’, sauerkraut and charcuterie lived up to expectation together with some very enjoyable wines from the region. We discovered the light dry reds and fruity whites which I had been avoiding in France as their labels looked a tad garish and somewhat German. Expecting very sweet wines we tried a glass of each first then got right into the bottles when we were delighted by the flavours.
The next morning we were off early as we had only a few days to get a great distance with plenty to do on the way. We were heading for Nancy, a rail head for the TGV that the visitors would use to get to Paris and their onward connections and once again, timing was critical.
On our way out of town and just before the bunker ship where we to take on fuel, we were hit on the wheelhouse roof by a large rock or a piece of concrete thrown at us from a bridge by some kids who ran off as we reacted.. It sounded like a bomb going off as it hit the wheelhouse roof and narrowly missed Rod and Max’s heads as they stood at the wheelhouse door. If it had hit either one it could easily have killed them. We immediately took to the shore to try to identify the culprits with no luck so reported the matter at the Marina to the police but... what else can you do. The staff were shocked and agreed to keep the area under surveillance for the authorities. We took on some 400 litres of red fuel and headed off to a wild mooring that night and the first of a succession of great meals and fun days.
On to Hochfelden where we were booked for the brewery tour. We moored in the VNF port and moved on foot to the brewery, waiting at the gate for Maureen and Miria who had gone shopping. As the time for the tour arrived, so did the girls, wobbling into sight on their bikes, loaded down with groceries. As they wobbled past on their way to Van Nelle to put the goodies away they ordered the rest of us to proceed. We did and they returned and joined us just as we started the tour.
The tour takes in the complete manufacturing and brewing process by this family owned and run establishment. Given in French, I had a full time job translating the important bits before the move to their canteen where tasting began. This was not a sip of this and a taste of that - no - here they provided full glasses of each brew and insisted you take more to ensure you ‘had the correct taste’. I had other jobs to do before we got under way so had slipped out at the beginning of the tasting and returned later as time was slipping by and we had a schedule to honour. The gang were hard at it still and looked like they could get attached permanently. I prised them away and headed back to the boat to get underway.
We departed Hochfelden and so - on to Saverne.
We had recce’d the possible moorings some time before as the space in this port was limited and further restricted by underhand hotel boat captains. I had decided we could tie up to the railings on the approach canal to the locks and so stopped there and tied up. As the team were about to rush off to visit the town markets and museum, a New Zealand owned hotel boat approached from the lock. The captain I had met before as he was a friend of Caroline and Matthew Morton in St Jean and we had come across he and his ship a couple of weeks before in this area. At that time he was friendly - this time he was not. As a new competitor in the area he was not welcomed by the other hotel boats and therefore denied access to the large boat area. He therefore decided the place we were at looked good and demanded I move. Sorry pal, I have guests too and you have no rights here was my answer. This started a torrent of abuse as he went by, making the lie to his story that I also had to move as he could not negotiate the corner with me there. He did, of course, easily, and as he approached the hotel boat in the private barge area he asked them if he could come alongside them - they refused also - he was not having a good day so he disappeared around the second corner - never to be seen by us again. The story went around later that his boats were later impounded as he had not paid for them.
Ah well - after the team had explored the town and the markets, the museum and the bar outside it, it was time to move on to keep to our schedule. Therefore - on to Lutzelburg, a pretty town very much in the small German rural idiom where we took a position at the end quai upsetting a nearby German with the noise of our generator ! Oh well, you can’t please everyone. I should point out that he was looking for a reason to complain as we were in a place he thought he should be and he, like us, were too far away from the electricity supply. When in a non supplied port and near other boats, I normally offer power from our generator when we use it for a couple of hours in the morning and early evening to charge batteries. However when we are abused by others for a normal procedure, they can go hang.
The next morning I noticed strange white smoke (or was it steam?) from the generator exhaust. I shut it down and investigated but could find no reason - had the German tried some sabotage overnight ? This was a very misty morning and we had no subsequent repeat - so we are at a loss about that - perhaps we had something temporarily blocking the cooling water intake - who knows ?
To Arzviller and the team were very impressed with the inclined plane and its machinery. We completed the ascent and waited there to allow the team to explore the museum and photograph this amazing device before moving on to Bataville. Bataville was built for the Bata shoe factory and our guide book said you could visit and buy shoes.... The town was still there and we moored and took off in its direction by foot. We passed some old derelict buildings and made it into town to the only small shop, where we made enquiries. They laughed - the shoe factory had been gone for years. We bought some tired stuff in their small shop, trudged back to the boat - the girls somewhat disappointed at not being able to buy things - and travelled on to Einville and the huge Chateau.
Unfortunately the Einville Chateau had suffered a fire some years before and was still in renovation. This trip was turning up an unexpected number of attractions that were closed or missing !. An exhibition of strange machines and nice but parched gardens were still open however and the tourist office had an interesting exhibition of local interest which we took in before the taxi arrived to take us back to the boat and on to Nancy. We found a very good mooring in the commercial port with power and water and went exploring.
Nancy is very beautiful especially in Stanislas’ Square - a magnificent large ‘place’ surrounded by buildings all of the same architecture and fenced in huge black wrought iron fences with gold highlights. The location also of the theatre, Opera house and Hotel de Ville this is a very impressive place. The old town streets running off the square house old shops, restaurants and other buildings, all in fine condition. The port is well presented and all in all a very pleasant place to visit. Stanislas was a good king in this area and made the town a show piece. He encouraged trade and as much as any feudal lord of the era, was reasonable to his subjects. He obviously enjoyed lovely things as his architecture proved. Walking through the streets one cannot help but be impressed by the scale and symmetry of the town centre buildings.
While exploring we were also on the lookout for a good restaurant for our final meal together and we discovered one near the palace. It looked the part, the menu had all the things one looked forward to in French restaurants and was not overly expensive. We later that evening enjoyed a wonderful meal before wandering back to Van Nelle past the black and gold painted fences of the castle.
The team’s visit was over so in the morning we arranged a taxi to take them to the station - there were a few anxious moments as the taxi went past and took some time to return to where we were, but they got away in time and were off to Paris by train. We went back to Van Nelle with that slightly let down feeling that overcomes you when really good times have finished. However we had cleaning and preparations for our onward journey to complete and so got to work.
We had discovered Katinka and Steve (from Queensland) were in port looking after the Gieske’s Tjalk so we had them over for afternoon tea as we were on a four day AFD - Alcohol Free Days - necessitated by the time spent with the team from Perth. The Gieskes we had met a year or so before. He invited us to stay on at the mooring we were at that time as he had the captain of the first US nuclear submarine to go under the North Pole visiting in a few days. As a navy doctor specialising in arctic water diving, he and his ex navy doctor wife had bought their barge a couple of years earlier and enjoyed the relaxation it afforded them each year. You meet fascinating people on the waterways of Europe - if you are prepared to help as they moor and then invite them for a drink.
We departed Nancy the next morning, having completed our washing and cleaning and reorganising the boat. When we had two couples staying we moved into the smallest cabin to allow our guests some extra room and when they left we had to move back into ‘our’ cabin as we did at that time. Cruising on from Nancy we stopped for an overnight stay in Toul where we did not even get off the boat but moored before the ecluse for the night, departing early the next morning for Void. The name does not really describe the town which has a bit more to offer than an empty space - but not much. It’s a pretty town, bedecked with flowers and replete with small canals and locks not usable by us and a shop that sells regional products. We bought fois gras and wine, some sweets and cotton kitchen things for presents. A carnival was setting up so there was the possibility of undisciplined youths providing an uncomfortable environment so we untied and headed on to Ligny.
The historic tower museum at Ligny was closed on Thursdays so we didn’t get much of their history before continuing on to a wild mooring about 2 hours after we really wanted to stop. In this section you are accompanied by an eclusier and so if there are no places to moor you just keep going. We eventually found a cleared area with one bollard and used some trees for the other line. Using trees to tie up to is generally not an option as the tow path must remain clear for passing travellers who could be decapitated by ropes strung across the path. Some areas of France however have abandoned the tow path on one side of the canal where the trees and undergrowth has been allowed to encroach to the canal side. In these conditions the trees or their roots make good bollards. We moved on in the morning to Bar le Duc.
