To Marigny Le Cahouet

June 10, 2024

The canal climbed 29 locks today

The room last night was very pretty but it was tiny - we had to put most of our bags in the bathroom and then could hardly move. The dinners however was absolutely delicious I had snails and fish in a Chablis sauce while Ken started with a terrine then moved on to Sweetbreads and kidneys that he raved about. We met our French friends at the breakfast which was good enough for us to get enough for lunch. We left in the still beautiful weather at around 10am. We once more had a short distance to cover and we were going to arrive long before check in. Today we had 29 locks to climb and 24 of them in the last 10km. This is when the canal gets really steep it has 40 locks in 14.3 km and goes through a 2.3km tunnel

This massive dead fish was lying across the path

Much of the country we came through was really very isolated. There was one sizeable town Montbard. We didn’t go in there but should have and even though it was Monday searched out some food - we were going to regret it latter on

They looked as if they were having fun as this hotel boat went through a lock

After Veneray-Les -Laumes was where the canal really began to climb. We had only about 10k to go the ecluse was 59 and accommodation was at ecluse 26. It was amazing how close the ecluses where together, it mast take a very long time for a boat to make any progress and the VFN men must get a real work out

This War Memorial in Marigny has 28 names from WW1 and 3 from WW2

We got to Ecluse 26 very early and our request to spend our waiting time sitting in the courtyard associated with the place was firmly denied. We asked about food and were told there was a town 14km away that would probably have a shop. Never mind we have half a cake of chocolate and 2 small Madeline’s. So back we went several hundred meters to the picnic area had a met up with our French friends and waited……….

A boat tied up while we waited for our check in time

Along we went at the appointed hour and our relationship with madam improved greatly (I told Ken to keep smiling). We were shown to our beautiful room, the bikes were taken care of and we had a beer. She came and asked us if we had sorted out food problem and I said to her it was fine we had some chocolate. Then she said if we wanted more than chocolate she would heat us up a pizza. All is well that ends well and we can watch boats going through ‘our’ lock as we lie on our bed

Our door is the middle one looking straight at the lock

Today's ride: 32 km (20 miles)
Total: 283 km (176 miles)

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