Onward to Never

September 12 & 13

On Friday we pulled away from the bank and once again headed south into the sunshine. We only had about 21 kilometers and 5 locks to do. One double lock and one aqueduct could have presented problems if it had been busy but we managed to get through without a hitch. 

Looks daunting, notice the audience all ready for a show!

At the end of our rope!

Right out of one lock and into another.

Notice the flowers on the lock doors

Up up and away.

Pont Canal du Guetin over the Allier River

This is what we went over, the Allier River.

Hard core fishermen!

At the helm

What got us today was the lunch hour break of the automatic locks coming in to the Never harbour. There are two locks, we got through one but had to wait an hour at the side of the bank for the second one. 

Once through we all docked, got organized and here we sit doing laundry.

I know I tend to dwell on laundry but seriously people the laundry mats are unbelievable. You heard some of the story about the last laundry escapade in Rogny where the taxi driver charged a small fortune and the laundry never did get dry. Let's look at our latest adventure. We arrived in the Nevers harbour shortly after 2 and Garth and I had the laundry up to the office at 2:30. We bought 4 tokens and proceeded to do a "light" load first. At approximately 4:45 the washer stopped. Two hours and fifteen minutes to do a load of wash! Seriously, I am thinking either these clothes are going to be thread bare or REALLY clean! Immediately we put them in the one, yes the one and only dryer and put our second load of wash in the one and only washer.   At 7:15 our clothes were dry but the spin cycle on the washer did not spin the clothes so Garth wrung them out by hand! Oh Vey!! We came back to the boat and when I was getting on I did something to my sore leg and spent the rest of the night in bed icing my leg! Thank goodness the Royals have ice and thank goodness they provide ice to the infirm! At 12:30 am Garth came back from the laundry mat saying he will get the clothes in the morning because they still were not dry!

So, here it is nineteen hours later and the clothes are hanging around the boat still trying to dry! And you wonder why we talk about laundry? It has been the bane of our existence on the canals.....

The rest of the crew took the day off to explore Never and arranged a dinner out. Last we saw there were 8 of them sitting waiting for a cab that they had called 45 minutes earlier. At the hour mark Doug and Judy threw in the towel and retreated to the boat and we saw Sid and Evelyn walking to town! Ahh .....you have to embrace the French for they truly take it in stride and few of them wear watches. It is what it is and it if we had wanted everything to run like clockwork then as I see it we have two choices. One is to only travel in Switzerland, the other is to stay home.

 

Today was a lazy day in Never. Tomorrow we head back to our home port of Decize.