Bar le Duc has a good little port where we had power and water for a modest fee and were able to take the scooter off to explore the town - luckily since the old town (and most interesting part) is up a steep hill some 4 km distant. The old town walking tour is an interesting 2 hour stroll in and out of old buildings. There is even one building which at night features a couple of actors relating the story of the town. We found a good restaurant where pizzas shared the menu with 1400 Euro wines such as La Tache and Chateau Margaux. I enquired and was told I would have to wait 20 minutes for the wine to be brought from the owner’s cave. We declined and bought the Cotes de Rhone option for about 15 Euro and joined the 100 people on the evening actor’s tour.
The actor’s tour is accompanied by a person or persons in costume who recite and act out the characters and stories of the buildings you visit. It’s a fascinating concept, carried out well by local bards.
The next day was Sunday and they boasted a free Irish concert in the town’s gardens. We took our bikes but since the weather was threatening they had elected to put the concert in a small hall as the backup facility- which was far too small for the crowd who turned up. It was full to bursting 30 minutes before the concert so we abstained and prepared to depart the next day.
We had a slow cruise to Revigny but the town was closed for annual holidays and so we continued on to Pargny and then Vitry le Francois where the Marne au Rhin canal joins the Lateral a la Marne canal - direction Tours sur Marne - our favourite place to try and buy Champagne. We moored for the night just past Vitry near a derivation and began the next morning for Tours, arriving much later than expected having had to follow an extremely slow commercial barge for hours.
The few commercial barges on the canal systems carry heavy building materials or, in this area, grain. Their size and the width and depth of the old canals mean they travel at a maximum of 2kmh. Van Nelle on the other hand travels at about 6kmh when placed in gear at idle revs ! We therefore had a problem if we caught up to a commercial and there was nowhere to overtake as we had to coast or stop and wait. On many canals the locks are (annoyingly), just close enough that even after the commercial goes through and the lock is turned around for us, we get to catch up well before the next lock and have to stop or go in and out of gear to slow down, then to wait through the lock processes. The choices are; stop for an hour or so, pass if you can or spend hours smelling his exhaust and being frustrated. Fortunately after a couple of hours he stopped at a wayside silo and we were able to continue unhindered.
After arriving at Tours Sur Marne we cycled up to the cave of L’Amiable, our favourite Champagne house, arranging for the first time, a visit to their vineyards that afternoon . We had not been able to get out with them to their grapevines on previous occasions as they were always extremely busy or short staffed. This was great, the daughter of Dr Amiable took us in her car to their plot, explaining the grapes, their horticultural methods and pointing out other details of the area. They have 6.6Ha of Grand Cru terroir (ground) from which they produce most of their highest quality product. Champagne is produced only on ground acknowledged by the AOC committee to be suitable. It is sloping country with a chalk under-base and with chalky top soil of different qualities. Some land is graded bourgeois (ordinary), some Premier and some Grande. These classifications are virtually impossible to change since the soil and underlying strata of chalk do not change. The AOC (Appellation Origine Controllee) committee also lay down rules for coverage, yield, methode and other conditions which makers must adhere to. L’Amiable have choice ground and choose to produce their own product rather than sell their grapes to the major producers.
Having been privileged to have the conducted tour - more than an hour of their time - we all retired to their cave for a glass or two of the golden elixir before buying two and a half cases of Grand Cru, Pinot Noir Millesime and two (single grape) Chardonnay Grand Cru.
It rained the next day so we relaxed and read and thought about what we would do if it didn’t rain - which we decided was exactly the same - recline and read. Time to service the generator the next morning and then by scooter to explore the surrounding district including the Bois of Twisted Trees, the Champagne Museum at Verzenay and also Verzy. Here the local aviation enthusiasts created a small museum to remember the English squadron that operated until the Germans pushed them back in 1940, then when the Americans took over the field in 1944. They have a French military light ambulance plane and the front of a more modern Jaguar fighter plus rooms full of memorabilia. Maureen was taken on a grand tour by a dashing French Air Force pilot while I explored the cockpits of the aircraft on display - open for people to climb in and try.
The scooter gave us a fright as it stopped delivering power on our way to Verzy. A vigorous shake was enough to set it right and we bravely continued without further incident. I assume it was dirty fuel as it did not occur before or since. On our return, the phone rang at about 6 pm. Caroline and Matthew were on their way to visit us from their trip abroad. We tidied up and on their arrival broke open the champers and made them a quick meal and slow drinks till 1.00am. Breakfast the next morning was accompanied by fresh croissants from the Intermarche and they left for St Jean de Losne having come from the UK.
We sadly departed on Monday for Port a Binson, noticing that all other ports en route were occupied by contented Dutch filling all available spaces on their boats with local product. The town again was closed as it was still a holiday weekend but a funeral gave us some interesting sights and the boulangerie opened as I returned from a long walk. The port was quiet despite the arrival of another boat and we had a restful night before heading for Chateau Thiery the next day.
Chateau Thiery has a long concrete quai which had a Dutch hotel boat on one end taking water. They managed to get themselves fully bogged as the boat settled under the weight of the water. They had not checked that the water level next to the quai is only a metre.... We watched as they then attempted to free themselves, finally succeeding with much effort and engine use, ending up moored (?) a couple of metres from the quai. A couple of other boats arrived including an English canal boat and a UK couple on a pretty little barge - 100 years old and once a milk carrier.
The next morning began with a thick fog which kept us at the mooring till 10.00am. As the season draws to a close, especially around October, fogs become prevalent, especially on rivers. The warmer water and cooler air combining with a lack of breeze creates thick white mists which inhibit travel until about 10.00am. We started as the mist burned off but as we rounded the corner we ran into it again and had visibility for less than 100 metres for the next hour or so. 100 metres is OK as you can generally react to boats coming in the opposite direct well within that distance, especially if both boats are obeying the rule to stay to the right. It finally cleared and we continued to Meaux where the port was nearly empty. Meaux hosts a wonderful pageant which describes the history of the town over its past 300 to 400 years. It has been professionally written and recorded and is acted by some 600 town’s people in more than 3,000 costumes. There are horses, canons, sword fights, parties, politics, vehicles, armies and wars - and it is great fun.
We bought our tickets for the Pageant for the next night and also decided to go the Euro Disney as there are busses from Meaux to the attraction, it being only 30 minutes away. We had never been and despite the lack of a child to disguise our pleasure we had a day of great fun the next day. We were at the bus station in plenty of time to get to Euro Disney. Some 6 hours later we returned, severely rattled by some of the rides.
This park, the first outside the USA took a while to catch on but is now packed, summer and winter. Rides like the very frightening Wild Mountain, the space travel Voyager and Shuttle trips and the rocket gun that shoots you into the sky, are all packed 10 hours a day, leading to queues of over an hour for each. Euro Disney has all the favourite attractions such as Frontierland, Neverland, a miniature and nature world, Toad’s Hall and many more. It is a delight to see little children completely immersed in the magic of it all, especially those who have prevailed on their parents to outfit them in the costumes available for purchase - Snow White for girls and Ali Baba for the boys, plus many others of red Indian, cowboy, pirate and other modes.
The Meaux Spectacular we had seen 4 years before but this time we understood a lot more and since it was on a night after a months break for the 600 cast members, it had the feeling of an opening night.
We also had new friends Olaf, Greta and Leff who were sharing a week on Olaf’s yacht and were moored across from us in the port. We got to know a bit about these three from Norway and shared a chat and a laugh or two while in Meaux, then on to Paris to the Marina at Grenelle - now renamed Marina Tour Eiffel. Patrice the new Captain welcomed us at the extreme end of the Marina where we were able to stay for three days before moving to the outside of two other barges for the final day.
We planned to do all the things we had not done before in the City of Light, including visiting the Bois de Boulogne’s lake and Garden de Orientation, the Cemetery Pere Lachaise with it’s tombs of Chopin, Edith Piaf and Jim Morrison; the catacombs with 6 million sets of bones from the 17th century; Opera Garnier, the Place de la Guillotine, the Petite and Grande Palais, Café Eustache - no Jazz this time unfortunately, and the Refuge de Fondu, a restaurant where you drink from baby bottles. The city waxworks museum had moved to a new location and was finally found while the Conciergerie was open and had a very good exhibition of 100 year old paintings of the marvels of .ancient Egypt compared with contemporary photographs of the same views.
