All Tied Up

Mural in Chatillon sur Loire. Figure on right is Robert Louis Stevenson (Chatillon is on RL Stevenson Trail)

With 2 days to go we are finally tied up for the winter. Right up until this afternoon we were worrying that we might have to make an expensive last minute change to our flights and head south to a different mooring at speed – well, 6kph. Uncertainty has been something we’ve had to get used to this summer and normally our plans are so vague that we barely notice if they have to be adjusted but changing the date of our flight home is an organisational step too far. Now, we just have to get on with the cleaning, packing and winterising of the boat.

L’Avenir’s home for the next few months is the port of Chatillon sur Loire, not far from Briare. The Tourist Office window has a notice which caught my eye. A happy, bouncing kangaroo is shouting ‘G’Day!’ The town, according to the poster, considers itself ‘Australie sur Loire’ with further information to be found on their website. Chatillon apparently has some links with a town in Queensland but I’ll have to wait until I have better access to the internet to find out more. In the meantime none of the locals strolling past the boat has expressed any interest whatsoever in our Aussie flag so perhaps the enthusiasm of some ‘Aussiephiles’ has not percolated through to the many.

The past few weeks on the boat have been very pleasant. The rain stopped, the sun made a reappearance and we were back into shorts and t shirts. In good weather Autumn is a great time to be cruising and the hireboaters are still out in force. It’s considerably cheaper to hire at this time of year and this canal seems to be very popular mainly due to its lack of locks I suspect. Fewer locks means flatter countryside of course. The main feature of interest on this waterway is the River Loire itself which is sometimes right beside (or even beneath) and always within bike riding distance. Parts of the Loire were once navigated and have substantial old port towns but the only short section of the river which is now cruisable (for us anyway) is at Decizes where this canal joins the canal de Nivernais. We had visited Decizes a couple of years ago when we cruised the Nivernais so we decided that was to be the furthest point of this year’s trip before retracing our steps to Chatillon.

There were several noteworthy stops on the way but as I mentioned in the previous post the internet is so bad here that I doubt I have enough hours left (in my lifetime) to upload any photos so I’ll post more about them as soon as I’m able. Please check again!!