Canal de Bourgogne: A rattling good time in St J-d-L, French engineering, friends and neighbours, out and about, memorable musée, Bastille Day bonhomie, minor mishaps
St Jean-de-Losne seemed far more attractive this time round than it did on our driving holiday in October last year, when we stopped in for a quick look-see and a coffee. That was a good thing, as we were going to be spending a full week here, moored to the Blanquart service quay just after the lock that takes you from the Sâone River to the start (or end) of the Canal de Bourgogne.
This side of the bridge is St Jean-de-Losne – behind me is Saint Usage, the marina and the Canal de Bourgogne
River Sâone, Part One: Far canal stats, Roy “The Knife” in Poncey lock, feasting on frogs’ legs in Pontailler, cycling around Auxonne
Here are the stats for our journey so far, according to the Ancient Mariner:
From Calais to the River Sâone, 654km over 31 days
195 locks, so an average of six locks a day
Average distance, 21km per day
Total engine running time, 136 hours.
And we’ve come 41.4 percent of the way. Far canal!
River Wide
It’s fabulous to be on the wide, beautiful River Sâone, which we have mainly to ourselves. You get an inkling of what a big country France is – and that there’s often not very much in between the towns.
Orientation (for Carl, who likes to know)
We’ve come south to Pontailler down Le Canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne – here, if you can read the tiny light-blue script, it’s called by its old name, Canal de la Marne à la Sâone.
Map showing Pontailler-sur-Sâone – we’re heading south via Auxonne to St Jean-de-Losnes
Roy “The Knife”
It wasn’t all quite this peaceful, though. At our only lock today, at Poncey, at the end of a short canal deviation from the Sâone, that very dangerous thing that everyone warns you about happened: Roy’s mooring rope got caught and the boat started to “hang”.
Quick as a flash, he sprang into action! Leaping across the wheelhouse, he got the knife that had been sitting in its box waiting for this very thing to happen, and cut the rope with a loud twang. Cleverly, he cut it near the eye, so we wouldn’t lose the whole rope. All he has to do now, he says, is to “splice another eye*”.
Skipping forward to Roy having masterfully spliced an eye into cut rope
(*Everyone should have one or more things they are totally incapable of doing, lest they find themselves uncomfortably indispensable. Mine used to be answering switchboards; to that, I’ve now added splicing eyes in ropes.)
Pontailler-sur-Sâone
We loved our two nights at Pontailler’s conveniently located Canalous Port. (Canalous, by the way, is the name of a boat hire company, and very nice they look, too.)
Pontailler main streetEntrance to Canalous Port, Portailler – those are horse-chestnut trees
In the middle of another heatwave, cooking was out of the question, and so we ate our dinner two nights running at the excellent Les Marronniers restaurant – named for the nearby grove of horse-chestnut trees.
Two of the best meals I’ve had this year in France – at Les Marroniers in Pontailler-sur-Sâone
Like most countries, I suppose, France has its share of mediocre eateries; this is not one of them. We had foie gras salad, oefs-en-meurettes and tartiflette pizza on the first night; on the second, chicken supreme for Roy and frogs’ legs in parsley butter for me.
Rather more of these amphibians than I’d expected
It’s not just their legs, either…
Those weren’t very good – I’m going to send them back
Auxonnes
Auxonne mooring – it’s taken me 15 minutes to walk from the boat to this point
Having been ushered to the far end of the visitors’ pontoon by Aussie John the port captain, we were about as far as it was possible to be from the pretty centre ville.
In splendid isolation at the end of the Auxonne port visitors’ pontoon
But it’s better to be away from the row of families closer to shore, moored side-by-side and close enough to smell one another’s farts.
Picturesque, yes, but useless to me…
Parfait! – the bigger and shinier, the better
Our bikes came in handy at Auxonne, as we rode them to the big and beautiful Intermarché and its neighbouring Brico – a sort of DIY chain, like the UK’s Horrible Homebase or Oz’s Boring Bunnings*.
(*These are places I avoid in the normal course of events; but I unfortunately managed to drop the action-end of the deck broom into the canal a couple of days ago, and part of my just punishment is sourcing its replacement.)
L’église Notre-Dame, AuxonneAuxonne is famous for its association with Napoleon Bonaparte, who did his officer training hereCentral Auxonne
And later, we cycled back to town for dinner at Le Corbeau, said to be the best restaurant in town; and though the food was fine (Roy’s duck breast with mash was excellent; I had the faux filet with frites, a bit dull), I thought the best thing about the place was the waiter. So precious! – I dared not photograph him.