The Bois de Boulogne has a mixed reputation, by day, especially on weekends, it is a tranquil oasis of nature in the centre of this huge city, offering a range of walks, lakes with boats to rent and row, a nature park where children can discover real animals and have their domestic purposes explained (many children have been found not to know where milk and eggs come from for example). There are puppet and other shows, horses for riding, cycle paths, cafes and restaurants and adventure playgrounds for adults and children alike. By night it changes character completely ! Here in the darkened streets the weird and wonderful ply their trade, offering every sort of sex and sexual perversion to be found on the planet. We visited by day only !
The catacombs, on the other hand, are vast and spooky. Filled with the bones and skulls of 6 million Parisians who formerly occupied cemeteries in and around Paris, these remains were brought to the former coal and stone mines that thread their way under Paris. Wheeled in carts preceded by priests chanting the rites, they were exhumed by order of the government which was desperately trying to staunch the rising levels of plague and disease. Mining had been halted to stop buildings disappearing underground and finally the mines also were closed to further bodies as they are quite full ! You walk through these dank passages surrounded by huge piles, decorously arranged into fantastic patterns for what seems like, and is like, miles, finally emerging some kilometres from the start point and completely lost. Fortunately the locals know where you have been and how you are feeling and gently guide you in the direction of the nearest Metro station.
Unfortunately the Petite and Grande Palais were closed for extensive renovation. Built for the World Fair at the same time as the Tour Eiffel, these vast Belle Epoque structures are now huge exhibition and conference facilities. They are truly beautiful buildings, constructed some 200 years before the Conference centre in Perth ! (My home town in Western Australia where it took more than 20 years to get the government to even consider providing such an important piece of infrastructure).
The Opera Garnier is named after its architect and is a stunning, huge and very ornate opera theatre - which inspired the Phantom myth and musical. Tours are conducted through the halls, auditorium, back stage areas and fabulous boxes - which are furnished with sumptuous arm chairs and a bed - for the boring bits ! Unfortunately the season was not on so the theatre was ‘dark’ so no performance could be visited - one day perhaps.
We went out to a Jazz place that advertised free concerts but was actually charging 7e each plus exorbitant drink costs - the jazz was pretty ordinary - an Italian guitarist, drummer and bass. We left after an hour and took the Metro back to Grenelle. On the metro some youths were being obnoxious and were confronted at which an argument ensued where I took the high moral ground if not actually winning the issue.
Fuel and oil were arranged and were supposed to be delivered by 10.00am but were delayed putting a hole in the next day. The rest of the stay in Paris included a visit to the military museum, Mme Tussaud’s wax museum and later, the Refuge du Fondue, open on Tuesday to Saturday, where you have the choice of meat or bread fondue and unlimited house wine in baby bottles. Two tables run the length of the restaurant forcing the women (by tradition) to climb over for the boys to have a thrill as they do. It is a favourite with university groups - especially from Yale and Harvard.
Wednesday saw us at the Louvre and the Luxembourg Gardens, but all too soon we had to untie Van Nelle from the quayside at the newly named Tour Eiffel Marina in the heart of Paris and begin our final voyage south to Auxerre, the Canal de Bourgogne and finally, St Jean de Losne where we would winter. But hey, it was still only the end of August. So far this year we had travelled over 2,000 kilometres and still had the best part of another 1,000 to go and two or three months to do it in. So off we set for Fontainbleu, the lovely chateau so liked by Napoleon Bonaparte and his mistress Josephine.
Friday 2 September
We arrived at the floating pontoons of the Soreau marina where the whole structure looked too spindly and insecure for us, but as we circled looking for alternatives a man appeared from one of the boats and waved us in. He turned out to be the captain and was insistent we stay on the outer edge of the pontoons that offered full amenities of water and electricity available at a reasonable rate. We inquired as to how to get to the chateau in the town, some distance away, and were advised that a 15 minute walk would take us to the station from which we could get a bus right to the gates. We tidied up and set off up the long, hot hill. About a half an hour later we arrived at the station and waited the 20 minutes for the bus. Finally one arrived and as promised, set us down near the gates of the Fontainbleu chateau.
After paying the entry fee and collecting an English language audio guide we began the trek through this very impressive ‘pile’ as the English call their stately homes. Many rooms are furnished with Napoleon’s meubles (furniture) including his bed (and hers), his throne, chairs, tables, sideboards, silver, crystal, uniforms, paintings and more.
This was the place he liked to spend lots of time in both formal and informal manner. Formal meant being woken, washed and dressed by a retinue of courtiers and enduring complete days in ritual set down to ape the old days of royal courts. The informal days were spent sleeping in a camp bed in his office, spending the day at paperwork and with Josephine, walking or riding the park (huge and handsome) and eating, playing cards and entertaining the odd general or potentate. It was the residence in which he was found after his defeat at Waterloo and where he surrendered to the English officer who promised him reasonable terms on behalf of the English government. They didn’t honour the promises and he was eventually poisoned at his island exile at St Helena - apparently by elements of the Bourbon (royal family) loyalists.
Napoleon III was also later to be found here, especially before he was despatched by his erstwhile government. After his extermination his wife exiled herself to Britain where her son joined a British regiment and was killed by Africans while serving in the Cape.
Chapter Fifteen - Back to Burgundy
Having soaked up all this interesting history we moved on, intending to stop at St Mammes, a favourite spot at the confluence of the Seine, the Loing and the Yonne rivers. Unfortunately the place was full of both commercial and private boats, filling all the suitable places on the quayside and at the substantial jetty marina. We continued on for a couple of hours upstream to reach Montereau in time for a stroll through this attractive market town.
We still had a number of guests to take in on our journey south and by now had arranged exact meeting times and places, so had to keep moving at a reasonable rate. Therefore, off with the lines and on to Sens, a large town providing administrative and commercial services to a wide area of business. Sens also has a number of attractions but we had been there several times in the last few years so continued our journey the next day to Migennes, and after a quick recce of the facilities for our return, headed down river to Auxerre where we planned to stay for a few days before meeting a foursome on Sunday 11 September.
I had wanted to get to Auxerre as it is close to Chablis which town I planned to visit by scooter to buy some wine for our guests. The next day I swung the scooter off the deck and rode off to visit the large winemaking firm of Regnard, from which I had bought good Chablis before. It took about 30 minutes at the top speed of 65kmh on the scooter to reach the town and do a quick tour before arriving at the sales office of Regnard where a very pretty lass spent the next half hour or so providing me with samples of the range. I bought a dozen bottles which only just fitted into the carry box and under seat storage on the bike before heading back to Auxerre and the boat.
While in Auxerre we took the advice of the tourist office and with their map in hand completed the walking tour which takes you past all the notable relics, buildings, attractions and statues in about 3-4 hours. Time for a cup of tea (or something stronger) in one of the outdoor cafes before heading downhill to the boat to consider the view over the river to the marina on the far side. We had made friends with an English couple (Roger and Wendy) who had bought a 25m Luxemotor that year but had yet to actually go anywhere in it. They joined us for drinks and dinner and reciprocated with a delightful meal on their deck a day or two later. We waved at each other the next day as we motored quietly up to the lock in town just before 9.00am and just before a rush of other boats that would have delayed our trip back to Migennes.
On arrival at Migennes we took advantage of the electricity and water supply to get the boat up to scratch for the arrival of our Perth friends Wayne and Pip Banks and Frank and Chris Lefaucheur who were to spend just 5 days with us on the way to Montbard. They were due the next day so we arranged to slip moorings early in order to meet them a little way out of town to where they would take a taxi. This was in order to reduce the tedium of the many locks in a very short distance at the beginning of the Canal de Bourgogne. The instructions all worked perfectly and their taxi brought them unerringly to us at Briennon from where we immediately set off for Tonnerre and Tanlay, two towns with impressive chateaux. This was the basis of their days with us, move early or late to the next attraction, take the time to take it all in and then on again to the next.
In their short stay, the team managed to see the best couple of Chateaux, the Abbaye at Fontenay, the Forge at Buffon, the Fosse Dionne and the wine area of Chablis, a fun and feature packed period.
At the Buffon forge we met the owner, a sprightly 80 year old woman who, by her photos, was a corker when young and also a bit of a rebel. She confessed she had taken a yacht to Australia with a man - not her husband - had several enjoyable romances in far off places and was now somewhat bored being tied to the forge.
