Tuesday 5th June 2018 Herry to Léré 32kms 6 locks

An elderly Dawncraft with added wheelhouse
We had one of those once upon a time in the dim and distant past.

16.2ºC After heavy rain in the night it was grey and damp when we set off, more heavy rain later. A hireboat moored just below lock 30 (behind us) hurried to get untied and set off as Mike was getting ready to untie. (In the UK we have seen boaters throw ropes still attached to their mooring pins on board as we have come into view behind them).  We set off at 9.30am. 3kms to lock 31 Prée. The lock was ready with one gate open. The lady keeper

Sancerre

worked the lock one-handed as she was chatting on her phone all the time we were in her lock. 5kms to the next. The towpath was a jungle with lots of young trees along the edge. One hireboat went past heading uphill. Took a photo of an old Dawncraft cruiser moored by Champalais bridge that had a wheelhouse added which, unusually, looked OK (normally adding a wheelhouse to a cruiser ruins the lines of the boat)

The arm leading from St Satur to St Thibault

Lock 32 Grange was empty with one boat in it waiting for another to arrive. Another lady keeper and as this lock is mechanised she worked it from controls in a cabin on the lockside. The two hireboats came up and left then we went down. It was 11.15am, the locks close for lunch from 12 – 1.00pm and the next was 5.2kms, which at our

Boats moored at Ménétréol

normal speed of 6kph would have taken a little over 50 minutes, so we would have to waste a full hour –  we burned a bit of extra diesel by upping the speed to a dizzy 8kph. An uphill hireboat went past at St Bouize and another went past 1.5kms before the lock. We arrived at lock 33 Thauvenay just in time, Mike closed a gate (all manually operated, wonder why only 32 was modernised?) for the male keeper and we left on the 9.5kms pound smack on midday. A Dutch cruiser had

Railway viaduct near St Satur

just arrived below the lock but was out of time, the keeper had gone for his lunch. Took photos of Sancerre on its hill and lots of hireboats paused for lunch in Ménétréol and the railway viaduct that Mike would have liked to walk. More photos, the arm at St Satur which had a dry dock at the St Thibault end and a mooring that it calls a port-de-plaisance. Past the big

Church at Bannay

grain silos at St Satur and a long line of very smart houses by the road that runs out of St Satur alongside the canal. Noticed that the towpath was now a metalled cycle path, but there were no bikes in evidence today. Mike took several pictures of the church at Bannay and we had lunch on the move. Lock 34 Bannay was ready. We had a short shower of rain as we went through the lock. It stopped, but not for long as it poured down and didn’t

Moored at Léré

stop until we were tied up. 4kms to lock 35 Peseau which was ready and was half empty when a Canalous hireboat arrived and the keeper refilled the lock, the hireboat joined us in the chamber, not very often that we have gone up a lock backwards! Mike closed a top end gate and the skipper off the hireboat helped wind paddles and open a bottom end gate. The keeper was having trouble with his phone – he kept shouting "Allo! Allo!" at it, loudly! 4 kms to the next lock 36 Houards, where we gained another hireboat, which had set off to join us. The next keeper (with a red brolly) was very careful that there was enough room for the third boat before he wound paddles to empty the lock. He kept muttering to himself,  "I was only told there were two of you". The little Canalous boat stayed behind us but the other one decided to overtake – and once past our stern became stuck on the bow wave and couldn't get past – its steerer staring ahead, never looking left or right, didn’t say a word, and a bridge was looming. We hadn't altered our speed at all. Stop teasing the idiot! OK we slowed off and let him get past and through the bridge, no backwards glance, no wave of the hand, we were tying up just beyond the bridge anyway. We headed for the moorings at Léré and so did the little Canalous boat behind. The other hireboat managed to do a Timothy West and smacked into the piled bank on the bend beyond the moorings! What was that about? It didn’t stop. Mike had a look at the moorings, there was a high hedge of clipped beech between the mooring and a road plus the council depot. There was free water and electricity at the other end of the mooring so we untied and went back to a slot further back down the mooring to save having to run out two cables. It was 4.25pm. Time to get dried out.