SUMMER HEATWAVE

18th August, 2016 (Tony)

After hearing frightening tales of other bargees’ experiences on the Saône when it was in flood earlier in the year we enjoyed immensely our cruise down to Lyon and back to Chalon sur Saône. The river was flowing gently and was back to its normal olive green colour, clean and beautiful. It was hard to imagine how it must have looked when it was 4m higher and a raging torrent. An avenue of trees above the river bank at Macon bear painted marks showing the levels reached in the great floods of 2002 and 1840 when it rose 6 and 8 metres respectively above normal. It in incredible that such a wide and gentle waterway meandering through almost flat countryside could ever rise to these heights. The flooding of the Seine in Paris with its constricted channelled banks is understandable. We by-passed Macon on the way down as there is nowhere to moor near the city centre except for a quay that is frequently used by the numerous (we counted 10 on our journey) cruise boats that ply up and down the Rhone/Saône from Marseilles to Chalon sur Saône. These 180m long behemoths cruise day and night with up to 120 passengers. The smaller hotel boats that we’ve always encountered on various canals around France seem to be struggling this year with only a few passengers — four or six, less than half capacity. Whether this is due to the surge in promotion of the larger river boat cruises or cancellations because of the Nice and Paris terrorist attacks we can’t say. Americans especially seem to be avoiding France at the moment.

On our way back up the Saône we stopped for a weekend in the marina a couple of kilometres north of the town. We biked in to the centre to discover delightful pedestrian arcades and many buildings to admire. Sunday lunch at Poisson d’Or was one of the best meals we have ever had. We hadn’t booked and were scornfully advised by a haughty waitress that the place was full. “What about the outside terrace?” I asked. “Non!” Fortunately the co-owner, an English woman, overheard me and politely let it be known that of course we could have a table out on the terrace so long as we understood that if it rained (unlikely) there was no other shelter available. We dined under a huge shady tree overlooking the river and before we left she came to our table and we had a lovely conversation in which she disclosed how she first came to France thirty five years ago, met her husband and developed their very elegant and popular restaurant.

Our cruise up the Seille was relaxed and pleasant. The river is pretty with tree-lined banks almost the whole way — 39km. Mooring opportunities are few and far between for boats such as ours. Most of the traffic is hire boats so the Capitaines at the ports insist that boats moor stern-to-quay to maximise the number that can stay, something that is not possible for Sable. We managed to moor to trees a couple of nights and relished being solitary in the countryside and shade. Cuisery is famous for its dozens of bookshops, mostly second-hand. Hundreds of book lovers invade this small town every weekend searching for bargains. It featured prominently in The Little Paris Bookshop. Navigation on the Seille ceases at Louhans, an absolutely gorgeous town where there is a mooring place for big boats. There are 157 arches along the main street arcades providing shade and protection to the shopfronts, something quite unique in Europe. Louhans is also the regional centre for Poulet de Bresse. We selected an attractive restaurant specialising in this dish and went for lunch next day, without reservation, to find the place full, absolutely full. We wandered downtown to another with one table to spare and enjoyed a very tasty main of chook. There is definitely something special about Bresse chicken.

Tournus was another unexpected surprise. Home to an ancient abbey it has many attractive old buildings and places of interest for tourists. It’s a town most people would by-pass as the main road, and the river, deviate away from its heart. We spent a weekend in Tournus both going down and coming back. Several walks around town and a good bike ride ensured we covered most of the terrain. We then set sail for Fragnes to relax for several days before continuing to Chagny to collect Myra off the train from Geneva. Sunday is market day in Chagny. The main streets of the town are wall to wall with crowds of people of all ages jostling for access to the busy stalls selling tubs of fresh apricots, sausages, roast chickens, cheese and all manner of fruit and vegetables plus miscellaneous other items. Meanwhile the shops are open too doing a roaring trade, especially the charcuteries and boulangeries, patisseries and chocolatiers. It’s madness, it’s claustrophobic but lots of fun. Our friendly, serenading Dutch cheese ladies are always there and sure enough, burst into song as soon as they saw us.

