Never say Nivernais again.

Having recovered fully from my fall off the boat. we began to ask around about Baye and quickly learnt that there wasn't much here. The shop turned out to be a lady's  front room that had sold out of most things. Luckily not beer. There was a restaurant about 2 k away. And, a shower that cost two Euros for 7 minutes. These of course were French minutes that lasted for 4 minutes.

We climbed over some rocks and slipped into the warm water. Didn't get that refreshed feeling but not too unpleasant.

Food wise we were rescued by this guy.

Who turned up in a real meat wagon. This moment also saw us venture back in to the sausage world.

It was now time to finish off the Nivernais with our last jaunt to Decize. The junction of the Nivernais and the Lateral a La Loire canal.

This section of the canal is very rural and here we were seen as a main attraction by the locals.

With one trying out a cruise down the Nivernais herself. Don't worry she did get out.

First stop was Chatillon En Bazois. Some young Germans on a Locaboat we had bumped in to earlier gave us a wave as we crossed paths again and told us that we were in for a treat here as there was a rock concert in the port that night. I asked if it would finish by bedtime about 9:30 but they were unsure. It didn't.

Bleary eyed we set off to Pannecot which looked promising in the Carte fluvial and had what appeared to be a lovely restaurant beside the harbour but of course it was Thursday so it was closed for the day. Also no shop.

Early-ish start the next morning stopping for a quiet lunch beside the canal.

 Then near collision as we enter a tight bend at Cercy La Tour.

I was admiring this bridge on a bend and taking a photo of it when, as you can just see, another boat was doing the same coming the other way. Lots of hard reversing just got us out of it and there were no collisions although Mrs Kilbride ended up jumping ashore to prevent us reversing in to a concrete dock. She never said a word.

Cercy was nice but slightly abandoned. The Notre Dame of the Nivernais watched over the place but not much was going on.

Never did find the Tower.

Decize was the next stop as we had to pick up a package of supplies from England from the post office. We cycled in to town to find it but walked around for an hour without any luck. Of course until we returned to where we had locked the bikes up initially.

Right outside the bloody post office!

We stayed a few days and toured the one way system on our bikes a couple of times enjoying our /my inability to navigate.

After a tiring day cycling around Decize we returned to the boat and started to put them back on deck. Now the trouble with wives is they start to get a bit obsessive about their water home, Always trying to add things. There comes a point in a man's life when he has to say enough is enough.

Now Caro had had a few phases about things like fans, umbrellas, barbecues and now she had started on about sun umbrellas. She had noticed a garden centre on our circular tour of the one way system and said shall we go back and look? Well I put my foot down. No we must ready the boat we should have thought about that as we passed it, no definitely not. 

I busied myself doing important things like filling up the water tanks during which I noticed, when I turned the tap on, that our fabric, non sprinkler, hose wasn't letting water out but was bulging about a metre from the tap. I looked at it and thought a prod was needed at which there was a loud crack and I was soaked.

So off to the garden centre we went. Alas hoses but no Sun umbrellas.

Entering Decize introduced a new dimension to locks in that we now came across our first automatic ones.

You sail up to the blue cord hanging from the gantry, pull it and wait for the lock to open then you go in tie up and it all happens automatically. Great.

Inside this lock was Decize Port  and to get out there was another auto lock. Great we could leave when it suited us. So at  12:30 on Monday we got ready to go and sailed up to the blue cord. Gave it a great big tug and sat there like a lemon. 

A nice French guy politely told us that it was lunch time. Even auto locks need lunch!

That was the end of the Nivernais and now we set off along the Canal Lateral A La Loire.