Saturday Aug 23 - Sun Aug 24

 Saturday, August 23, 2025 – Gissey-sur-Ouche 

Joan shows her strength opening an ecluse door.

Off at 9am from Pont d’Ouche. We have one lock keeper by herself. One we had before - the pair of them were not very communicative or helpful. Hmmmm, could be a long day. Happily, it turns out we were wrong! We travel from lock 20 through lock 32, PK 173 to 186. Joan helps with all the gates except the couple when another lock keeper stops by. Grab a bollard on the lock side with the ladder, hand the line to Michael, hop off and close the upper gate. Once the boat is down, open a gate on the other end, climb down the ladder and hop on the boat or Michael picks me up outside the lock if there is a good spot. This gave Joan a chance to chat with her a bit. She’s been working the locks for five years and lives on a boat in Pont de Pany, which we’ll go by tomorrow. She travels and vacations all winter. We’re noting a theme here for those working by/for the canal system. Surprised to hear that the Hotel Barges don’t travel on Saturday and Sunday and no other boats are coming up today. It. Is. Quiet. We tie up on the quai. There is another pleasure boat behind us that is heading up, but having a layover day tomorrow. There is another boat a bit further up from us on the other side of the canal, don’t know their status. Maybe we’ll be sharing a lock tomorrow.

Then it's climbing down the ladder to "juniper"

Gissey-sur-Ouche - beautiful place to moor

Take a brief walk through the small, typical French village. Lovely and quiet. Lots of cyclists on the canal path being Saturday. Also, lots of photos taken of Juniper as she goes through the locks. A pair of gentlemen riding (no electric bikes here!) from Switzerland to Paris in ten days. One of them has fun helping with the lock gate. Another helper was a young boy riding with his mom. Told me he didn’t speak English, but I wonder about that. The lock keeper was great explaining how the lock system worked. He was curious and asked questions. A future VNF employee?

Sunday, August 24, 2025 – Fleurey-sur Ouche

Michael on the trail

Again, we’re off at 9am. Locks 33 – 41, PK 186-197.5 One lock keeper so Joan helps out with the gates. Fleury is another small, quiet village. We walk to see what there is to see and find a park. A sign shows a 5km trail and Michael suggests we should walk it after dinner. Joan’s thinking, ummm, sure. Dinner done, we actually head out. (Joan had her doubts we’d do this.) We leave the boat at 5:30, says it should take 1 hour 40 minutes. Don’t do it in the rain as it will be muddy and slippery. The trail is marked occasionally by yellow lines found on trees, fence posts, signs, rocks. Sometimes they are frequent, other times not so much. We start out on a flat dirt road, easy to find the markers. Then it changes to a steep, rocky climb with loose rocks as well. It had mentioned a great view! The price to pay to get there. Slow and steady and luckily not too long. The view is quite nice of the river valley. Careful walking means having to stop to appreciate the view, it’s worth it. The climb down is a bit less steep since they put a couple switch backs. Walking sticks would have been very helpful on this little jaunt. The trail was actually easy to follow as long as you paid attention and there weren’t too many places to take a wrong turn.

Plant art along the canal Fleurey-sur-Ouche

French totem pole Fleurey-sur-Ouche

Beautiful architecture Fleurey-sur-Ouch

The past few nights have been cold, upper 40s to low 50s, glad to have put on the Duvet. In the mornings by 7am the mist is rising off the canal as the day already starts to warm. Hitting upper 70s, low 80s in the afternoon. So much better than the heat wave we initially had!