We headed up to Santenay and while Sally and Myra walked to the village and toured the spectacular cellars under the Chateau I rode a motorbike to the top of Montagne des Trois Croix. It was fine and sunny without a cloud in the sky so the views were sensational but haze enveloped the Alps obscuring the vista I had hoped to get of Mont Blanc glistening in the distance. In the evening we set up the dining table on the grass under the shade of the trees — such ambience, peaceful and serene. Next day we continued to St Leger sur Dhuene for a necessary rendezvous with a technician to install a new motherboard in our boiler. I won’t bother you with the details; suffice to say that getting the part delivered from Holland was fraught with almost the same difficulties as we had with the charger/inverter earlier in the year. The man was prompt and efficient and within half an hour we had the boiler working again. After another delicious meal at one of our favourite restaurants, the Petit Kir, we retraced our journey back to Fragnes, delivering Myra on to a train to Paris from Chagny along the way. We rested for several days at Fragnes where we were caught up by American boatees from Roanne, Jim and Mary. We followed them up the Saône to St Jean de Losnes for their boat, Festina Tarde, to have a new bow thruster installed. We were entertained aboard their boat with a delicious repast of butterflied leg of lamb roasted on the barbecue. Other guests included their neighbours from San Francisco and another couple from Florida whose 100 year-old barge was undergoing serious repairs (a new steel skin to the entire hull) in a local boatyard. Carole’s maiden name was Pritchett so some genealogical research needs to be undertaken.

For more than a month the skies have been virtually cloudless every day with temperatures consistently in the thirties. Consequently we have whiled away many hours reclining in deck chairs on Sable’s upper deck, under the shade of the awning. Half the population seems to be off on holidays and that suits us because we feel we are too. C’est la vie!

NORTHERN IRELAND

24th July, 2016 (Sally)

It’s a peaceful day on the river Saône as we cruise downstream to Lyon, hard to believe in the horrors that struck Nice last week when all around one sees only lush countryside and small towns and of course the wide stretch of this magnificent river. Looking back on the past month we have seen a dramatic change in weather from continual rain as we cruised from Paray le Monial to Genelard, where we stayed for a week waiting in vain for the fine weather, then on to Ecusses to meet Miles and Tania off the TGV and later Nicole and her friend Woody as well. Miraculously the weather then became brilliant and we all enjoyed Burgundy at its best. Lots of eating and drinking, well why not, and a welcome change for me to have the MasterChef aboard.  At Changy we took the train to Beaune for a day, and then they all left to spend a couple of days in Lyon, more eating and drinking as Lyon is renowned as the culinary capital of France. Miles and Tania came back from Lyon by hire car and we spent one more day with them on a trip to the great town of Cluny with the ruins of the monastery. Then they left for the delights of Champagne while we continued on to Fragnes where we left Sable to travel to Manchester and then to Northern Ireland.  

We arrived back from our trip to Ireland on July 13th in time for a local Bastille Day celebration. The local football team catered for 300 with a three course meal served under the impressive Market hall, and a very good job they did too. We had a bowl full of Mussels and chips and a cheese course and desert, then the music started and the fireworks. We had been travelling since 5.30am so once again we were in bed before they began.

Northern Ireland was fun. We travelled by train from Chalon to Paris, then by Eurostar to London, a quick taxi ride to Euston Station and train again to Manchester. Surprisingly quicker than if we had gone by plane as any flight involved long lay overs. We met my sister Myra in Manchester so we had a couple of days there before flying to Belfast. Thank goodness for the BBC and their antique programs, we had seen a session set in Manchester so we knew to visit the Town Hall which was built at the peak of the cotton trade, and also the Lowry Art Gallery which was also featured on the same program. Both were well worth the visit, we also saw the Imperial War Museum, a very striking modern building and a quick glimpse of Manchester United’s stadium as we drove past. It’s an interesting city, obvious poverty with lots of homeless people but many stunning new buildings and some well-preserved old ones. A better experience than we expected.

Off to Belfast the next day and as soon as we had booked into our hotel we took a bus to the new Titanic museum. The outside is amazing, and the exhibits inside are just as good. Certainly a must if you are in the city. We spent the next day touring the northern coast, on our way to the two most well-known sights of that area, Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge and Giants Causeway. The bridge spans a 20m gap 30m high to a rocky outcrop and is second on the list of the world’s scariest bridges. We all thought that whoever compiled that list had not walked the Milford Track in NZ. We were more scared at the number of people on it in spite of the official warning for only eight at one time. Giants Causeway was everything we hoped for, 40,000 hexagonal basalt columns, and in spite of the hordes of people still plenty of space to sit and marvel. We had stopped on the way at Glenarm where we discovered a story involving perhaps a long lost ancestor.  Apparently in the 1200s a John Bisset from Scotland exacted revenge on a neighbour by burning down his house. Unfortunately for both parties the neighbour was in residence so Bisset was charged with murder. He negotiated to do penance in the Holy land but went the other way and on arriving in Ireland built himself a castle at Glenarm. It’s now in the hands of the Earl of Antrim but a good story and if not really an ancestor, one you would like to pretend to claim. The castle was of some interest but the real attraction was the large walled garden, lovely floral borders and a magnificent veggie garden. It rained part of every day we were in Ireland, obviously much easier to grow things in that climate.

