A typical overnight spot in a small rural village on the Canal de Bourgogne. The ecluses (locks) in this part of the world are less than one kilometre apart and keep you very busy. This year we have not had any trouble coping with them, maybe a combination of experience, luck and attitude. We figure we will do just over 500 this year so we have to get it right.
We from are now in the Canal de Bourgogne which run 240 km St Jean de Losne NW to Migennes (approx 150km south of Paris) It run right though the Burgundy wine region, The canal was completed in 1832 after various stages had been started in 1775. It is the shortest route from Paris to the Med but is the most heavily locked. Today it is only used by pleasure craft and from our experience not many at that. We are now in the peak cruising season and rarely see more that 4-6 other boats a day. We often have two eclusiers (lock keepers) follow us for the whole day working the locks for us. They travel from one to the next on motor scooters and when you finish for the day they ask when you plan to continue. You can say 3 days time at 10.30 am and they will be there on time. Quite amazing when you consider how inefficient so many other things are in France. However we have also found the train service very good so maybe it is a transport thing!!
Generally we try and do no more than 8-10 locks a day however in the next few days we will be doing over 20 a day, but they are all down and in a “staircase” i.e. one after the next with only 100mts between each one. There is also little of interest in this section of the canal. But before we do this we have a 3.2 km tunnel to negotiate – always an interesting experience.

The town of Chateauneuf perched 1.5 km away from the canal. It is an old medieval walled city with a grand chateau that remained largely unchanged since the 14c. Luckily there have been no new additional buildings since that time and the town is fully contained with in the city walls – about the size of the MCG. It formed a wonderful backdrop for our cruising for 3 days. We visited it one evening when the locals were all dressed in period costume and had lots of local street stall selling some good stuff and some kitsch.
Maybe the whole thing was a bit too much like Disneyland.
On second thoughts maybe nothing had changed – including the locals - over the last few hundred years.

The welcoming committee at Chateauneuf.

Some more friendly locals.

The lock at a little village of Vandenesse where we stayed 3 nights. Chateauneuf is in the background and a very feral lockkeeper is on right, and of course the flowers on the lock gates. Here we help operate the lock gates. They are quite hard work as they are basically the same as when the canals were built i.e. they are a 200 year old bit of machinery.

Me being arty farty. Still not a bad sight to wake up to.

Early morning in Vandenesse. We have had quite humid weather, misty mornings, sunny days and thunderstorms in the evenings.
A 100 year old 38 mt long converted working boat. It is typical of the boats that used to work the canals up until the 1960,s. This one has been converted into a hotel boat – around 6-12 guests depending on the level of accommodation. They fit into the locks with less than 30 cm to spare and travel painfully slow. We check when they are leaving and try and jump the locks otherwise a days travel distance can be halved.

Early morning – heading back for breakfast with a fresh baguette.

Many of the lockkeepers houses are decorated with different themes. This one had lots of old tools. Garden gnomes, especially Snow White and her seven folk of shorter statue are a common theme. One garden left little doubt what attracted Snow to the seven no so small (in certain parts) lads.

Abdul and the missus heading up the canal in their velos. Must be nice to get a bit of fresh air up the birkah. This bicycle track runs the full length of the canal and it is rare to go for more than 15mins without seeing a rider – many in full touring mode obviously riding all the way, Abdul and company only did several km and I figure the run home into the head wind would have been a real challenge.

Coming out of the Tunnel de Pouilly. It takes bout 3/4 hour to do the 3.2 km but as there is only about 1 mt clearance all round the concentration makes the trip quite exhausting. No lost paint this time.

Me with a couple of friends from the UK who drove over and joined us for a few days. The round building is a pigeon tower and the inside it is lined with several hundred little square stone boxes for birds. It is now the tourist office and all the brochures are stored in the pigeon holes –yes that is where the name came from.