We also fitted in a visit to Le Marroniers restaurant which we had been introduced to by other locals a couple of years before and had some lovely on-board dinners, lots of wine tasting and the opportunity for Frank and Wayne to get quite skilled at driving Van Nelle, including negotiating locks and bridges. Too soon their time was up and after our arrival at Montbard we walked in the rain to the station as they set off for parts foreign before returning to Western Australia.
We were now on our own for most of the rest of the season, except for a couple who were to join us the next weekend for just two days and one night, so we headed off to revisit the very interesting Chateau Bussy Rabutin, and the Roman ruins and battleground of Alesia.
Bussy Rabutin was a noble and soldier in the court of Louis XIV who fell out of favour by writing a book about the sexual adventures of the King’s courtiers. Unfortunately one of the women took umbrage and suggested to Louis that he was one of the principal characters in this exposé. Louis exiled Roger Rabutin to his estate which the poor chap then took some 27 years to decorate with pictures of the courtiers - nude. Eventually the king allowed him back to court, some 5 or so years before he died. His house in lovely grounds was open when we visited, free of charge as it was the weekend of France’s ‘open house of history’ when all public and notable private estates are open to the population.
Not only the chateau of Bussy Rabutin but also the Roman ruins, museum and battlefields of Alesia were included during this period and special events were taking place at them all including guided tours and expositions of olde worlde food and crafts. We took in as much as we could, riding from site to site on the scooter and wandering the windswept hills where Julius Caesar’s 50,000 soldiers surrounded and eventually starved out the numerically superior 80,000 Gauls. Their leader, Vercingoretex, was eventually taken to Rome and (mercifully ?) strangled. It was the first time a Gaul leader had united the tribes of Gaul and defeated the Romans many times before being trapped into a set piece confrontation.
After that weekend it was on to Pouillenay and Marigny, 30 locks in 15 km before going aground at Marigny as a result of the woefully low water levels in some of the biefs (area between locks), caused in part by low levels in the reservoirs and in balance by poor management by the VNF. The weather was changeable at this time and while we had our fair share of sunshine we also experienced the odd heavy frost. On to Semur - a medieval town on the canal side, redolent in historical feeling and half wooden houses, hundreds of years old.
Wednesday, September 21 brought beautiful weather as we headed off to Port Royal. At this time we were travelling more or less in company with another English couple, retired doctor Tony and his wife Anne on their newly built canal cruiser / barge replica - Feniks. Travelling in loose convoy is a sometimes pleasant way to enjoy some company while essentially doing your own thing. We had the odd drink and meal together, visiting the Routiere (truckers café) at Port Royal for a surprisingly good but simple meal for 12 Euros each plus 8 E for the carafes of excellent house wine. The highlight of the café’s ambience was the way the shapely and somewhat provocative daughter of the fierce matriarch sparred with the rather butch male customers. She gave better than she got !
This part of the Canal de Bourgogne is idyllic, the travelling was uninterrupted by other traffic, the weather kind and the scenery spectacular with villages appearing on nearby hillsides, leafy glades passed almost silently - except for the odd plop of a large fish heaving itself out of the water - the drone of the engine and the myriad shades of green reflected from the trees and bank side foliage in the limpid waters of the canal. There were times that, knowing that it was our plan to sell Van Nelle and return to Australia at the end of this season, I became quite reflective, even emotional about the surroundings we found ourselves in.
We had come to a decision that, after five summers and four winters in Europe, we had essentially done what we started out to do - to explore Europe by its waterways. Were we to repeat the process, revisit places we had seen and explored ? We thought not. Besides, we had a new granddaughter to enjoy and other adventures to experienced. We wanted to visit some other countries - like China where our son Sean was manufacturing bamboo flooring - to do more flying into the interior of Australia in the Cessna aircraft I was licensed to fly and to possibly do some long distance ocean cruising in a new yacht a friend we call Admiral Ian was building in Western Australia. So time was drawing to a close and we meant to make the most of it.
Slowly, sliding softly through the waterways we wandered into Pouilly on our son’s partner’s birthday and celebrated it with a long phone call to chat about it and our grand daughter Elle, now 7 months old. She was then in Perth and we were naturally keen to get updates on the progress of this perfect little girl.
Vandenesse was our next stop for an overnight rest and a wander though the town, then we passed on through the 3.5km Pouilly Tunnel with help from our friends Tony and Anne on Feniks at both ends to assist us in demounting and resetting the roof on the wheelhouse. The tunnel’s low roof line and semicircular shape dictates that we have to reduce our boat’s height in order to pass through this long tunnel safely. From an overall height of 3.35m we can reduce to 2.80m or even lower if absolutely necessary. In that case we had a huge, caste iron tiller that fitted neatly on the top of the rudder post, no doubt used to navigate some of the low bridges in the Netherlands when Van Nelle was taking the tea, coffee and tobacco from Rotterdam to Amsterdam. By using it instead of the huge wheel we could get our height down considerably.
As we travelled towards our meeting place at La Bussierre where we had arranged to pick up Tony and Catherine, our next and last guests for the season, we passed the lovely view of Chateauneuf. This is a beautiful and very large Burgundian castle on the top of a hill just a few kilometres from the canal. Indeed there is a delightful place to stop near a lock from whence you can visit the town and the Chateau. There is unfortunately a rather steep and long hill to climb in order to get to the Chateau and the last couple of times we have passed here we have been content to send our guests off to visit while we handle the boat through a couple of locks to meet up with them further on. If approaching from the west however we can get the scooter off the boat at the mooring, making the trip up the hill easier. We often thought about towing guests up hills using the scooter but never actually tried it. This time we had no guests but having seen the castle several times, admired it from a distance without stopping.
At La Bussierre, while waiting for our guests to arrive, I wandered to the little pottery shop and made the acquisition of a rather rough but attractive coffee cup to offer to the leading hand aboard. While Maureen was appreciative at the time she never used it. Perhaps it was a bit too rough. Fairly soon our new arrivals alighted from the regional bus from Dijon and came aboard. Tony worked for the UNHCR in Switzerland and his wife, Catherine lived and worked in Dijon as a teacher. Not a very together way to spend a couple of years but it suited them at the time.
We were unable to get seats in the nearby Abbaye for dinner - normally a highlight of a visit to this town but they had a group taking all the space that night - so we headed off in search of other adventures. At about this time we discovered that they had not told us they were vegetarians - that caused a bit of panic in the galley but Maureen the deck admiral and mistress chef rose to the occasion magnificently and all were satisfied, dietarily. We do ask people to advise us of any special requirements but they seem not to do so.
On to Fleury where Tony and Catherine were to leave us on this very short weekend break, they to get back to their respective careers and we were to head on down to Dijon, through the last of the hundreds of locks spread over such a short distance. But first we had part of the day to explore the town, and while walking, discovered a scout jamboree and a few new views that we had not discovered before. Alas, pretty soon the bus arrived to transport our twosome away and we prepared to depart also.
An uneventful but somewhat wearying trip from there to Dijon was in front of us because of the locks, but they passed with us in good humour as we helped the eclusiers fill and empty their locks and moved on to the next. Maureen often walked or rode a bike between the locks to speed the process and get some exercise, sometimes expertly driving the boat alone as I did the same.
We arrived in Dijon for a stop of 3 days and discovered to our delight, out friends Rolly and Val O’Driscoll in town -Yea. That meant there were some fun days ahead, especially since other friends Tony and Anne also arrived shortly after us and our great friends Caroline and Matthew Morton from St Jean de Losne happened to be visiting Dijon, so we had a crowd - and our accumulated mail from our ‘home port’ was thoughtfully brought over by the Mortons, so we had some catching up to do.
One night we invited Tony and Anne and Rolly and Val to join us for dinner and had a great time telling tall stories of our waterborne lives until I discovered that some young rascals had untied both our boats and we were adrift in the Dijon harbour. A bit of a surprise but no damage done and soon we were back in place, more securely tied. The perpetrators did not return, fortunately for their health, but we spent a somewhat sleepless night as a result. The rest of our time in the capital city of Burgundy passed uneventfully as we wandered and shopped - Maureen for baby clothes and me for a couple of antique wine glasses and two old Tastevin, the silver ‘cups’ used by sommeliers to taste wine newly opened.
