Thursday 30th May Sad farewells

It was a sad day as Mum was leaving us today having seen all too little of the Nivernais and suffered far too much inclement cold weather. I stayed in bed watching the last episode of Rick Steins French Odyssey to give our departing guests room to ready and pack. Collette cooked some perfect scrambled eggs and with toast and cereals, the troops were ready. We busied ourselves making prawn and ham salad baguettes for the journey before those sad farewells had to be endured. Kept them short and sweet and by 11.30 they were crossing the bridge out of Accolay accompanied of course by the pitter pat of rain on the car roof.
We had tea and I spotted Tim removing Randle`s electric cable from the box. Are you off Tim? He was heading down to Vincelles on the first leg of his trip to Auxerre where he was picking up his family of four passengers starting their week long holiday aboard Randle
Fancy coming and having a go at handling a barge? he enquired.
It was too good an opportunity to miss.
Yes great, we will put our bikes on board and ride back. The plans for a boat spring clean and reorganise had just left the building. Tim suggested Berlin Bertie may like to come. Rheiner was deep in conversation with a German touring cyclist. I had to interrupt with the invitation and Rheiner was euphoric. Yes I have to go to Cravant to use the internet, will he drop me their. You will have to ask him but I am sure it will be no problem. Tim is going up to the pound at Vermonten to turn round. We are going to meet him at the first lock in 20minutes. Rheiner instructed me that he would wait for our return and join us at the next lock back towards the Nivernais. Ok Rheiner. The cyclist was making his exit as I returned to the boat to get ready.
We joined Randle 15 minutes later and Tim immediately let me helm towards the Vermonten pound. It was not as tricky as I had envisaged but the spinning of the gear wheel was weird to a newbie. Tim  took over as we entered the pound and within a minute I was so so relieved. There was a terrible crunching sound and the engine juddered to a halt. We had 50 ton of uncontrolled barge heading inexorably straight for a moored hire boat. Tim was stirred if not shaken and very hurriedly started the auxiliary engine. Thankfully it just gave him time to swing her into astern and she oh so slowly came broadside to the hire boat. The hire boat personnel had heard the crunch and seen the possible calamity and had rushed onto the moored boat, they took lines and we settled alongside. One of the guys suggested it sounded like we had hit something. Yes it was probably a very large tree stump floating down river but just under the surface. Tim was calm and tried the engine. It started and appeared to be ok. Must be the prop he offered. In gear, there seemed no vibration and the engine beat appeared fine. It must have been a big stump to have stopped the engine but thankfully no major damage seemed to have been done.
We headed back out and toward Accolay. At the first lock was Rheiner. He boarded, stored his rusting raleigh shopper and we approached accolay and our boats.

 

 Rheiner suddenly said to Tim, There is a German cyclist he has to get to Auxerre today. Casually Tim replied, "Nice ride".
Vincelles is half way, could you give him a lift..... only if it is ok. I then noticed the cyclist still alongside Rheiners boat Tao. Rheiner must have suggested the lift as he was leaving when I had left them earlier. Berlin is not shy of asking that's for sure.
Tim of course said Ok and our caravan got bigger. At Cravant Rheiner disembarked. I took the opportunity to have a good look below decks.
Randle is a very classy boat. It needs to be I suppose when you are charging the rates Tim does however it is easy to see why his is so popular.

The hull is only 13 years old but the fittings and engine is much much older. The brass whistle tubes to each cabin, the Japanese ww2 navy searchlight, the brass boat horn are all just gorgeous.







 The engine is a 16litre 1939 model drinking about 16ltrs an hour but is a masterpiece. Tim bought the boat 4 years ago here in France with the thought that he would charter it to make it pay for itself. It has now become his full time business and he is doing very nicely.

 The cabins suit a family of four perfectly with a double berth and a twin both en suite.

 

 

Gail his chef joins him each morning of a cruise as does his matelot. Tim sleeps in a separate cabin up front offering complete privacy to his guests in a very personal  The Randle is immaculate and Capt Harrold is a top bloke. It is easy to see why so many people are seduced by the appeal of barge life.
We were soon approaching Vincelles. Tim noted as did I just how fast the current was flowing past the quay and with a weir just 80 m across the river, he had to turn Randle 180 degrees into the current and get alongside in a fairly limited space. This was not going to be easy.
He was frantic at the wheel as she turned but was immediately gripped by the current and broadside on was struggling to turn. Tim was getting very concerned as we were quickly running out of manoeuvring space. He threw the auxiliary engine throttles full open trying to give her that bit extra. The bows slowly turned but we were now on top of the bank. More frantic spinning and rapid change to astern and Randle inched back from the concrete bank she was within inches of. The German cyclist, now aware that this was close to being a drama ran to the bow and checked to see if we had hit while Time was spinning the helm and the gears urging the bow to come up into the current but she stubbornly refused. As he took way off for a change in direction we were immediately susceptible to that raging current. This was clear evidence as to why the river had been closed for so long if this was now deemed fit for novice hire boaters to navigate. With Tim clearly very worried, Randle finally inched her bow round and once started, her 50 tons would follow. Safely moored, I congratulated Tim on his helmsman ship. It was impressive that whilst clearly very concerned, he remained calm and thought it through. It had been a very scary mooring. We sat down and drank ice cold 1664`s in the tranquillity of this lovely spot contemplating how such an innocuous looking long quay could prove to be so dangerous.

 

 He recounted tales of old when hire boats had gone over the weir and one poor soul had been drowned in an incident not so many years prior. I would happily wait for the vnf to open the section we were heading into whenever they felt it was right.

 

After more fond farewells and see you up the rivers, we left Tim and took in the bridge just downstream. It had been the sight a few days ago of my canopy tear. I took a picture for old times sake (its on the incident post) before setting off on the lane climbing up and alongside the opposite bank of the canal and adjacent river Yonne. It gave us a lovely last view of Randle moored at Vincelles

 Tim had pointed out an opening in the hillside which had been a German factory building aircraft in ww2. They were then transported across the yonne to an airfield which I had seen coming down river and is still marked by a tower and aircraft insignia. We soon reached the first guard pillbox.

Then came the factory built into the hillside making it impossible to bomb from above. The walls were dug out wider at the bottom to facilitate the aircraft fuselage exiting.

300m further on and a much taller entrance to the factory with the remains of a roof structure coming out to the road. I think this was the goods entrance to the factory.

 Finally another pill box with these views toward the airfield in the far distance (second pic is on full zoom)

 before the shell of a building which housed factory workers. I love this sort of stuff.
We stopped off in a boulangerie in Cravant for almond croissant and a lardon and cheese feuillette for the skipper. We thought it was about 4ish. 20Mins later we boarded Doucette amazed to discover it was 7pm.
We ended up having dinner of Cod in Bearnaise sauce with haricot vert at 9.30 and after drifting through a couple of hours reviewing e-mails and the season so far and finishing off the muscadet, we finally retired after an eventful day at 12.30. It was a late one.