9 locks, 20 kms, 5 1/2 hours

You leave Chagny over a pretty impressive railway junction and, for the first time here, had to chug along at tick over passed moored boats – Shroppy Union it aint tho! Across the valley we could see the smoke rising from the fires where they were burning off the cuttings after pruning the vines; the smoke was mixing with the low clouds and it was hard to visually separate the two.

We pulled into the first lock and headed toward the ladder/manky rope combination at the front by the cill to activate the lock before scuttling into reverse and cowering at the back. A VNF van turned up with a face like a wet Monday, took my rope and threw it over the nearest bollard before pulling the starter cord. Unfortunately ‘the nearest bollard’ left us still right up under the cill which, with the speed these locks fill, is not a happy place to be! Then he buggered off. Between this lock and the second, my little (now very alert) brain rehearsed an entire French conversation about how we would not be putting ropes on in the locks! By the time we reached the 2nd lock I was full of assertiveness and bad grammar and ….. he wasn’t there – he’d been replaced by Mr Happy who didn’t care what we did nor how we did it as long as we were happy too and we had a lovely cruise, continuing on with the locks in sequence when Mr Happy went off for lunch. We passed the LocoBoat hire yard and I,briefly, wondered how they coped with all the manoeuvring required in the locks if they were new to boating – and that was before I new what the remains of our trip to the summit had in store for us!!!

Eventually we ran out of that lock sequence, so moored up and gave the dogs a quick run whilst we waited for Mr Happy to finish his lunch and start the next section. We were able to wild moor on the bank on the opposite side from the road which provided a lovely hunting ground for Daisy and some good walking up into the hills for Muttley and I.

Up in the middle of nowhere I found this rudimentary drinking fountain but decided not to test the waters

I slept surprisingly well, despite the knowledge that 10 of the 14 locks the following day were going to be of the vicious 5+ metre variety to the summit.