Dijon is a fascinating city as it is, and has been the capital of Burgundy, land of wine and grain and livestock and industry for hundreds of years. The palace of the Ducs de Bourgogne is vast and open to the public as a museum and gallerie des beaux arts (art gallery). There are also old churches and cathedrals, timbered and stone houses and shops, vast open ‘places’ and of course a lot of modern facilities as well. As a capital it also has a large and well used airport, rail station (less than 2 hours to Paris) and several major autoroutes connecting it the rest of France and to Switzerland and Italy. It is only 30 minutes by car from St Jean de Losne but a very full day by boat - IF you get an uninterrupted voyage, start very early and finish very late. It is more normal to take two leisurely days for the cruise and to stop at one of the only two very drab towns in between - or preferably take a wild mooring.
After our brief stay at Dijon we headed off to the mid point between Dijon and St Jean - Longecourt - for the evening before setting off the next morning, just before the hotel boat following us, for the final stretch to St Jean de Losne.
On arrival at St Jean we went first to the centre of town to the riverfront quai. All the space at the town jetty was taken so after a quick look up and down the river front we decided to head for the Ancien Ecluse, which was to be our winter home. This closed off section of the old canal is situated 4 kilometres from the town of St Jean and is a peaceful refuge from gawking tourists, townspeople, pecheurs (fishermen), and others who habitually wander the canal sides of town ports. We had not been allocated an actual berth at that time but knew we could stop at the old lock at the entrance before taking our car into town to arrange the details.
It was now October and while we had planned to do some more cruising - up the Petite Saone to Fontenoy le Chateau - it turned out that we had actually finally come to rest for the season. There was much work to be done to prepare Van Nelle for sale to new owners so we knuckled down to the task of preparing and painting the whole ship - all 27 metres long, several metres high and 4.5 metres wide - in four different colours. Not, I hasten to add, in a random manner - but black below the white stripe and blue above with white top sides and a grey deck. Actually five colours since the inside of the gunwales were red. To prepare for the painting, all the rust had to be scraped off and those areas anti-rust treated or filled. Fortunately the weather was against us for the first few days so we had a bit of R&R with local friends first to fortify us. Soon the fogs and early frosts abated and we were down to work - and I mean down - on our knees for hours each day.
There were, of course, the ongoing social occasions to be honoured as well and we soon slipped into the routine of visits to town (our old Renault 21 performing beautifully), in order to attend the Franglais evenings, the Monday morning walks, the obligatory beer at L’Amiral and visits to the tourist office to use the internet, quicker and easier than trying to get uninterrupted mobile phone reception on the boat.
Painting the boat included the hull - black tar replacement paint all round from the waterline up to the white anti-rust stripe; then anti-rust Royal blue to the top of the gunwale then black enamel on the top rail. Red anti-rust paint inside the gunwales and grey anti-slip paint on the decks - except the back deck which is white to keep it cool underfoot during sunny days. White cabin top and wheelhouse roof and red cabin sides together with the inner gunwales set the boat off beautifully - I thought. There was no-one to argue. Then there are all the little fiddly bits like the bollards, the anchor winch and the rails - all black. Most of this work required working on your knees, bent and extended over the deck side or under the inside of the gunwales, except for the black hull paint which was applied from the dinghy. Then of course there was the dinghy. Maureen had repaired and painted the outside of the hull and just after the end of October I managed to find a day fine enough to do the inside. Good as new !
It was uncanny that the weather was excellent through October and allowed us to do the work. It would also have been good cruising weather, a bit on the cool side at times but Ok, but had we used up October cruising we would definitely not have been able to paint the boat, for the weather soon changed, just after we finished.
We had lots of time to give and receive hospitality, including dinner for Charles and Patricia Gerard who basically own the H2O business, Caroline and Matthew, and later, new friends - Alex and Marilyn and Paul and Annie. All of these couples own and live on boats in the Ancien Ecluse and all, apart from Charles and Patricia, are English, escaping the lousy UK weather and living conditions. There are many more residents in the old lock marina, some Swiss, some French, some more English and even a couple of Germans. Most live here full time but some come only for the summers, returning to their homes or to other homes in Portugal or Spain during winter.
The car was also due for insurance renewal and the obligatory inspection or ‘controle technique’. I assumed there would be a long list of defects to be addressed after the initial inspection as they are very thorough but I was surprised to be told that I only needed a replacement tyre for one that had a bubble on its side. I found a tyre shop with new tyres for 55 Euro so bought 2 new for the front and a second hand replacement for the damaged one. Presto - passed !.The inspector also pointed out a hole developing in the rear muffler but it and other little bits of rust were not severe enough to cause a refusal.
So, day after day on the knees painting, then in the dinghy painting, then back on the knees and finally the job was done. It would not be so bad if all one had to do was go over each area once but no, each surface has to be addressed three times at least - the preparation, the anti rust and the painting - and that’s if you only do a single coat. Some areas deserve two. The boat is 27m long and 4.3m wide plus about 21/2 m high, then there is the cabin and the wheelhouse and all the decks. Its no wonder some owners leave their boats to the mercy of the boatyards over winter and return to a newly painted but much more expensive job at the start of summer.
The French ‘vendage’ or grape harvest is normally in September / October and after a couple of weeks the process is mostly done with the new wine now in bottles or casks ‘sleeping’ while it develops its character. The results of previous year’s harvests are therefore ready to be displayed, tasted and celebrated by the end of October. We visited Auxey Duresses for the post vendage wine show where tastings and cheese plates were the order of the day. Our friend Caroline Morton regularly picks for one of the local vignerons and we visited his cave (and half a dozen others) to taste the result. A pleasant day except I had elected to drive so was somewhat circumspect about the number and volume of tastings I could imbibe.
Each year there is also the biggest wine auction in France, held in Beaune where the Hotel Dieu was donated in the 1700s by the local lord and his wife and granted extensive vineyards to provide the income for its upkeep and operations. It sells the product of its grapes to negotiants (wholesalers) from all over France. This raises millions, sufficient over the years to have kept the establishment working as the city hospital and, eventually in the late 60s, to have built a completely new facility. This allowed the Hotel Dieu to be turned into a fabulous museum (while part still maintains the aged care centre), to be completely restored to its original state and to be furnished as a 17th century hospital. I had wanted to see this spectacle - the auction not the Hotel Dieu - which we had toured several times. Unfortunately I was not aware of the date of the auction and missed it by a week. Not that I was interested in buying a couple of thousand litres of wine, but more to experience the spectacle. Ah well, another time.
Near St Jean is the town of Auxonne where Napoleon Bonaparte undertook his artillery training. The fort he studied in remains but in a rather neglected state. Just a short distance from it, and the town’s port, is their ‘Salle Polyvalent’ the town’s conference and meeting centre. Each year, Rotary puts on a wine show with entries from all over the country. This was held on October 30th and gave us an excuse to take Van Nelle up river to enjoy the day. Matthew Morton, his mate Mike Hoffman, Maureen and I, navigated the couple of locks and some 25km to Auxonne for the day. We arrived at lunch time and so enjoyed a good lunch on the back deck before heading off to the tastings. By the time we had done justice to the show, the reds, whites and Champagnes, it was past time to depart. With some quick work and even quicker talking we managed to get through the locks before closing and arrived back at the Ancienne Ecluse in the dark. It was an interesting exercise ghosting through the narrow passage between the barges parked either side of the narrow passage to our mooring, getting into the neat space and tying up accurately, but we managed - without accident.
A day or so later, Mike Hoffman suggested a trip to another nearby town to visit their model and remote controlled aircraft show. This time we drove - or that is, Mike drove while Matthew and I pretended to navigate. That was not entirely necessary however since Mike was using a GPS navigation system. There was no flying unfortunately as the show was held in the town’s hall, not at the aerodrome, but the huge and expensive fixed wing aircraft models, plus helicopters and jets were accompanied by a number of simulators and big video screens displaying the prowess of the owners. We were fascinated as Mike is a model enthusiast, I fly light planes and Matthew is a 747 captain. Shortly after this, Maureen departed for Perth. I was to follow a little later.