Le Canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne: Saint-Dizier, Chevillon, Dongeux/Rouvroy, Viéville/Vraincourt, Chaumont, Foulain, Rolampont, Heuilly-Cotton, Cusey, Fontaine Francaise/Saint Seine, Revène
French lessons, service with a sourire, semi-villages, famine country, Chaumont and the Holy Grail, French Style Police, heroic Henri IV fountain
In case you (like our son Carl) have been wondering exactly where we are – and I know the feeling well! – here are are a couple of maps, boldly nicked from the internet. The red squiggle in the centre of the map of France (left) shows LeCanal entre Champagne et Bourgogne, whose 114 locks we’ve just completed, heading from north to south.
We’ve just come down that little red line in the square, the Canal entre Champagne and Bourgogne (CeCB)
… and this is the route of the CeCB in more detail
Canal de l’Aisne à la Marne, Canal latéral à la Marne, Canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne:
Ropy run to Reims, Lynn and Kim for lunch, close but no champagne at Billy-le-Grande, super-chaud in Chaussée, stranded in Orconte
Berry-au-Bac to Sillery port (10km from Reims)
For today’s 14 locks, we’d be experiencing a different automatic lock system – one that’s activated by twisting a perche, or rod, that’s suspended from a gallows-like contraption over the river.
This is the “perche” – Roy aims the boat at it, I stand on the pointy end and line myself up with it; then, just before it smacks me in the face, I grasp the dangly bit and turn it to get the lock ahead to prepare itself for us
Canal de Calais, River Aa and the Grand Gabarit: Getting a French “tampon”, fantastic hypermarkets and terrible telecoms, mooring at Hennuin, frankly fearful at Fontinettes lock, Aire-sur-la-Lys, wine and whisky with the Greenfields at Béthune
O Frabjous Day, Caloo, Calais!
Arrived late afternoon at the port of Calais after a blissfully calm eight-hour crossing, to find that time and tide wait for no one, and the lock into the marina from the harbour opens only for a couple of hours around high tide.
Now the tricky bit: getting an entry stamp (tampon in French) for my passport, to go opposite the long-sejour visa that I got at the French Embassy in Singapore. Tip for other South Africans: you get this done at the office of the police aux frontières near the ferry terminal – easy once you know, but there’s no information about this on the internet!
A double celebration… David bringing us safely to Calais…
… and me getting the all-important stamp in my passport
When in Calais, why not dive straight into the pastis and escargots?
After sharing a well-earned bottle of Pol Roger with our cross-Channel pilot, David Piper, we took the ten-minute stroll into the old town for dinner at an unpretentious restaurant – one of many lining the town square. Pastis, escargots etcetera; might as well dive straight in!
The fabulous Calais hôtel de ville, or town hallRaising the French courtesy flag, at last!
Calais to Hennuin
Roy up at 6am again! – this time to pressure-wash all the salt off the boat. We had to exit the marina into the harbour by 9am (or wait until the next high tide), and from there wait for the sea-lock to let us into the Canal de Calais.
Next, a visit to Auchan shopping centre to get a prepaid data card; Orange had run out of them (!), so we tried Bouygues Telecomm and forked out €90 for 4G (!). No luck in setting it up, sadly. (And when we finally did, it inexplicably sucked up the first 2G in one day. Putain!)
As for the enormous hypermarché, we’d never seen anything like it. We marvelled like country hicks at the incredible assortment of goodies from throughout the EU – “Look at the cheese, Roy, look at the cheese!” By comparison, the UK’s Tesco, Waitrose and the like look like corner stores.
Having waved goodbye to David, bravely we headed off on our own down the Canal de Calais, 23km to the small village of Hennuin, its bridge and its lock. No response to my virgin VHF radio call, and it was past 6pm, so we moored up for the night.
Moored at the tiny village of Hennuin, to await the opening of the bridge and lock in the morningLooking back over the Canal de Calais at a Hennuin sunset
Hennuin to Aire-sur-la-Lys
At 8.30am, along came the blond and sunburnt éclusier (lock-keeper) and gardien du pont (bridge-keeper) in one, first to open the bridge for us and then to see us through the lock. It was a comparatively small one for France, and while he went off to do another job, we took the opportunity to joyfully fill up our water tank. (We’ve been advised to top up whenever we can.)
Taking on water at Hennuin lock
The lock at Flandres was much bigger, with M. Éclusier up there in his control tower behind reflective glass. Going upstream, we’re entering the empty lock chamber, steep walls rising on either side. It’s an initially tricky system, where you attach a rope to a bollard set way down on the wall at your own level. As the water rises and the lock fills, your rope eventually slips off the low bollard and you loop it around the next bollard up, and so on all the way to the top.
After passing the famous old Fontinettes boat lift, we got to grips with our third and last lock of the day: Fontinettes lock, frankly terrifying in its height. Here we used a shifting bollard, set into the wall, that gradually moves upwards, shrieking and groaning as metal grinds upon metal.
