July 26-28 Paray-le-Monial to Montchanin ( the top of the Canal de Centre)

 July 26, 2023 – Wednesday - Paray-le-Monial to Génelard 

Seven écluses and 20km today. Quite a different trip when you have so many km between locks. We’re cruising through farm land and it’s quite peaceful. Mostly white cattle, some horses, and agricultural fields. 

 

Lunch stop, below the Château de Digoine

 

July 27, 2023 – Thursday - Génelard to Montceau-les-Mines 

The bridge at Génelard. During WWII this was the demarcation between Nazi France and
"Free" France. The cemetery was on the free side and the church on the Nazi side.
Many mourners went to the cemetery at funerals, but somehow didn't return. 

Seven éculuses, three lift bridges and 18km. Automatic locks now, but the lift bridges require someone to activate, so we stopped for lunch, like any civilized French person would do. Even though we were within sight of the marina. We tied up across the end of a dock, easy peasy and right below the Capitanerie/Office of Tourism. 

 

One of three lift bridges entering Montceau-les-Mines.
The red and green lights mean they are working on our request, but we are not clear to enter.

 Took a nice long walk to buy groceries and look for a mailing tube to bring home a print we bought. By the time we got back, hot and tired, we decided to pick up pizza and not bother with cooking. Michael did his Google Search and found a place a few blocks away and off we went. Home with pizza and beverage on the top deck enjoying the slight breeze. It was still very warm.

 

July 28, 2023 – Friday - Montceau-les-Mines to Montchanin 

We’re at the top!!! Nine écluses and 11.5km and we’re now done with going up. All was going quite smoothly with the automatic locks. One VNF staff stopped by while we were in a lock confirming where we would be stopping for the night. The top, Monchanin we told him. It was on record…. We cruised through a couple locks between 12h00 and 13h00, they’re automatic, we had green lights. All was fine. 

 

Joan speaking:

Then we get to écluse #1, Écluse du Bois Breton. It’s 12h45, as we enter the lock we see no lights are on. Hmm, the others gave us green lights. We continue tying up the boat and scramble to pull the blue line to activate the lock. Nothing happens. We slide the boat back and I climb the ladder so I can get a better grip on the blue line, still nothing. Hmm, maybe it wasn’t operational during the lunch hour even though the others were. We wait until a few minutes after one, with me sitting up top and Michael on the boat. I pull the blue the line, nothing. I try to use the phone box thing on the hut, but it’s broken and has a wasp nest in it. But the phone numbers are there. I call. I don’t speak French, she doesn’t speak English. I try both numbers, and I think I got the same lady. I try to use Google Translate to talk to her, but I can’t understand what she says in response. Eventually I walk over to an area that has a number of RVs, not the typical park we’ve been seeing. Kids are playing and I ask “Parle vous Englaise?” Non. They did seem to understand me a little as I asked if anyone there did. She ran and brought back three adults, one young lady very pregnant, tells me she speaks English. Merci!!! I give her the boat phone and she talks to the lady, not sure what was said but she mentioned la bataeu Juniper (remember, they have record where we’re stopping for the night). She hands me back the phone. “Is someone coming to help us?” She says yes. Whew. I walk back to the boat and tell Michael the good news. We wait. And wait. I walk up to try and find the “eye” to activate the lock from above, but can’t find it in all the vegetation. We wait. I finally suggested we backing out and coming in again to activate it. We slide the boat back so I can climb down the ladder to board Juniper. We very successfully back out (thank you Juniper who doesn’t like to backup under control) and see the green lights now! As we are entering the lock a VNF truck pulls up, comes grab our lines. Yea!!! We explain that we’d been there for over an hour, had made phone calls and finally did the backout maneuver. He is flummoxed. He wasn’t coming to rescue us, he was coming to cut the grass. Lucky for us! He calls someone, goes into the hut and activates the lock. An hour and a half later we’re through the lock, 10 minutes later we’re tied up for our evening moorage. A nice toast to Poseidon! 

Joan trying to get someone,
anyone, to get this écluse back in operation

 

A bit of laundry, some boat scrubbing, then some reading. It’s dinner time now. 8pm. 

Dinner at the summit - Tomorrow we start our downhill run.