We were now into November and it was cold ! Most days were dry although we had some rain and one period of several days of snow, but everyday - it is cold ! The temperature really started dropping about mid November, up until then the weather was quite mild. As a result, apart from the various jobs involved in winterising Van Nelle, there has not been a great deal to do and later, by the second week of December, I was hanging out for the 13th when I was to depart St Jean for Paris in order to catch the 11.55am Singapore Airlines flight on the 14th to Singapore and from there on the 15th to Perth. Sunshine, beaches, barbecues, flying, my Yamaha 250cc motor bike and all the other delights of home await.
But what of the November / December period ?
Some of the additional highlights of that period included having my wood supply delivered for the pot belly stove in the boat. While I rely on the central heating system during the day, at night it is cheery to light the fire and warm the toes, pointed at the glow of the flames enclosed within. On these nights the satellite TV is a godsend to fend off the boredom, especially since I have been able to add the four ITV channels to the four BBC channels plus two news channels and a few other miscellaneous offerings including Performance, Musicians, Horror, Reality, Men and Motors and three pop shows - all in English. Not bad for a cheap digi box and free to air broadcasting. During this period there have been some excellent programs including a series on Rome and Dicken’s Bleak House.
Before the crew - Maureen - left on 7 November, she and others developed a ‘Randonner Dejeuner’ idea, a ‘wandering lunch’. Held on a Sunday, inhabitants of about 7 boats gathered first for aperitifs on Vixit, Caro and Matt’s boat, then split into different groups to visit other’s boats for the entree and then still another boat for the main course. The event ended up at Patricia and Charles imposing home on the riverside for dessert and coffee. Everyone enjoyed the repast, most of which was overwhelming as each boat tried to outdo the others in quantity as well as quality. It also provided some the opportunity to meet others properly. We even had some French among us so the conversations were multi lingual at times. Good for the practice.
On the 7th of November, Maureen headed off to Perth. First a 6.35am train to Dijon, then the 7.30 to Paris, a quick change to the RER for the trip out to Charles de Gaulle airport and away at 2.35pm to Dubai and then Perth. And so my bachelor period began, to end on December 14 when I departed for Perth. In order to get to Western Australia however I have to leave St Jean on the 13th to catch my flight on the 14th, finally emplaning in Singapore on the 15th for the final leg to Perth, arriving at 2.45pm that day. In the interim I have been trying to get Singapore Airlines to recognise my previous flights and therefore mileage, which has not been credited. My Silver Kris membership lapsed and somehow none of my flights were credited by the check in staff at various airports over a period of 5 years.
Rain and fog predominated the weather since about mid November and now, in December we were having a bit of a mild spell. The Meteo (weather) service keeps threatening snow and rain with freezing spells but so far it was not too bad. Of course it was still cold - around 2-3 degrees mostly - day and night.
We who were left in the marina over winter enjoyed some other culinary delights which included a curry night with Paul and Annie at Alex and Marilyn’s boat Unity and a supper with Caro and Matt. We had dinner at L’Amiral with Roy and Alison Ashby who visited to see what boats were available for sale and at what price to suit their intended retirement and a visit with Caro and Matt to La Peniche, a restaurant in town. I held another dinner on Van Nelle for Annie, Paul, Alex and Marilyn, a Sunday lunch with Matt and Caro and had the odd coffee and afternoon tea on various boats. Monday mornings started with Caroline’s excellent randonnees (bush walks), starting from near Germaine’s house (an 80 year old Scot who ran the book exchange) near the fuel barge in town. We explored both sides of the river and wandered up the Canal de Bourgogne some distance. The walks normally took about an hour and a half and were small weekly exercise and gossip fests.
Caroline is in the local Lions International service club and had, with Patricia, Matthew and others, begun a service to the boaters if they needed to talk with someone about personal problems. Known as SOS Plaisance, this is a confidential telephone service sponsored by the River Rats (boat people) and the Lions Club. In order to promote the service the organisers wanted a poster made up and so I had a useful little project for me and my PC, laying out their poster. After about 20 changes to the original design it was completed and handed over, to their delight.
I also volunteered to host a quiz night to be held on 16 November and therefore had to prepare 100 questions, the answer sheets and supply the prizes as well as setting up the venue at the Maison du Mariniers, a building in town dedicated to the professional bargees who had been the backbone of the town for generations. It is now a museum and meeting place and the venue for such events. The due night arrived and the quiz was conducted in a happy mood, upstairs in the museum, as the more than 30 contestants in teams of four, munched and slurped through their refreshments while answering the questions I had gleaned, mostly from Trivial Pursuit - the young players version!
In response to the other’s hospitality I also rose to the occasion as a chef extraordinaire one night, roasting a lamb crown roast for Alex and Marilyn, Paul and Annie. It fortunately worked out very well - better than the onions and mushrooms that became slightly black at my previous barbecue. Can you be slightly black - or is that like being a bit pregnant ?
Our 33rd wedding anniversary was spent at some distance from one another on November 25. Maureen had left a bottle of after shave for me and I, with the help of son Sean, arranged a dozen roses and chocolates and wine for her in Perth. Around that time Matthew was repairing the engine of Caroline’s little Renault which had begun to exhibit a leakage of engine coolant through the cylinders and out the exhaust. Successfully taking apart and replacing the head etc, he managed to attach the spark leads the wrong way round stopping the engine from starting, a problem that had him scratching his head for a couple of days. I, purely by luck or accident, happened to suggest reversing the order and hey presto - success. I was extremely happy to have been able to contribute some technical usefulness.
Snow fell shortly after Maureen’s departure and while pretty, stayed only for a couple of days. However it was snowing on the weekend I decide to drive to Paris for a break. The Renault performed faultlessly and it and I arrived on the left bank at the car park just after 2.00pm. (I make these comments about the Renault since we had bought it for 1,000 Euros some 4 ½ years previously, had driven across Europe to Italy, Spain, Lourdes and the Midi, completed some 40,000 km and it had never let us down - quite a bargain !). I managed to get a cheap hotel room easily and headed off for the Arsenal marina to catch up with friends. Unfortunately it was the weekend most people had also decided to return to the UK so my British friends were not there. A long afternoon’s wanderings to places of interest and later a small restaurant near the river for a forgettable grill therefore made up most of the content of my sojourn.
However before dinner I had seen posters for a gospel group performing that night at the ancient church near the river so headed there and secured a good seat for what turned out to be a great show. About two hours of rollicking spirituals and gospel rock by 2 musicians and 9 singers with soul, harmony and plenty of swinging movement. Out into the cool streets and on my way back to the hotel I was attracted to the piano bar at Les Trois Maillots where I spent the rest of the evening with a yacht skipper from the Med and his Filipino girlfriend singing along with the succession of pianists. 3.00am was the time I realised I was out of cash and voice and it was probably time to head back to the hotel, where I crashed till near check-out time on Sunday morning. Another 3 hour drive back to St Jean and a memory of new found places of fun and music in the City of Light.
Back at St Jean and a few days prior to leaving for Perth, I was out before 8.30am to join Charles and Paul on the road repair gang. 3 hours on the end of a shovel, spraying gravel into large potholes was the order of the day. Still, we got a free cup of coffee after the effort at the Gerard’s and it was a good way to be allowed to use Charles’ car repair ramp to retie the mud flap under the engine of the Renault which the potholed road between the ecluse and town had torn loose.
The next day was the day of the River Rats Xmas Party at which I had to provide a range of entertainment and a ham for the dinner. I had a quiz, a number of Christmas trivia anecdotes, and a surprise ending Bingo competition plus the ham. The event was to be held in the Mariner’s Museum, decorated by Caroline with Van Nelle’s Christmas decorations, which I really didn’t need. The work gang was to assemble at 2.00 pm to set up the room and light the heaters. It should be a hoot. It was. Unfortunately I was so busy I missed getting a portion of my beautifully prepared ham !
There was a great group of people at the ancien ecluse at St Jean de Losne. Carolyn and Matthew Morton had been there for over a decade on their 38 metre peniche Vixit, the oldest still operating French barge, built in 1862. English school teachers John and Rosemary came and went each year with the seasons until they retired to their new house in a nearby village in 2004. Alex and Marilyn arrived with a 30 metre barge which Alex was renovating and Paul and Annie also arrived to completely convert their purchased peniche. Sue Boxsell lived alone on her Tjalk from which she ran her business ‘Burgundy on a Plate’ and others came and went. All in all there were more than 20 biggish boats with some used only for the summer and some lived on year round.