Fontinettes boat liftApproach to Fontinettes lock – frankly scary for newbies like us
Our route today: Canal de Calais, into the widened River Aa for a few kilometres, and then the series of canals now known as the Grand Gabarit.
Typical commercial barge – note the car on the back!
Only three enormous barges passed us (nothing else), and they were less discombobulating than I’d feared. It’s Sunday, however, and tomorrow is a public holiday. That may may explain it.
From the halte nautique at Aire-sur-la-Lys – a basic floating pontoon, no more, a ten-minute walk takes you into the town. On the attractive main square, with its gorgeous Hôtel de Ville (city hall), I found a friendly bar with wifi – what a relief!
One of several grand churches in Aire-sur-la-Lys
Mairie, hôtel de ville or town hall – they all mean the same thing
Exquisite architecture on the town square
Aire-sur-la-Lys to Béthune
On to the town of Béthune, where we moored at a halte nautique about 1.7km from the town – again, well worth seeing for its architectural beauty alone: it has 33 national monuments, including Église Saint Vaast, and an impressive Grand Place (square) that was hosting a big market today. Not only did I not buy anything, I managed to lose my panama hat. Again.
Our Karanja, moored at the Béthune halte nautique
Our first visitors in France! South Africans Gail and Neil Greenfield, friends we made during our early years in Singapore, are as usual spending the European summer travelling around in their camper van. They took early retirement, and this is the tenth year of their globe-trotting lifestyle.
With our friends the Greenfields, who happened to be in Paris and popped up in their camper van to see us – thanks, Gail and Neil!Monday market in Béthune’s main square, presided over by the flamboyant town hallAt Béthune market, an exquisitely retro roundabout
Naturally, we shared rather a lot of wine before finally getting a taxi back to the Grand Place for an enjoyable and doubtless loudly talkative meal at Le Brussel’s Café. (Yes, that apostrophe worries me, too).
From the €19 two-course formule, I remember roast marrowbone with sel de Guérande, foie gras pâté, charcuterie, tangy beef tongue casserole and more. Unthinkably for France, they’d run out of baguette, which we forgave them (a) because it was after 8pm on a public holiday, and (b) the volume of wine had somewhat blunted our critical faculties.
Brought back to the boat by our cheerful taxi-driver (aller-retour €30), les hommes continued with a couple of snifters of whiskey, while les femmes sensibly hit the Badoit sparkling water.
So, who won the annual potjiekos* competition at The Dunes** this year? It took place only last Sunday, and though winning seemed important at the time, I really cannot remember.
*Literally “small pot food”, potjiekos, or simply potjie – pronounced “poiki” – is quintessentially South African. The traditional potjie itself is a three-legged, black cast-iron pot that comes in a variety of sizes.
We had two good reasons for booking a full-day tour: Roy was sick up and fed of driving, and I was sorrowful about having been driven past so many vineyards without stopping at a single cellar door.
Glenn, our guide for the day and also the driver of the 13-seater bus, arrived bright and early at our motel on a cloudy, cool morning that blossomed into the most perfect blue-sky day. And, with a total of nine stops between the 10am hotel pickup and 5.30pm drop-off times, our $115 each (including lunch) was good value.
Roy, happily positioned at the passenger door after five long days at the wheel
Having travelled west from Albany along the southern coast of West Australia for about three-and-a-half hours, we decided (or, to be more specific, I requested fervently and Roy capitulated) to turn left and south to Augusta*, rather than right to Margaret River. Our destination? Cape Leeuwin, a spectacular spot with a lofty and photogenic lighthouse that dates from 1895.
* You can stop in Augusta for a coffee at the Deckchair (or Café Deckchair Gourmet), as we did, but be warned that if you order only one it might cost you $6 instead of the listed $5 price. That’s what happened to Roy. I needed to check my email, you see, but I was already jittery-full of coffee, and the minimum order for Wi-Fi access was $6. I suppose they’re sick of tapwater-sipping backpackers occupying prime chair-space…
Both Albany and neighbouring Denmark (50-odd kilometres to the west) feature picturesque bay after halcyonic headland after idyllic, white-sand beach, with one magnificent vista after another. We’d hardly driven into town before I’d resolved to come back here one day for a longer stay.
How completely different this coast was from the countryside we’d travelled through for four hours to get here, following the route through country towns Kulin, Lake Grace, Dumbleyung (watch out for the Dumbleyung Dunny!) and Katanning to the Chester Pass Road.
Of course, Christmas is all about celebrating family. (Unless you happen to be a Christian, in which case it might be about celebrating something else.)
So here I am with Roy, appropriately ensconced in the bosom of our family for the next month and more. We have our own self-contained guest suite – sounds a bit better than granny-flat, doesn’t it? – in the house of son Carl and his wife Carrie in Iluka, 30km north of central Perth, Western Australia.