On our last day in Belfast we took the Black Cab tour, a very sobering experience. Our cab driver took us to the Falls Road and Shankhill Road areas where The Troubles started and still go on to this day. The two streets are divided by a three mile wall, in places 13m high. They call it the peace wall as it is meant to keep the peace between the self-contained communities of catholics and protestants. Four large gates are shut every night and opened again in the morning. Murals have been painted on lots of walls celebrating heroes who died and of course the biggest mural was for King Billy, as he is known to the Loyalists. We were there during the week when the Orange day marches take place, and combined with that huge bonfires are lit to celebrate the Battle of Boyne 400 years ago. The bonfires are huge, mainly of pallets constructed in a circular pyre, the main one in Shankhill to emulate the spires of St Peter’s cathedral, but some use old tyres in defiance of laws and common sense. It was all a bit sobering and difficult to come to terms with — nowadays it’s more about politics than religion. The cost of welfare borne by the British Government must be enormous.

We were pleased to move out of Belfast to the village of Hillsborough about 14 miles south. We had a nice cottage there and used that as a base to explore. One particularly wet day we went to Lisburn to see the Linen Museum. What a huge industry that was for Ireland and so labour intensive. We watched a lady spinning by hand the linen thread which would have been woven on hand looms, and most of that was done in cottage industry with the whole family involved in some way. Very little flax is still grown in Ireland; most of the mills now import the raw fibre from Russia.

On a better day we drove to Mt Stewart, a National Trust home and garden, and then spent a day touring the Mourne Mountains. It was nice to come home each night to the cottage and either eat at home or in one of the local pubs. On our last day we finally got to visit Hillsborough Castle which is the Royal Residence for when any are in Ireland and also the home of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. It’s a working castle so has a certain warmth about it compared to unlived-in stately homes and we were all surprised that we could walk around, sit on chairs and generally feel you were visiting not just looking from afar. Wonderful paintings on loan from the royal collection, all with some significance to the house, and photos from meetings and conferences that have taken place there.  The gardens there are as nice if not more so than Mt Stewart. That might be because they have a bigger budget with nine full-time gardeners. We met one of them who invited us into the walled garden, usually out of bounds as it is under reconstruction, but at his invitation we ate our fill of royal strawberries, red and black currants. 

Our last meal was in one of the village hotels where the local marchers were gathering after a huge day celebrating. They had marched up and down the street in the morning, taken by bus to Lisburn to march again then back again to do another circuit of Hillsborough. Fortunately no violence this year but in Belfast the bonfire we saw being constructed did send some sparks into the neighbourhood roofs, as predicted by everyone, and several homes were gutted. Common sense would say that next year the bonfire should be shifted but I am sure it will be in the same place again.  Although we enjoyed our visit to Northern Ireland it seemed to us that we were still in England. We all felt that southern Ireland is somehow more attractive and people warmer and friendlier.

We set off from Fragnes, down the Saône, 145 km to Lyon — four days gently cruising, cloudless skies, 40C sun. The heat in Lyon was oppressive, radiating off the pavements and buildings. It is a wonderful city, lots of interesting places to explore and fabulous shops. The new musée and conference centre at the confluence of the Saône and Rhone are stunning. But the hot weather drew countless numbers of young people down to the quays to escape the heat of their apartments and to drink and frolic all through the nights and it became unbearable to remain; two nights were enough — we barely slept a wink. We have now retreated to Macon and tomorrow we’ll set off up the Seille, to Cuisery, destination of the voyagers in The Little Paris Bookshop and Louhans.

Underway At Last

It has been six weeks since we arrived in France and in ways it has been a very frustrating time as we have battled French Bureaucracy and attempted to get a couple of things fixed on the boat. Suffice to say we now have our Titre de Sejours, after three trips to the Sous Prefecture; our new roof panels have arrived and been fitted; and the Victron charger/inverter unit has been sent to Holland for repair, is back and again working perfectly. We still are hopeful that the little motorbikes that we have been riding for eight years will be registered sometime this year and allow us to reinsure them and go riding again. Apparently when bought 13 years ago it was not necessary to register bikes under 50cc. That changed sometime since so for the last four of five years we have been riding around rural France oblivious to that fact. At least we were insured but this year when we went to renew insurance we were asked for rego. After several fruitless attempts to achieve this we handed it to Delphine, our French friend and she has gone head to head with a very obstreperous public servant. All applications must be done by mail on approved forms, but as Delphine explained, several times, we don’t fit the boxes that need to be ticked. The classic response was, “The reason we do all this by email is so we don’t have to deal face-to-face with people like you.”   WE would not have had any chance at all of getting past that so we are very grateful to have some good help in this case.

