Up and Over The Hill

Up and Over

We are now coming up on the hard part of the trip, five days in a row of staircase locks. These are a series of écluse that have little more than a passing basin between. Our longest stretch will be over 40 écluse and take us two days of idling between locks with line handling to be done and redone and redone. Fortunately we are one of the first boats out this season so we are usually getting two èclusiers rather than one running between locks.

Our first view of the castle and town of Châteauneuf. One of the more spectacular sites of this trip.

From Pont d’Ouche we climbed 11 écluse in 11km the day was beautiful and in the 70s. It was another 09:00 start so we would hopefully be in Vandenesse-en-Auxois before lunch to allow us plenty of time to bike to Châteauneuf a castle and town that date back to the 1200s.

This Châteauneuf house caught our attention

The castle comes into view kilometers before we arrive at our moorage and we probably took 50 pictures of it as the view continually changed. As soon as we had finished lunch we were on our bikes and ready for the climb. For such a beautiful day there was no traffic heading to this famous French landmark and once in town we realized we would have the place to ourselves. Then we got to the entrance to the castle Ferme le lundi – Closed Mondays. The ancient village was a delight to walk through and we did have it to ourselves. Before riding back to Juniper we enjoyed a beer at an outdoor table to reward us for our climb.

Joan now wants a garden shed like this  modern shed built into a medieval wall.

Stopped for a well deserved beer after our climb to Châteauneuf - Photo proof for our boys.

When we returned to the boat we searched until we found a VNF person and changed our first écluse time till 14:00 – time to make the ride, see the castle and enjoy lunch at an outdoor café.

Joan checking out one of the bedrooms - Luckily the bed was too small, we're staying with our cabin.

The castle had certainly changed with the times and the presentation let you see how and where the changes had occurred. In the earliest days it wasn’t much more than a defensive tower and wall. Later the ownership changed to a buddy of the Duke of Bourgogne with plenty of money. The castle was enlarged to its present size, although still primarily a defensive structure. By the time of the revolution the defensive part wasn’t as necessary and the inside became more elaborate plus well decorated and appointed.

We had a pair of eclusiers that claimed to be family. The younger gentleman made sure to do all the heavy work for his older female "family" member. Here getting her gate started for her, before getting his started.

Returning to Juniper we cast off our lines for an 8 lock staircase to the tunnel that goes through hilltop. Our èclusiers for the trip were a mother and son team that were wonderful to watch. She really raised him right, always polite and helpful, big smile and the consummate gentleman. He was always trying to make his mom’s side of the gate easier for her to open. Since canals are all gravity fed there has to be reservoirs higher than the highest écluse. To make that happen the top usually has a tunnel to allow more area to catch and store water. The Tunnel de Pouilly is 3.35km long and only slightly wider than Juniper the height gave us standing headroom at the upper helm station, but not much more. A number of years ago lighting was added making the passage easier and more pleasant. We did hit one fairly long stretch with no lights and it was eerie.  On top of the dark it was darned cold and we’d just taken all our warm clothes off and left them below.

Pouilly tunnel a 3.5 km Sci-Fi attraction - and it was cold. We fit with about 2 feet to spare on each side. Steering a very straight course, in the dark, for that long wasn't easy.

Arriving in the huge port of Pouilly we found it completely empty, but at least open, with a friendly staff that spent plenty of time helping us with our problems. This was to be a two-night stop to allow for shopping and sight seeing but, we had to figure out how to get Joan back to Basel to catch her plane going home with a train strike in process. So we tried:

Renting a car – we’d have to rent it for at least four days because of weekends and no transportation to the nearest rental agency with the trains not running. We are already over a week behind so this won’t work.

Catching a plane - that is not conflicted with the train strike – cost over $3,000

Blablacar – the only dependable transport in France, wasn’t quite Joan’s cup of tea going by herself.

Leaving the boat 2 days early and sitting in Basel – turned out to be the answer now we just had to figure out how to buy her train ticket in advance since trains often sell out the day before a strike, then find her a place to stay. We found her tickets with trainline.com (great to work with) and found her a room with a German Swiss woman in Basel at a great rate and close to public transportation.

In the old days barges were pulled through the tunnel with this electric chain tug. It moved along a chain that ran the length of the tunnel and was powered by overhead trolley wires.

Now we still had our boat problem – got some help from the VNF to purchase the correct coolant for our engine and we were off – only an hour late for our appointment. We didn’t even make it into the town of Pouilly, maybe next time.

Pont Royal - our moorage for the night. Very picturesque - but this was the entire town.

That afternoon was a 12 écluse staircase to Pont Royal (we set our personal record of 7 écluse in less than an hour) and today, Thursday, we started out with a couple of short trips between locks before starting the staircase that will ultimately take us 3 days to complete.

The château we found in the woods at Marigny-le-Cahouët. It's now a private residence, but they let visitors enjoy the land around the building, as long as you are courteous.

We are tied up in the town of Marigny-le-Cahouët. The chart and a sign at the Quay indicate there is a 13^th century château near here. Looking throughout the town we could find no signs to this elusive building, or ruin. Tried google maps, no luck – till we zoomed in and found a square piece of land with a body of water all the way around – zooming closer it was on rue de château. We gave it a shot and found the beautiful building you see in the pictures below. The amazing part is that it is currently being used as a residence.