Tuesday 6th June 2017 St Sauveur to Champagne-sur-Vingeanne 13.1kms 6 locks

Automatic liftbridge at Cheuge

8.1°C Heavy rain overnight and still raining until 11am, then the clouds disappeared like magic and we had a blue sky and white clouds. Plus a chilly west wind to go with it. Decided to set off again at 11.30am. Up lock 41 St Sauveur (2.9m) with a very nice house alongside the lock. 1.9kms to lock 40 Cheuge (3.10m). There was a VNF van at the lock and a young lady in a dayglow jacket was being instructed by an older man, must be a trainee. Nearly 3kms to the next lock. A UK DB was

Old towrope pulley on lockside at Cheuge

moored at a picnic stop by the bridge in Cheuge. The silo below lock 39 Renève (3.40m) had gone completely, but the concrete quay with bollards next to a winding hole was still there. There were several VNF vans by the house and outbuildings, must be a VNF depot. A couple stopped by the lock with their car and came over to take photos as we locked through. There were bins on the lockside so Mike took our rubbish. 3.9kms to the next. Noticed that the old radar detector post was still there above the lock, redundant and minus its “headlight”. There was downhill traffic, a British cruiser with a

Railway viaduct at Oisilly

defaced blue Ensign, followed ten minutes later by a newbuild Dutch steel barge. Up lock 38 Oisilly (2.30m) after a cruiser coming down had left. Under a magnificent stone railway viaduct (railway now sadly defunct and sprouting trees). I made sandwiches for lunch on the 1.9kms pound to lock 37 Rochette (3.10m) then a short pound of 700m to lock 36 Blagny (2.90m). We moored at Champagne-sur-Vingeanne at 2.45pm next to pilings by a péniche mooring (unscarred blue paint on the bollards

Moored at Champagne-sur-Vingeanne

indicated it had probably never been used) carefully putting pins in the bank after I’d spotted a very large hornet disappearing into the grass by our bows. Well timed as another heavy downpour started about half an hour after we’d moored. A cruiser went past at speed to test our ropes, we listed slightly but didn’t bump on the bottom.