It’s not the trip I thought it would be. I had envisioned the barge being central transport to other places, imagined cabbing it to Vezelay or to Chablis for instance. But it’s not that at all, it’s all about being on the barge, about being on the canal, meeting the canal people, talking to the lockmen, working the boat through all the locks.

“By the time it came to the edge of the Forest, the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and, being grown-up, it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly. For it knew now where it was going, and it said to itself, “There is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”  A.A Milne

It’s a forced slow pace journey; you can only go as fast as the river lets you, as the locks let you, and then you pull up. Start at nine, stop from twelve to one then go again till seven (if you want). And like Stewart says, you may have had plans to read, but you don’t want to go below in case you miss something. But when you’re up top, nothing much happens, it’s just the world passing by, and so you sit and watch; a Heron, a fish, wheat fields, a small stone village, rain falling. Sure, there’s locks to go through, but they’re fun bits, like a sorbet, to refresh the pallet, before you sit gazing again.

Dianne and I both agree that there is only one issue with this trip. It’s too short. You can ski for a week because it’s so energetic. On the canal it’s such a wonderfully, slow, meditative pace that I suspect it takes longer to fall into its cadence. Svend and Marguerite are Danish and they’re barging on their 1936 steel vessel for three months – Svend is Billy Connolly’s long lost monozygotic twin and the two of them look like they could have just come out of a two hour yoga and steam bath session, very relaxed.

Heading to a lock from up stream

At Ancy Le Franc the other day a commercial barge pulled in.  She was 35m long and so could only nose in and pull her stern up against us.  Black steel hull, white upper deck with brass portals, stained timber rear deck and a massive exposed rudder – an old working barge (1926) meticulously done up for very well done up passengers.  Inside you could see white table clothes silver cutlery and roses, a chef clad in classic check pant, white shirt and (chef hat) could be seen moving around inside.  The captain, blue double breasted oilskin top, blue denim cap and large grey lamb chop sideburns and beard, stood just to the side quietly calling out the measured commands that inched the barge’s massive bulk into port.  A gang plank was pulled out with timber rail posts, brass fittings and clean white rope rails.  The eight or so passengers quietly disembarked as we looked on drinking our cheap wine and eating fresh taurine from the local butcher.

Backstreets in Ravieres

We turned today, at Buffon, where we saw the old steel forges and headed back down stream and North West, back towards Joigny.  It’s even more relaxed, if that were possible, going down stream.  You don’t get the roar of a filling lock when your in it rising up, just a gentle, quiet ride down.  It was misty in the morning, the sun trying hard to peak out all day then finally succeeding in the afternoon.  We’d booked a restaurant in Ravieres and pulled up there around five.  It was a lovely walk around the old walled city in the afternoon sun.  From a buttercup filled horse paddock atop a hill you could see down across the town and church steeple, across the lock reflecting the blue sky and puffy white clouds and out towards the green fields and forests stepping gently up into the distance.

The distant hills curved around to the south and east toward the town of Rocherford. marking the line of the canal we’d  just travelled.

The restaurant at Ravieres catching the evening light

The restaurant was brilliant. The outside was hundreds of years old, the inside could’ve been from the seventies.  There were paintings of blues artists on the walls and a sports bar.  We ordered white wine and the denim cap, lip studded waitress gave us tumblers of creme de cassis to pour in – a local aperitif apparently.  We toasted Paul’s birthday and reflected on the day’s journey over some very fine local wines.