Thursday 4th May 2017 Corre to Conflandey. 30.5kms 4 locks

Below lock 46 Corre - note peniche mooring dolphins on right.

5.8°C Hazy grey clouds, drizzling, but the sun trying to burn through. Set off at 9am. The keeper was getting the lock ready for us as we untied. Handed in our telecommand as the river locks are still automatic but activated by twisting a suspended pole. Down lock 46 Corre, about 2.4m drop on to the river Sâone. A cruiser called Pilou, (with French and Swiss flags on the stern) had just come out of the marina and was waiting for the lock as we left it. On our left

Lavoir at Ormoy
(place where women used to
wash clothes in the canal before washing machines)

the river Coney emptied into the smaller (at this point) river Sâone. The distance marker said KP407 but that includes all the river loops that have now been cut off, so the actual distance to the junction with the river Rhône in Lyon is 365 kms. The first river reach was 5.5kms, winding through arable farmland with small stands of trees and occasionally meadows of grazing cows. It started to rain more heavily so Mike put the brolly up. I steered while he mopped the bird pooh off the roof – we’d been moored by a large rookery at Corre so we’d been on the

Above lock 1 Ormoy

take-off fly-path where the noisy birds lightened the load as they took off. Into the winding canal section, 3kms long, passing the town of Ormoy to lock 1 of the same name. The tall trees along the canal housed yet more nesting rooks. A silent sandpiper flew in front of the boat for a while. I twisted the pole and the lock filled. On the river locks the red rods (emergency stop) have been replaced with red cords and there were green flashing lights to indicate the lock was ready to lift the blue rods to close the gates and empty the chamber. Noted there

Mirror in lock 1 Ormoy

were big mirrors by the tail end gates (and also by the top end gates on some of the other locks) so the keeper could see boats in the lock when the chamber was empty (no keeper on duty today – the lockhouse, although renovated, was shuttered and empty). Ah! There was a coypu in the lock with us, we saw it as it climbed out of the water on to the bottom rail of the top end gates. When the bottom end gates opened, Mike reversed to try to get it to swim out of the lock. It dived back in and it didn’t re-

Coypu trying to hide in lockgate at Ormoy

surface - we saw no more signs of it. Hope it got out of the lock before the gates closed. 6.4kms of more lovely winding river to the next lock. The rain stopped and the sun came out, still lots of dark clouds around though. The village of Betaucourt stood on a rise beyond the fields to our right as we entered the next long lock cut, again about 3kms to the lock 2 Cendrecourt. A twist of the pole and the gates opened. The lock house was lived in and there was a VNF van on the lockside. Down 3.75m – a deep one – and another bucolic 9kms reach to the next

Burgundy-tiled church at Montureux

lock. The towpath on our left was just a green grassy path, no fancy tarmac here for the roller-bladers and Tour-de-France hopefuls, this was only suitable for the adventurous VTT riders (velo tout terrain - BMX bikers). Also noted that moorings on dolphins for péniches had been installed above and below each lock. The reach to lock 3 Montureux was all river, no lock cut. There were several vans, including VNF outside the house. We dropped down 2.2m and found a cruiser in the lock mouth as we left. It was heading into the

Chateau at Montureux

lock against a red light until the woman on the bows pointed to it and the steerer went into hard reverse making a big cloud of black smoke as he did so! Competence level a bit on the low side today! 10.2kms to the next lock. A new mooring, a long wooden landing by a restaurant at Fouchécourt, was empty, but an offline basin a little bit further downstream was almost full. People at the end of the basin waved as we went past. We’d stopped overnight in ‘02 by the bridge at Baulay a bit further on downriver, where there was another wooden landing with rings. Lots more dark clouds were

Black clouds gathering, rain on the way

gathering. We didn’t make it to the mooring before the rain started. Several lots of fishermen were fishing from the far side. We went past the turn pole and moored above lock 4 at Conflandey, at the upstream end of the quay before the “No Mooring” sign. It was 2.45pm. The bank edge was piled with horizontally laid piling and bollards péniche length (38m) apart, so Mike pushed in pins behind the piling (no need to hammer them into the soft ground). Just as we’d finished tying up a Swiss cruiser came

Moored above lock 4 Conflandey

downriver. The lock lights were still on red. As the cruiser passed us, Mike, leaning out of our side doors, asked them in French, then in English, if they’d turned the pole – yes. Well, it hasn’t worked, so it looks like you’ll have to go back and do it again. Took the skipper a while to wind (there was very little flow or wind and it’s quite wide) and he went back to the turn-pole and did it again. Immediately he got red/green and the gates opened. All smiles as they went past us again and into the lock chamber this time. Internet still 3G, like Corre, so it’s slow and I may not be able to do any blogging, we’ll see.