We had some wonderful times together exploring the area, getting to know some of the locals, creating events and meals and afternoon drinks. We swapped books and DVDs or VHS tapes, tall stories and experiences, assisted each other with jobs on and around the boats and generally were good and friendly neighbours. Come the cruising season - April to October - the marina would partially empty as couples like us departed for the entire season or moved on to different winter ports while others came and went at will. Special winter dates like Christmas, New Year, Australia Day and others were celebrated on or near the boats or in the local restaurants or the Maison des Marroniers, others like birthdays, anniversaries or just Friday nights had smaller groups gather on a boat to share local wines, home cooked food and loud music into the night - just as well the boats were insulated and the windows and ports closed against the frigid outside air.
Chapter Sixteen - Swansong
Christmas parties, snow and friends, everything Europe and December is about, passed in a flash and I was soon strapped into a Boeing 747, winging our way to Singapore and Perth. I was not to be long away before I had to return to St Jean.
Van Nelle, our 27metre Dutch ‘Katwijker’ type barge was currently secure in her winter port at St Jean de Losne, a short distance from Dijon, in central France - the heart of the Burgundy wine region. St Jean de Losne is the centre of inland pleasure boating in France at the confluence of the Saone river, the Burgundy and Saone au Rhine canals and more. This is the centre of a French national asset that comprises some 7,500km of navigable canals and rivers that extend from the Mediterranean in the south to the Belgian border in the north and the English Channel in the west to the Swiss border on the east. This extensive waterway connects into the Belgian, Dutch and German waterways that make up another 7,500km. In fact, you can take your vessel from St Petersburg, Moscow or Berlin, though the Netherlands, Belgium and France to the Mediterranean, or Bordeaux and the Atlantic, or branch east and go all the way down the Danube to the Black Sea - if you have the courage and the time.
My wife Maureen and I closed down our Public Relations and Events Management business in 2001 to take up life on the waterways of Europe for ‘some’ years. At that time it was undecided as to how long it would take us to see all we wanted to see and go to all the places we wanted to go to. In fact it was 5 summers in four and a half years before we decided during 2005 that we had indeed fulfilled our initial intent and to continue would be to repeat things we had already done. So, with great misgivings, we placed Van Nelle on the market and begun our planned re-entry into Australia at Perth. But why did we decide to go in the first place ?
When you have come to the realisation that life is not a rehearsal, you should make plans to do all the things you ever wanted to do before its too late. No good looking up from the pillow as you draw your last breath saying ‘If only I had.....’.
We had been on a canal cruise in 1999 with friends and had seen first hand the couples who were living the life, not just visiting. We thought at the time ‘wouldn’t it be nice’, however we had a business with employees and clients and contracts and all that jazz. The thought would not go away however and the Internet gave me the opportunity to research boats, costs, regulations and opportunities. I took the time to review cash and business forecasts, employee costs and projections and to realise that we were working 12 / 7 just to pay everyone. We realised we could actually close the business and live on investment income for the time we were away. So then, why not ? Our clients, advised a year before our move, were highly supportive and so as the time came closer, all the other objections were overcome.
We found Van Nelle though a broker recommended by another member of the Dutch Barge Association (an invaluable organisation to interested parties) and I went to see her while I took my French barge operators qualifications in northern France - in French. She appeared a mess but under the rubbish was a gem with everything we were looking for. Good lines and looks, a huge uncluttered back deck, a big wheelhouse, three cabins big enough for double beds, a large and comfortable saloon leading into the open plan galley, office and adjoining bathroom. I took notes and pictures of her and several others and returned to Western Australia. The decision made and irrevocable, in June 2001 the house was sold, furniture packed in a container and dispatched to Rotterdam and I was on the way to buy a boat with a fistful of dollars from the sale of the house. I revisited Van Nelle and several other boats. She was still for sale but the promised conversion and cleanup had not been completed. Fine I thought, I’ll use that as negotiating leverage and away from the influence of brokers, suggested to the owner (‘80% Frank’, so named because he never actually completed anything), that I would like to buy his ship but at a much reduced price due to her condition. He agreed almost immediately and so having secured a win / win outcome, we continued on to the survey and legals, all completed in 22 days - a record according to the broker who was brought back into the deal to complete it legally.
80% Frank had managed the conversion from commercial water tanker to live-aboard with a quality internal fit-out but with many items left unfinished. I had some 7 weeks before the arrival of the crew, Maureen my wife, so it was down to work. I was situated in a marina for a week, long enough to jettison all the odds and sods on deck that I did not want on the boat then I took Van Nelle out onto the normally placid Loosdrecht lakes near Amsterdam for the work up. The list included painting, plumbing, varnishing, electrical wiring, engine servicing, decorating, installation of lights, pumps, tanks and more. The work list piled up but then slowly diminished as I toiled and became familiar with all the systems, kinks and corners of this venerable lady of the canals.
Built in 1915 in Alkmaar in the Netherlands, she was employed by her owners, the Van Nelle coffee, tea and tobacco company of Rotterdam, collecting raw materials for delivery to their factory and taking finished product to their distribution points. These were all within a day’s travel from their headquarters in the now historic section of Rotterdam. Originally built as a 22m ship, she was extended to 27m when converted to carry drinking water in 1941. Sold through three water companies, she was finally taken out of service in 1991 and after 3 private owners, converted for live-aboard by 80% Frank and sold to us in 2001. We celebrated her 90th birthday, in Holland, in August 2005 on our discovery cruise the last year we owned her.
Our cruising then started from Loosdrecht near Amsterdam in July 2001 after we loaded our goods from Australia. Tables, chairs, a double bed sofa, stereo / TV / home theatre system, washing machine and dryer, mattresses, a gas barbecue, tools, SCUBA gear, parts and spares and finally fuel and water, we accommodated it all and headed south. Our first lock took us out of the lakes that had been my home for 2 months and onto the massive Amsterdam-Rhine Canal in the company of full sized ships on their way to Germany. Later we turned onto the mighty Maas River that connects to the Beatrix Canal, and further south again on the Maas to Maastricht and Liege before exiting Holland near Dinant, birthplace of Alfred Sax, inventor of the saxophone.
This first part of our journey was a real eye opener as we manoeuvered in company with huge ships travelling at speeds over 25kmh, 10kmh faster than our full speed. Entering cities like Maastricht we realised that we were welcome at the extensive riverside moorings in the centre of these magnificent, historic towns. Despite the devastation of the first and second wars, European cities have maintained many ancient buildings, squares, cathedrals, and precincts. Developed and modernised in some cases, they provide a spectacular backdrop to the river or canal running through their centre and a welcome break from the rigours of the frantic commercial waterways. Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium all use their extensive waterways as commercial arteries for gas and liquid fuels, building materials, heavy machinery and containers, all travelling at breakneck speed from the biggest port in the world - Rotterdam - to the major cities of Europe.
As you travel further south you reach smaller towns such as Dinant, backed by a huge rock face with a massive fort perched atop, accessed by cable car from picture book streets below. Wandering through the narrow confines of these medieval towns, one conjures up visions of the dukes of old, accompanied by knights on horse, thundering through the cobble streets on their way to some derring do, or to rescue a princess from one of the towering chateau’s towers that grace the battlemented rocky outcrops.
Very soon you reach the tranquil canals of France, now almost entirely abandoned to pleasure boating but with the occasional 38m peniche chugging slowly from silo to city or quarry to township.
French canals are beautiful. Overarched by a canopy of plane trees, in some cases 200 years old, these highways of the past were responsible for the development of industry and the building of cities.
Imaging if you can, the state of pre-17 century roads. In winter, muddy, rutted tracks and summer hard unyielding corrugations all choked with pilgrims and travellers on horse, foot and by cart, slowly forcing their way to and from. Carts carrying heavy loads bogged in the winter mud despite the best efforts of their owners and the sweating animals or humans pulling them. In high summer the stifling heat baked earth roads into rough, hard, corrugated and rutted nightmares that smashed straw packed wine bottles and fine Limoges pottery and glassware. This was a nightmare for the commerciants who waited impatiently for their stone blocks to build cathedrals or the wine to grace the tables of the well to do. And so, along came the private companies, subsidised by government, to build and profit by connecting navigable rivers with an interconnecting series of toll pay canals. Now, in record time, both heavy and fragile loads could be swiftly and safely delivered from origin to user.
