The Canal du Centre Part 4: Montchanin to Saint-Léger-sur-Dheune (or what a lot of bollards)
OK, the answer to yesterday's question:
This sculpture is called 'La borne des 7 écluses' by Gilles Richard. To save you googling it here is what the website La borne des 7 écluses ; monment commémoratif (canal du Centre) says after you translate it:
"The work is placed on the left bank of the canal, next to the lock 03 airlock. It is in the form of a concrete cylinder covered with black tiles from the Perrusson factory, surmounted by a generator rotor of electricity in steel and copper from the Henri-Paul electrical substation (Note on the work: "Rotor of electricity generator 33, provenance: Henri-Paul station, copper and steel base 50 t bricks Perrusson method - Ecuisses, the May 24, 2000")."
I'm not sure if the name refers to the (I counted 19, not 7) locks at the start of the Mediterranean section of the Canal du Centre or it it's a tribute to the Sept Ecluses at Rogny.
So now you know. Well, you know as much as me. About this.
Saturday 3rd June 2023
Yesterday we told the lock keeper at our final lock that we would be ready to use Lock 1 Méditerranée at 10.00am, not realising how very close to it we would be staying. After a leisurely breakfast Igor strolled there to find that the chamber was empty. We need to enter the lock when it's full as we need to descend. As the water is released we go downwards until we reach the level of the canal beyond.
Igor was getting a little concerned so I walked to the lock about 9.50, and saw that a VNF van was parked and the lock was filling. Panic over. We entered the lock just after 10 and pulled the cord to start the cycle. Nothing. Igor tried again, repeatedly. Nothing at all. Realising it wasn't just a matter of needing to be patient I called VNF as the lock keeper was long gone. The woman who answered told me (I think) to wait a minute and she'd try resetting it.
We gave it long enough for her to press Control-Alt-Delete, there was a click from the gates, Igor tried again and we were on our way.
We'd seen that the lock was deep so I'd swapped my normal mooring rope for a much longer one. Down we went, to a depth of around 4m below the entrance level. The next one, 2 Charmois, was very similar. As we were leaving lock 2 Igor and I both noticed that the lock was equipped with floating bollards. Instead of needing a rope at least twice as long as the depth of the lock you just loop a normal rope around the top of the bollard and it descends with you. How could we both have missed these? We'd noticed the structures set into the lock walls on our walk yesterday but as the locks were empty hadn't realised what they were.
At lock 3 Fourneau I smugly tied to the floating bollard as we entered. A lock keeper was there and, as usual, asked where we were going and pressed the start button from the lock keeper's cottage for us. The water left the lock. The bollard stayed in place. We were dropping. It wasn't. Then, when we were a couple of feet lower than when we started it dropped all the way down to the new water level and bounced a couple of times. This is why you never wrap a rope around your hand to keep a grip on it. If it had been around my hand it would have hurt and possibly caused damage. This is the reason I wear gloves too, to protect from rope burns and also because it gives me a better grip than my soft ladylike hands can provide on their own.
Lock 4 Ravin was another deep lock. I stood on the port side of the boat holding my rope. Streams of water poured from small holes in the limestone bricks on the starboard side, giving us an impromptu boat wash. Igor had to close the hatches as we didn't want the boat's interior getting wet.
By now I had the floating bollard routine down pat, but the next lock, 5 Forge, was shallow so there weren't any. It was back to hooking the bollard at the top of the lock and releasing the rope on the descent, all the while keeping the boat's position under control. I decided to swap my very long rope for the one I usually use. It's a lot easier when there isn't 15 metres of excess stuff getting in the way.
As we entered the lock there was an overflow type stream running alongside. When we exited we could see a mini waterfall where it reached the canal. It could have been there to help fish to find their way through or maybe it was just to ensure that no water is wasted. Either way, it was a pretty novelty.
By now the locks were starting to blend together in my mind so I was trying very hard to find things that would distinguish them when I looked back in my diary (or this blog). As we approached 6 Motte I saw, behind a pile of mud and gravel from some roadworks, a huge rusty barge parked next to a building by the lock, at right angles to the canal. I spent a good few minutes trying to work out what it was doing there but didn't find any answers beyond 'probably by road' and 'I'm glad I wasn't stuck behind that when it moved here.' The lock itself was very deep, over 5m.
About 6 minutes later we were entering lock 7 Rocher. It wasn't one of the very deep ones but as the doors closed and the water drained we saw that a shoal of fish had been caught in the crevices of the lock gate as the water levels fell. They were jumping frantically, trying to get out and back to the water. You could feel their desperation. A couple managed it, flopping down and disappearing into the murk but a lot of them didn't make it.
Lock 8 Abbaye was next, very close again. As we descended Igor pointed out that passing through these locks is a lesson in history, a living museum. Each block was hewn by hand, the locks excavated by teams of labourers under the guidance of some stunningly capable engineers. I took a few minutes to respect the skill that went into our journey and all the men who worked to make it possible. (There probably were very few if any women, please correct me if I'm wrong).