All other years when we have arrived in France we have left port within a week so this extended stay has allowed us to be a lot more sociable with our cruising neighbours. We have attended a couple of farewells for people leaving boating life, yes it happens to all of us sometime, had different friends over for dinner and went as a group to visit a Cheese aging cave in one of the nearby villages. This family has leased from the state a disused railway tunnel, lined out the front portion as a very smart reception area and installed behind that 300m of racks plus a very effective cooling plant where they buy-in and age cheese before selling it worldwide. A hugely successful enterprise with eight shops in France, others in Switzerland, Australia, UK and USA. The American side is so successful that they take 80% of their production. We concluded the day with a very generous cheese and wine tasting. Definitely our sort of tourism.

It has also been a good time to welcome on board some visitors and although we weren’t able to cruise they had a taste of our lifestyle. Sophie and Reto came from Switzerland and as well as samples of Swiss cheese we had a lesson in rosti making and a demonstration into Stomf, a Swiss bread. Both delicious. Sophie was our Rotary exchange student 10 years ago. We share some good memories of her time with us. Next on board was Delphine and her two very active boys. Florent (5) and Julien (3) love the boat and were very upset that it wasn’t moving. Delphine had explained that a part was missing, ie the Victron which we had sent to Holland. The boys burst onto the scene determined that they would find the missing part. They even had the binoculars out scanning the port to find it. In spite of not moving we entertained them and they entertained us with all the things little boys like to do. We attempted fishing in the Loire that involved a baited rod passed to Tony to hold while they did much more interesting things like throwing stones and splashing. While there we watched six guys launch their two canoes and one traditional Loire barge and start off on a ten day journey downstream. The weather was perfect (30oC) and the whole trip looked idyllic. However there was a big thunderstorm that evening and it rained all night and as you know continued unrelentingly. Not sure how far they got. I would imagine to a very cosy bar.

Last weekend when the Wheelhouse roof panels had arrived and the Victron was fitted we rewarded ourselves with a weekend away and caught the train to Grenoble to spend a couple of nights with Delphine and Francois and family at Vaujany. They have a seven acre property quite remote from the village with a very roomy and delightfully restored farm house. What an interesting village Vaujany is. It is situated close to the Lac de la Grande Maison which generates Hydro-electric power and as part of the agreement the energy company has with Vaujany the village receives 3 million Euros a year. As a result the 300 inhabitants must be the most fortunate of any people in the whole of France. The village has a massive ski lift from its centre up into a range of other lifts and fields, an ice hockey rink that is of a standard that the French National team practise there, an undercover heated swimming pool and all facilities are provided free. We watched Florent being outfitted in his Ice Hockey gear, pads for shins, knees, groin, chest, back, shoulders, elbows, face mask and helmet. I asked how much all that would cost thinking of the cost of soccer gear in Australia and the answer was nothing, all provided. Then we went to watch him and his friends having a great time on this wonderful rink with a couple of coaches paid for by the village. With all those facilities Vaujany has now become a popular ski and hiking resort and there are numerous chalets built into the side of the valley. It goes from 2500m to 3300m and one travels between each level either by gondola or escalators which were running all the time even though we saw no one else using them. As well as ice hockey the boys get free skiing lessons in winter. Can you imagine a better place to bring up kids? Their house is set on seven acres surrounded by mountains and forest. We took a drive further up the road to the Col de la Croix de Fer one of the famous mountain climbs on the Tour de France. The markings from last year’s tour were still on the road and we saw numerous cyclists all along the way.

We arrived home Sunday, spent most of Monday doing last minute adjustments to the new roof and finally left port on Tuesday. The longest we have ever been in one place. How people winter over beats me. We set off on the Roanne Canal, stopped for the night half way down and managed a quick trip to Emile Henry outlet store at lunch time.  After all the rain the countryside looks so lush. Cattle up to their stomachs in grass, and the birdsong is lovely but the best sound we can hear is the engine purring as we make our way towards Burgundy. We are now on the Canal du Centre at Paray le Monial. Last night we dined out with Kiwi friends, Roger and Ruth, whom we first encountered on the Meuse in 2008 as we desperately sought a mooring late one evening and they kindly invited us to moor alongside.