Since most major European cities and towns were built on or developed as a result of their siting on major rivers for their water supply and local trade, it was obvious that the river, canals and canalised river system would be a great success. Until.....The resolute and unstoppable march of technology and the work completed by surveyors of the canals provided level paths for the development of railways.
Initially, rail was light and engines hardly powerful enough to pull people let alone cargo, but soon, larger and more capable stock and lines were developed and the canals declined. During the next two centuries the emergence of tarred roads and diesel powered trucks capable of carrying substantial loads quickly and directly to where they were required put the final nail in the coffin of the small barge operator. Today, giant 90-150 metre barges ply the largest of the waterways while the smaller canals, limited by 38 metre locks, have been relegated to tourism. That is fine by us - so long as maintenance continues on the canals to ensure their continued operability. Locks, barrages, banks and moorings all need maintenance and with the passing of commercial operations these are being ignored. These issues are a priority for the many hire boat, hotel boat and private boat owners on the system.
Our journeys over the past 5 summers (cruising is generally from March to November) have included:- our first journey from Amsterdam to St Jean de Losne through Champagne and Burgundy:- our second year travelling north to Paris and then south through the Canal de Briare and Centre to the Saone and Rhone rivers in order to speed south to the Canal de Midi, (famously the first major canal, built in the 1650s) and on to our winter mooring at Montech, a small village 60km west of Toulouse:- our third summer spent getting to know the extent of the two canals that link the Rhone (at the Mediterranean near Marseilles) to Bordeaux on the Garonne River, some 60km from the Atlantic coast:- our fourth summer took us north again to revisit St Jean, Champagne, Paris, Conflans (centre of commercial barging in France), though Piccardy and into Flanders, visiting Dunkerque, WWI battlefields and into Belgium to visit Bruges, Ghent and Brussels before wintering in Cambrai. Our fifth and final summer began by cruising north from Cambrai to Belgium and into Holland to Rotterdam, then to Amsterdam, Delft, the Hague, Alkmaar, Edam, the Markmeer and back through to Namur in Belgium for a barge rally. Then it was off to France to Verdun, turning north into the Moselle River past Luxembourg into Germany and returning via the Saar to Strasbourg. Finally, we went west to Champagne and Paris before coming back to St Jean de Losne on the Canal de Bourgogne in Burgundy.
In all we covered some 15,000 kilometres in 500 cruising days over 36 cruising months and 20 winter months in port. We have 15,000 litres of fuel and 1,000 litres of engine oil, consumed between 1,500 and 2,000 bottles of wine and I couldn’t begin to guess how much Brie, Camembert, canard, poulet, lapin, boeuf, agneau, jambon, beurre, huile, salad et legumes et pain.
The highlights of these journeys are undoubtable the many friends we have met, had aboard Van Nelle and have been aboard their boats and homes. We met people as previously unknown guests, other boaties we assisted or who put out their hands to us, villagers and residents of France and the low countries and others we met and enjoyed randomly along the way. One of the great joys of cruising is to first take someone’s mooring lines as they arrive at a port and end up hours later the best of friends over drinks or meals. Friendships develop rapidly on the canals as you don’t have much time together at any one place, but they often build over time as you meet at different places.
It is important to stay long enough in an area or town to get to be a part of the community. I joined a choir during winter 2002 in Montech and re-joined again a year later as I wintered in nearby Castelsarrasin. The members of the choir remain very affectionate friends. Two winters in St Jean de Losne also cemented friendships with locals living in and near the towns and expatriates living on boats.
Discovering special experiences is fun too - our favourite Champagne maker lives in Tours Sur Marne where we went each year to stock up on his Grand Cru Champagne at half the price of the large commercial brand’s ‘ordinaire’. Fetes and special events such as the Blessing of the Fleet at Conflans St Honorine, Opera in the Streets at Dunkirk, Sax in the City and Feu d’artifice in the towns and villages along the waterways, time and events in Paris and Lyon, Amiens and Toulouse, these will stay fresh in our memories - and on our video tapes and photo albums.
Let me give you a small taste of just one of the last 1500 days.
Arising without haste before 9.00am, aromatic French coffee and croissants (or toast with vegemite) are consumed as we decide exactly what we will do that day. We have a market town to visit just 7km and 3 locks away so we caste off in the delicious morning air and quietly throb away up the canal. The water is of course still as there are no waves or current on canals, no reason to tie down the crystal or the dog (not that we have a dog), and the sunshine dapples through the interlaced branches of the huge and ancient plane trees that line each side of the canal. These were planted in the 1700s and 1800s to shade the horses, children and old folks who, harnessed to the barges, pulled them at 2kmh from dawn to dusk, every day, come snow or sunshine. We don’t have to pull Van Nelle, we have 150 horses in the engine room harnessed to a huge propeller and to the controls in the wheelhouse where we can sit and watch the passing parade.
The surrounding countryside slowly slides by at walking pace, allowing glimpses through the trees of apple and pear orchards, pastures with quiet white Charolais cattle or the startling greens of the grape vines. Villages can also be seen in the near distance, made obvious by the spires of the churches, the stone walls of the cemeteries and the high turrets of local chateaux. The first lock and we slow down to allow the eclusier to fill or empty the chamber and open the gates for us.
We slowly slide into the lock and as the crew secures ropes on the bollard, Van Nelle strains against the inrush of water. The boat secured I leap up the wall to assist in closing the gates and opening the sluices to allow the water to raise us to the next level. We chat in the sunshine with the eclusier, a gnarled old veteran or a bright young housewife who has lived and worked here for years and knows what’s good in the wine and produce of the area. Eclusiers offer us local fruit, wine, vegetables and jams but without pushing and we take on board some Coeur de Boeuf tomatoes grown organically in the lock house garden.
The gates open and free again, Van Nelle slips out of the lock, turning slightly to allow free passage to a couple of rental boats, eager to rush through to the town we have just left. Our unhurried pace continues for two hours until we reach the market town ahead, just in time to join the throng at the marketplace and to secure a rotisseried rabbit to add to the cheeses, salads and charcuterie we have planned for lunch. We chat about the amazing shades of verdant green colours of the countryside we have just passed through as we open a chilled bottle of Chablis or Sancerre (both Burgundy Chardonnays) to augment the lunch which we enjoy on the open back deck under the huge parasol at our long jarrah table brought from Australia for just this purpose.
There is a chateau open for inspection that we will visit this afternoon and a small family run restaurant that is worth a look for dinner - after a game of boules perhaps - or just a doze in the deck chairs on the back deck. Oh, here comes another ship like ours. We recognise its crew - so it looks as though there will be more at dinner than we expected. The quiet of the afternoon is punctuated by the chirping cicadas and cooled by the occasional breath of air that comes whispering through the trees. It’s a tough life !
During 2005 we deliberately went to Holland to slip Van Nelle for a survey and maintenance and to visit her birthplace at Alkmaar and the Van Nelle factory in Rotterdam. She and we were welcomed as long departed friends and showered with gifts and historical documents including photos of her past. The grand-daughter of the original skipper joined us and the Dutch shipping newspaper sent a reporter to file a half page story. This was a great and very emotional journey for us as we grew to dearly love our 90 year old ship. To have the chance to discover much of her past was icing on the cake and, also by chance to meet two previous owners, was an interesting quirk of fate !
I would love to spend longer banging on about how wonderful the experience has been. We discovered a language and had not been entirely beaten by it, people who have accepted us without reservation and who have treated us with the utmost generosity, even as we entered their lives as footloose strangers. We have experienced events that have taken our breath away, made us laugh and cry and we have enjoyed life more fully that at any time before. We have confronted and eaten strange and wonderful foods, washed down by subtle and sumptuous fine wines, provided by happy hosts and hostesses. In turn we have welcomed friends and strangers aboard Van Nelle, giving them the opportunity to taste this privileged lifestyle. We can never forget and probably never replay such marvellous times - but in whatever adventures we choose for our future - we will certainly try.
If you are at all interested in learning more of our experience, feel free to visit our website www.mcdaniell.com.au (excusing the many errors of commission and omission caused by its creation as a draft in progress). There you will find these journals of our time and experiences abroad on the canals and rivers we have travelled, plus hints of how to do it yourself.
Remember - life is not a rehearsal - we have only one shot at it. Make it count.