The Loire

22nd September, 2010 (Tony)

A glorious day for a bike ride, alongside the broad, sparkling Loire rippling smoothly over gravelly shoals. The strains of silence were deafening, shattered occaisionally by waterfowl or pheasant taking flight, alarmed by our sudden presence. We dared not speak for fear of disturbing the peace. We have pictures of the beautiful scenery, but how can you record such profane absence of sound? A wind sock flaccidly watching over a grassy aerodrome; at a nuclear power plant two giant condensors belching steam high into the air, visible for twenty kilometres; a sky devoid of anything but blue; fields we could smell yet yielding no noise whatsoever. We would have heard horses chewing, but they chose not to; mice scurrying about in the cornfields would have been audible, but there were none. Eerie. Unique... and sixty-five years to discover. We covered almost forty kilometres, much of it along the EuroVelo Route (we've mentioned it before) a dedicated cycle-way that will eventually extend from Nantes to Budapest — 3,500 km. Some of the time we followed the ancient canal. It was here, because of the Loire's dangerous reaches, that engineers conceived the first canal with locks in France. Henry IV deployed 12,000 men and got them started in 1597 on a canal to link the Loire to the Seine. The French thought they invented the first lock until, only recently, it was discovered that the Chinese had built some in the first millennia AD. The canal was completed in 1642, the same year that Abel Tasman discovered New Zealand. It served for over two hundred years before the current chain of locks and the remarkable pont canal across the Loire were commissioned in the late 1800's. I should be pleased if something I built lasted fifty years!

It is autumn now. I know this because the other morning when I mopped the top of Sable before casting off I swept up a pile of ice. Today is the equinox and the grape harvest has not yet begun in earnest; and whilst the leaves are still clinging to the trees it's clear they are relinquishing their desire to draw sap. We are currently in Briare, a popular and very pretty port, where we've elected to stay for four days to explore the nearby region. The tall trees next to our mooring would be delightful in high summer but at the moment they screen all sun from the boat until after two o'clock. And completely block our satellite television reception. It is two weeks since we left the Seine and we have cruised very slowly to get this far, rarely traveling more than fifteen kilometres at a time and often spending more than a night in every port.

The Canal du Loing is very pretty. Lots of hotel-barges ply this gentle waterway sometimes making it difficult for us to find a mooring. Moret sur Loing would have to rate among the most picturesque villages in France. We have a large picture on our wall at Mooloolaba to attest to this fact. Whilst having lunch at a picnic table beside the canal we were surprised to be overtaken by Karen and Barry from Eleanor, the boat moored behind us at Roanne. They weren't on Eleanor, they were cuising with their friends, Rob and Janina who live, when they're at home, in North Carolina but also have a villa in Umbria where they grow grapes and olives. They are part-owners of a barge and have been coming to France for ten or twelve years to cruise for a month or so each summer. What a life! We had a couple of pleasant evenings with them. Barry and Karen had to return to Roanne before heading to Umbria to help Rob and Janina with the olive picking, something they do every year. Nemours is lovely too. One of our days there was particularly wet — the first for a long time — thus an opportunity to catch up on some routine maintenance e.g. getting out the Karcher (high-pressure water-blaster) and giving the grey water tank a thorough flush-out. There are several pump-out stations on this canal — almost as many as in all the rest of France. We would only eat fish in France if they were taken from the Loire, or the ocean. Don't ask me to explain... From Souppes we rode our bikes up to Chateau Landon a quaint town with a dominating church in the middle of a large plateau yet perched on the edge of a rocky precipice — like a mini Rocamadour. The Tour de France passed through here in July on its way to Montargis. Our next port-of-call was Cepoy. A bike ride revealed some attractive parklands and water sports playgrounds on the outskirts of Montargis. One really has to get off the boat as often as possible to appreciate the way the locals live.

Montargis is a gorgeous town disected by little canals lined with flower boxes and bridged with tiny arched passerelles too narrow for vehicles to cross. All chocolate box pretty — an apt description given that the town boasts several irresistible chocolatiers. I haven't bought chocolates this year so far but weakened in Montargis.

Montbouy, Chatillon-Coligny, Rogny-les Sept Ecluses and Ouzouer sur Trezée are small towns along the way that have provided lovely quays and facilities for boatees. We stopped at all of them and enjoyed walking around the centres and exploring what they have to offer. From Rogny the Canal de Briare climbs quickly up through six (once seven) deep locks to a large open summit dotted with sizable lakes that feed the canal; then it drops just as quickly down to the Trezée river and into the Loire valley. From Briare it is upstream for us now all the way to Roanne, about three hundred kilometres. It's another three hundred kilometres from Roanne to the source of the Loire, France's longest river.

From Ouzouer we took our motorbikes over the hills to Gien for a day's excursion. Gien was ninety percent obliterated in a German bombing raid in June 1940 in an attempt to wipeout the French army fleeing south across the bridge over the Loire, just prior to their surrender. Rebuilding did not commence until 1947 by which time someone must have said, "To hell with the expense, let's do it right." They adopted a romantic architectural style that emulates the old chateau with lots of round towers, turret roofs, dormers and arches. The red brick is a giveaway but the overall affect is pleasing to the eye. It would be a nice city to live in. And yesterday we took the motorbikes over the river and discovered more beautiful countryside and pretty villages in an area that to the French is so ordinary it barely rates a mention. I guess most of France is like that. That's what makes it so unique... and appealing.