Almost there - Seurre on the river Saone

Well here we are almost at our winter mooring. We have travelled 200 kilometres since my last post through changing scenery and interesting towns and villages.

We've had kingfishers flitting in front of the boat with us, seen numerous herons, spotted lapwings and great crested grebes and gone to sleep to the sound of owls hooting around us. If only I had a better camera to capture some of them, Santa please note.

We arrived in Digoin via an impressive aquaduct over the river Loire.

We were now on the Canal du Centre and from here on all the locks would be automatic and could be operated by ourselves. Although we did have to let the control centre at Montceaux-les-Mines know our intentions each day so we could be put into the system and have the locks set in our favour. This is when speaking some French definitely comes in handy!

After a couple of nights in Digoin we moved onto the lovely town of Paray-le-Monial and it's splendid Romanesque basilica dating back to the 11th and 12th centuries. It has been a place of pilgrimage for many years since a young nun saw apparitions of Christ and is still packed every July and August. Pope John Paul II visited here.

The town had a lovely peaceful aura and some interesting little shops. We visited an exhibition of mosaics. I wanted Chris to buy this one for me but at 500 euros you can imagine his response! Sue in Cyprus, keep working on yours, you could make a lot more money!

We moved on after one night here and even an overcast morning was brightened by the view of this chateau at from the canal...

... And one of the many herons we pass along the way.

We came into the old mining town of Montceaux-les-Mines and they literally stopped the traffic for us, raising this cool pink and blue lifting bridge as we approached.

We enjoyed a 3 night stay at St Leger sur Dheune. We treated ourselves to a leisurely lunch at the little restaurant on the bridge 'Au P'tit Kir', highly recommended. I opted for a little afternoon snooze whilst Chris decided to go off on a bike ride along the towpath. I thought he'd been gone a while when he rang to tell me he had been delayed as he had rescued an old lady out of the ditch. He could just see two feet sticking out and heard her cries. She had lost control of her 3 wheeled walker. Luckily she was unhurt and he helped her back along the towpath to her village. You can't put a retired firefighter down!

Our friends Pete and Glen from Slo-Motion turned up whilst we were here and we spent a nice evening on our boat catching up with them.

En route to our next mooring at Chagny we stopped for a couple of hours at the very pretty wine village of Santenay. We were definitely entering wine country now, hillsides covered in vines. There were 38 wine caves to visit to visit if you were so inclined but where would we start? Maybe next time. 

And so we arrived in Chagny on Saturday afternoon. On Sunday morning there was a large market famous for all the local Burgundian produce.

We had a surprise visit that afternoon from two of Chris' ex work colleagues, twins Paul and Stuart, also retired, their partners and their Aussie friend Dave, all heading to the South of France and beyond on their motorbikes. They knew roughly where we were from the blog and rang for directions on exactly where to find us. Spent a very pleasant afternoon with them on the back of the boat. Great to see you guys, we will catch up with you again when we get back to the UK.

We were now almost at the bottom of the Canal du Centre and heading to the river Saone which would take us up 64 kilometres to St Jean de Losne. This lock into the village of Fragnes had a tree hanging over it defying the rules of gravity. This final lock to take us out onto the river Saone was the deepest we had so far encountered, 10.76 metres. You can just see the top of our French courtesy flag at the bottom of the photo.

We had perfect weather for our first day cruising on the river. We had got so used to the canals but it was lovely to have a vast expanse of water ahead of us. The Joli Roger moved effortlessly through the water even though we were going upstream.

All was so calm and peaceful until...

Look behind youuuu!! That was our first encounter with a 3000 tonnes, 110 metre long commercial barge but we were to meet more of them over the next couple of days. We are now moored up here in Seurre on the last leg of our journey to our winter mooring. We were going to leave this morning but it was foggy so we decided to stay put. We like it here, it's quite a lively town with a nice feel. We are moored on a pontoon at the town marina just before the final lock. There were only 2 locks on this river for us to do to get to St Jean de Losne and so far we have done the one. They are vast locks on these major rivers, built to take those huge commercial barges, or 'the lock monsters' as I call them. We can just sit here and watch it all go on around us as boats come and go out of the lock.

Which is exactly what I am doing now watching the sun go down with a glass of wine.