By now it was nearly 12, time for lunch. The next lock was close so our normal practice of going very very slowly wouldn't work, we'd still get there ridiculously early. We decided to actually stop for lunch so pulled into the Halte Nautique at Saint-Julien-sur-Dheune. It was a pleasant spot but the water next to the bank wasn't terribly deep.
A restaurant barge was moored next to us and the owner was busy cleaning, hosing the decks. I noticed an Australian flag so asked him if he was an Aussie. Turns out he was French but the previous owner was Australian.
Igor and I decided to take a walk to see what was in the village. Short answer, a closed auberge opposite the Halte Nautique was all we could find. We went back to the boat and ate our lunch, appreciating the good weather and the fact that we were stopped so could take a breather. At 12.55 we were off again, reaching lock 9 Moulin de St Julien around 13.05. The floating bollards were of a slightly different design here so I nearly didn't realise what they were.
The next lock, 10, was called Chez-le-Roi. This was a misnomer, unless the King had a penchant for run down concrete huts. Vive la revolution!
Lock 11 Villeneuve was very similar in appearance to 10 until we descended. 10 was deep while this one was shallow, as were the rest of the locks we passed today. As we waited to descend a bird of prey, which our son Max tells me was a kite, circled on the thermals. Did I mention it was hot?
Lock 12 De Morey was scruffy.
There was an abandoned lock keeper's shed, through the windows of which we could see an old fashioned computer control panel. It must have been like the Starship Enterprise back in the day but now just looked a bit sad. It looked as though someone was living in the old lock keeper's cottage nearby though, as there were lots of children's toys and a big pile of split logs in the garden.
The VNF shed at 13 de la Dherne was even scruffier, sprayed with graffiti. As we descended a lot of water was overflowing into the emptying lock chamber from upstream. When this happened I wondered if they might cancel each other out and we'd be stuck in there forever.
When we reached lock 14 De Bois Andre there was a red light. A barge, Soloris, was rising up to our level. The canal wasn't overly wide at this point and the sides of were shallow. Igor had to be very careful not to venture too close to the bank so the barge probably thought we were deliberately getting in their way, but they passed with room to spare. The lock keepers cottage was pretty, which made a pleasant change.
In my notes all I've written about lock 15 Chateau de la Motte is 'Nothing much. Hut.' I think this reflects my state of mind at the time. Lock after lock after lock, all very similar with just minor details to distinguish them. All so close together that there is very little time to take in the surroundings and note things down. As you finish one you have to get ready for the next, then you stand in the blazing sun for 10 minutes holding onto a rope for dear life, then get ready to do it all over again.
At lock 16 Parc de la Motte someone had rigged loudspeakers in the garden and it was blaring out French radio. You know the rule of thumb that the louder someone in a car plays music the less likely it is that their taste and yours coincide? The same held true here. Luckily Igor still had his sense of humour left (not sure I did) and was dancing on the deck (rather than internally whinging like me).
We were near the end of today's journey. The relentlessness of the routine and the heat were getting to me. I reminded myself that this is fun, this is living the dream. It was starting to feel like a routine or heaven forbid a job, but I have to admit that despite all my grumbles the idea of being in an office or a tube train didn't seem like a better option.
The cottage for Lock 17 St Berain was in a street of houses backing onto the canal. The garden was overgrown but had a couple of apricot trees. If you did the journey a couple of months after us you could probably help yourself.
Approaching Lock 18 we thought someone was fishing by the lock gates and got ready to ask them to move, but as we got closer we realised it was a woman doing a watercolour painting of the derelict cottage. She was in her own world and barely seemed to notice us beyond a wave.
Finally, just after 4pm we reached the final lock of the day, 19 Lochères. The cottage had a scruffy but lived in look to it. I'll be honest, I wasn't paying much attention, just glad we'd reached the end of a very long and hot day.
We moored at Saint-Léger-sur-Dheune around 4.30, not noticing a hand drawn sign saying 'no mooring' until we were tied up.
We were breathing a collective sigh of relief at being able to stop and have a cold drink when a young woman with a lanyard around her neck approached us. The harbour at Saint-Léger-sur-Dheune is a base for hire boats and she was a representative of theirs. She explained that we couldn't moor there because this spot was where their boats turn. She must have read our faces because she quickly added that she'd call her boss and ask whether we could stay, providing we left early. Thankfully she returned soon after and said everything was OK.
The hire boat base has showers and toilets but they are guarded by an access code and locked. I asked a hire boat full of nice people from Yorkshire if they could share the code with me, but the number they gave me included a zero, and the zero button on the keypad was broken. We didn't find a public toilet nearby.
There is a supermarket within about 10 minutes walk which sells diesel, which was handy, but we were too hot and tired to do much exploration. Our old 1995 guidebook suggested that the cemetery was worth a look, but that'll have to wait for another visit. I'm sure the residents aren't going anywhere.
Saint-Léger-sur-Dheune seemed like a pleasant town. We saw at least one open restaurant and several shops, which for a Saturday afternoon must be some sort of record for us.
We realised that we'd probably been pushing it too hard today, but with a run of locks this close together there was little choice. Our lunchtime stop was pleasant but there was nothing to do or see there so I wouldn't have wanted to spend the night. We vowed that tomorrow we would take it easy, if not a full day of rest then at least not a killer!
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